Why Chelsea haven’t pulled trigger on two transfers: Blues make fans sweat with delay | OneFootball

If you’d told us at the start of this month that Chelsea would make it beyond the 19th without having signed one of Xavi Simons and Alejandro Garnacho, we’d have been very surprised.

Not only did both deals look very likely – they looked imminent.

But instead, both have ground to a halt short of the finish line. The Blues have now started their season with neither of the two attacking options yet secured.

Chelsea remain confident in double deal yet to come

Xavi Simons with a Chelsea News logo. (Photo by Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

Nobody is worried yet – Dom Smith’s latest article for the Evening Standard has made it clear that there’s a lot of optimism at Stamford Bridge that both deals will be done.

“Chelsea remain confident they can sign both Xavi Simons and Alejandro Garnacho, rather than one or the other,” he writes today.

Garnacho is free to leave Manchester United if the price is right, and both he and Simons have made it very clear to their respective clubs that Chelsea is the only move they want. Chelsea are said to be “intent on not overspending on Garnacho” because they know that Simons is going to be a very major outlay.

High earners and unwanted attackers clogging up Blues to-do list

As has been the case all along, the hold up in both deals is the Blues’ need to sell players before concluding any incoming transfers.

Christopher Nkunku is still up for sale, and Nicolas Jackson is clearly now someone who the Blues will sell for the right price. It feels like a dela for at least one of them will have to be confirmed before anyone comes in.

Then there are high earners Raheem Sterling and Ben Chilwell – neither is quite as directly connected to the incoming players, but clearing them from the to do list would certainly help grease the wheels.