Lewis Hall’s loan to Chelsea is one of those deals that those in the know will call “complicated.”
At the time, we all assumed that Hall’s loanee was guaranteed to join them permanently in the summer. But apparently not…
Eddie Howe says he “cannot confirm” whether Hall will sign permanently for Newcastle at the end of the season. There are still certain criteria to meet to trigger the obligation to buy clause in Chelsea’s loan contract.
No media or journalist had this information, we all assumed it was a done deal that Hall was now a Newcastle player and that it was just a loan with obligation for FFP purposes by Newcastle.
My guess is that with Newcastle’s departure from Europe and possible FFP charges pending, they may not decide to buy Hall and then deliberately not meet the criteria to sign him.
The whole situation was very complex and at the time there were many rumors circulating about why Hall moved to Newcastle, and there was a lot of finger pointing and blaming.
I was, and still am, disappointed that Hall left Chelsea; He is a player that I value very much and I believe that he will be one of the best players for one of the six best teams in the Premier League. And maybe that’s Chelsea now?
Obviously we have to see if the criteria and the actual details behind it all are met, but the possibility of Hall still being a Chelsea player excites me, I can’t lie.
Chelsea’s left-back situation could be much improved, with both Ian Maatsen and Marc Cucurella having doubts over their future and Ben Chilwell being very injury prone.
Chelsea are interested in a new left-back in 2024 and of course have Bayern Munich’s Alphonso Davies and Boca Juniors’ Valentin Barco on their radar as potential targets in that area. I first reported this a few weeks ago on my Substack site: Yes Phillips Talks Chelsea.
So it will be interesting to see how the Hall affair develops.
Of course, Hall always saw himself as a midfielder, but he would be wise to keep that position wide open and try to hone a role on the left side.
He’s a very good prospect and could really turn into something great. I was devastated when he left, but maybe it’s not the end at all.
