Chelsea should have signed €12m Championship midfielder claims ESPN pundit | OneFootball

Chelsea this week confirmed the signing of Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall from Leicester for £30m, a move that has been met with a pretty lukewarm reaction compared to some transfer in recent years.

It’s a solid deal, but not one that really gets fans dreaming. Pundit Gabriele Marcotti was even left wondering if one of Leicester’s other midfielder might have been a better choice for the Blues.

It’s fair to say Marcotti wasn’t super impressed by the move, going by his quotes as picked up by Caught Offside:

“I mean Maresca must like him,” the ESPN pundit said.

“It’s not an enormous amount of money to spend. Sure, why not?

“I would have thought [however], if you are going to replicate, then Harry Winks would have been the guy he signs or somebody who can do Harry Winks-type stuff. I am not comfortable with Enzo (Fernandez) in the playmaker role. I just don’t think that’s his position. And obviously, Dewsbury-Hall doesn’t do that and Caicedo doesn’t do that either. Gallagher either.

“I think this means that Gallagher is gone, but I think we kind of saw that happening.”

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall celebrates a goal for Leicester.

Chelsea’s midfield pileup

Marcotti’s thoughts largely mirror ours – sure, KDH is available pretty cheap, looks a decent player and know the new coach and his system. Under most circumstances he would seem a smart signing.

But the reality is that we’ve got a lot of very similar midfield players already, and KDH is another one in a similar mould. Someone like Winks who can run the game from the base of midfield, or even someone like Wilfried Ndidi able to play as an anchor man, would have been a more useful addition in some ways, at least from our perspective.

Of course, Winks is 28 (and valued at just €12m by Transfermarkt), so he’s likely too old for our sporting directors to even consider.