Chelsea are set to overhaul their squad in the summer transfer window after a disastrous season that saw them finish 10th in the English Premier League.
With Italy head coach Antonio Conte poised to take over as the manager of the club after Euro 2016, Chelsea will make a number of key signings in the summer according to their head scout Piet De Visser. In fact, De Visser says that the Blues’ faithful can expect their club to be as busy during the transfer market as they were in the early years of Abramovich’s reign.
“Chelsea will have a very busy summer. Abramovich is desperate not to have another terrible season,” De Visser was quoted as saying in The Sun. “I’ll be as busy as I was in 2003-2008.”
De Visser is a reputed scout and is credited with discovering Brazilian legends Romario and Ronaldo. The Dutchman has been with Chelsea since 2005 and has overseen a number of top transfers like that of Michael Essien, Michael Ballack and Didier Drogba.
However, the 81-year-old believes that Abramovich is now fed up with the club’s inability to successfully integrate academy players into the first team.
“Mr Abramovich is fed up that he has to keep paying millions and millions for big star players,” added De Visser. “He had to pay an absolute fortune to get players like Didier Drogba and Michael Essien.
“This is why he has asked me as a private scout to look out for top class young players who will be the Chelsea stars in three years time.”
Chelsea need to give young guns a chance
Roman Abramovich’s worry about Chelsea’s youth academy is a valid one, with their only academy product in the starting XI being 35-year-old club captain John Terry. A number of their young talented football players have left the club due to the lack of opportunities and are shining at rival clubs. Liverpool striker Daniel Sturridge and Manchester City playmaker Kevin De Bruyne are prime examples of that.
However, former interim manager Guus Hiddink has paved the way for Conte to utilise some of Chelsea’s current crop of young players in the first team. The likes of midfielder Ruben Loftus-Cheek, strikers Bertrand Traore and Tammy Abraham, and defender Nathan Ake (who is returning from a loan spell at Watford) have all impressed with their performances last season. Conte could take a look at these upcoming stars and give them more chances in the first team in order to build a core group of players that have graduated from the academy.
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