Mikel: Chelsea Spending Too Much on Unnecessary Players, Yet Have to Sell Academy Graduates to Balance the Books

Former Manchester City star Mikel criticized Chelsea’s poor transfer policy during a talkSPORT show, accusing the Blues of spending too much money on players they don’t need and having to sell their own academy graduates to balance the books.

Recently, Chelsea’s moves to clean out Tomori and Gallagher have caused dissatisfaction among many Chelsea fans. Among them, Gallagher has already flown to Madrid to prepare for signing with Atlético Madrid, but was recalled due to the failure of other deals. However, Chelsea did not allow these two academy-trained players to train with the first team, which sparked discontent in public opinion.

Mikel also pointed out: “These are two young men who bleed blue. They have been playing for Chelsea since they were kids, and now we have to sell them to achieve financial equilibrium. The reason is that the owner spent too much money buying those high-priced players, it’s as simple as that, spending too much money on players we don’t need.”

Mikel pointed out: “For me, apart from Palmer, the best player last season was Gallagher; he was the only one you could see giving his all, fighting, running, and working hard for the club, you know what I mean. In my view, I think he should stay. When I saw Tomori returning from injury, I thought he should stay too; he was our best central defender, after he came back, we lost very few games, he performed fantastically after recovering! But now, we must sell such two players to balance the books, both have given so much to Chelsea, yet now you have to sell them…”

Mikel pointed out that the person responsible is Chelsea’s owner: “I think this is a bad deal by the owners, absolutely.”

Mikel, who played for Chelsea for 11 seasons from 2006 to 2017, winning 11 trophies including 2 Premier League titles, 4 FA Cups, and the Champions League in 2012, noted when looking ahead to this season that Enzo needs to shine this season to prove his worth: “He needs to shine, we’ve talked about him, made excuses for him, he won the World Cup, he performed brilliantly in Argentina. But I think he must shine at Chelsea this season, you can’t always make excuses for him.”