Romano explains strange reason Chelsea rejected all loan offers for squad player

Carney Chukwuemeka has become something of a talking point again in the last week after making a brief cameo off the bench against Barrow in the Carabao Cup.

This meant more questions about him in press conferences, and Enzo Maresca was forced to repeat the company line – they didn’t have room for Carney in the squad this summer, so they wanted him to leave on loan. They couldn’t find a loan, so he’s ended up staying. That’s despite knowing he was going to play very few little.

So why was a loan not found? According to Fabrizio Romano’s update today, it’s because Chelsea were determined only to send him somewhere he would play regularly.

“This was the idea – to leave on loan, but only with a good opportunity. To a club maybe giving him the chance to play 38 games, not to a club where he wasn’t going to be a regular starter. This is why Chelsea rejected many approaches.”

He notes that AC Milan were among the interested teams – but the Italians clearly couldn’t guarantee enough game time for the former Aston Villa player.

Backwards decision making doesn’t add up

This all seems a little backwards to us. Yes the priority should of course have been to find Chukwuemeka a club where he can play every week. But surely once the window was into the final 48 hours, it was time to accept that plan A isn’t working, and that plan B was necessary.

Him going to be a rotation option somewhere would still have been hugely preferable to him sitting on our bench all season. It just gives the impression that the sporting directors gambled and lost, rather than took sensible long term decisions. It can all be fixed in January – but it’s another 6 months wasted for a player who has wasted too much time already.