As you may be aware, Chelsea will be without striker Armando Broja for at least the rest of this season after he suffered an ACL injury in a friendly against Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon.
First of all, we are heartbroken for him and wish him a speedy recovery. He is a fighter and I am sure he will get back in shape and shoot again as soon as he can.
All the attention has rightfully focused on Broja’s horrific injury this week, and the fact that Chelsea will now look to replace him in January.
Photo by Rob Newell – CameraSport via Getty Images
We absolutely must do this, now that we are short of strikers on the ground. But equally, it’s just as important, if not more important, to continue our plans to revamp the midfield and bring in a midfielder for January who can comfortably operate as a six.
The midfield renewal has to happen. It seems likely that we will lose both Jorginho and N’Golo Kante as free agents in the summer from now, and we should be rebuilding our midfield, and I still believe we will.
Mateo Kovacic and Ruben Loftus-Cheek have contracts for 2024 and, therefore, uncertain futures. Graham Potter seems to love Conor Gallagher, but I think he won’t be content to be a supporting player at the end of the season and could ask to leave. And Mason Mount has yet to sign a new deal (he is expected to).
So when you take all of that into account, it’s clear that we need to add at least two new central midfielders in the next two windows, and maybe even three.
Midfield is the engine room of any team and it is very important to get it right in that area, and it is very important that Chelsea keep the focus on that and look for a new striker to replace Broja.
Chelsea now have smart experts on the recruiting team, so I’m confident we’ll address what we need to address in what looks set to be quite a hectic January for us.
