Ben Jacobs latest: £8.5m full back will be next Chelsea transfer market move | OneFootball

We’re into the fun part of the transfer window now – not a day goes by without some pretty significant Chelsea news.

At this stage it’s pretty mundane for the most part – a lot of shuffling players around from loan to loan or trying to sell unwanted squad players. But it’s better than more rumours about a player who won’t even end up at the club.

The latest well sourced news comes from Ben Jacobs, who has just revealed that Chelsea are in “advanced talks” with Watford about potentially loaning young full back Caleb Wiley to the Championship side. The USA defender arrived at Chelsea in the summer for £8.5m from Atlanta United.

Wiley is currently at our sister club Strasbourg, but has only played a handful of games all season thanks to injury. He’s ready to play again now however, and it is clearly felt that he’s got a better chance of picking up valuable minutes with the Hornets than if he stays put on the Strasbourg bench.

Wiley return opens many options for Chelsea squad tweaks

Caleb Wiley in action for the United States. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)

There’s another important benefit to such a move – Chelsea are only able to send 3 players on loan to one club at a time, and given they’re effectively partnered with Strasbourg, they want all those players to be starters – for the benefit of both teams.

By bringing back Wiley, they open up his slot for someone who could help Liam Roseniors’s team more – Jacobs mentions Carney Chukwuemeka, but there are numerous options who could make a big impact. Any senior player currently going unused would probably be considered for such a move.

Of course someone like Ben Chilwell or Christopher Nkunku might quite fairly think their level is above that – but in Chilwell’s case if it comes to Monday night and there’s literally nowhere else to go – why not at least get out there? God knows how the wage split would work between Chelsea and their sister club on that one, however.