Chelsea
Notable transfers in: Alvaro Morata (from Real Madrid) £58m, Tiemoue Bakayoko £35m (from AS Monaco) and Antonio Rudiger (from AS Roma) £32m
Notable transfers out: Nemanja Matic (to Manchester United) £40m, John Terry (retired) £0m
Current champions Chelsea return to season 2017/18 in an unconvincing fashion. We are still not concinved Chelsea are actually better off than last season in terms of transfer market acquisitions. Antonio Conte has visibly fallen out with his main striker and missed out on Lukaku during a 2 week long saga. Currently, also failing on a number of transfer targets like Alex Sandro from Juventus and seemingly interested in Antonio Candreva from Inter. Not the kind of action you’d expect from a usually large spending club.
On the pitch though, Conte has proven everybody wrong several times in league format. He has won 5 straight leagues (4 with Juventus and 1 with Chelsea), with the latest being an absolute cracker from start to finish but also unexpectedly after Mourinho’s last year disaster when Chelsea placed 7.
Do not expect Chelsea to have all fire power going into the season. Diego Costa will surely be leaving Stamford Bridge and possibly we could see a big name signing by the end of August.
It’s time for the reigning champs to get back in the groove.
MrBigWin’s predictions
- Chelsea to place 3rd or worse
- Alvaro Morata to score 15+ goals
- Antonio Conte to leave at the end of Season 2017/18
- Chelsea eliminated before Quarter final of Champions League (Conte is not a CL man)
- No trophies this year
