“Buying Joao Felix makes no sense”published at 13:50 British Summer Time
BBC Sounds
The i’s chief football editor Daniel Storey has spoken about Chelsea’s expected attempt to sign striker Joao Felix from Atletico Madrid.
Storey says there is no point in including Joao Felix in the squad as Chelsea already have players such as Christopher Nkunku, Nicolas Jackson and youngster Marc Guiu.
“I can understand a club buying a lot of money, spending a lot and buying a lot of players aged 18 to 21,” Storey told the Monday Night Club. “Brighton have done that over the last two or three years because they are working towards a model where you develop these players and then you sell them at a high price.”
“For example, if you sign Joao Felix for six years, you can’t sell him for a high price. Joao Felix has already made the big steps, he was already at Chelsea, so you won’t get a surprise. They could get someone who develops over time, but they already signed Marc Guiu, an 18-year-old striker, so that fits into that model.
“If you consider, okay, we’re going to have Nicolas Jackson as our first choice striker, Nkunku will play there if Jackson isn’t fit and we’ll develop Guiu over the course of this season in Europe and the league with a few minutes of playing time and hopefully in two years we’ll have a player who’s worth a lot more than we bought him for. They only bought him for £5 million. That makes sense to me.
“It makes no sense to bring Joao Felix into this squad because it costs other players minutes, frustrates those players even more and makes them believe even more that they will be less involved, which is very difficult to cope with from a mental point of view.
“If I were someone like Marc Guiu, coming to a new club and thinking: ‘Okay, I’m in the Premier League now, I want to make an impression, I came on as a substitute on the first day against Manchester City, brilliant.’ The next day I see that my club has bought Joao Felix, what do I think of my move after two months?”
You can listen to the latest episode of The Monday Night Club in full here.