Monday 28 August
A deal has been agreed with Arsenal for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. The fee is in the region of £35m but the deal is not finished and Liverpool are still hovering.
Jeremie Boga meanwhile signed an improved three-year deal and joined Birmingham City for a season of guaranteed misery and toil… er, or do we mean first-team appearances.
The rarely sighted Kenneth Omeruo signed a new four-year deal and immediately headed back to Turkey for another season at Kasimpasa. He was with the Istanbul side last term and spent a season with Alanyaspor the year before.
Tuesday 29 August
We have bagged a player in Kylian Hazard from Ujpest in Hungary. And, yes, he is Eden’s brother. 22-year-old Kylian goes straight into the development squad for U23 matches.
It seems the bit-part, squad-player at Arsenal, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain turned down a move to Chelsea because he doesn’t want to be used as a wing-back. Preferring instead to warm the bench at Anfield in the hope of getting a central midfield role.
The snub is the latest in a summer of atrociously amateurish attempts to sign professional footballers to bolster the squad. There is a real danger that Danny Drinkwater is going to be our only signing.
Wednesday 30 August
Danny Drinkwater handed in a transfer request at Leicester as the former-champions stalled on Chelsea bids below the £40m expected price.
Some good news, two of the women’s matches, Bristol City in September and Reading in November, will be screened live on the BBC. So you won’t even have to raise your lardy, fat-arse off the sofa to see the games. (Chelsea Independent disclaimer: legally “lardy, fat-arse”, is a descriptive term based on the middle-aged spread profile of the majority of Chelsea Independent readers, no offence is implied. Younger, thinner readers are reminded to check their Snapchat.)
Thursday 31 August
A very confusing and humiliating deadline day as first Spurs hijacked the Fernando Llorente deal, stealing a player from under our nose, then we agreed a fee and personal terms with Everton for Ross Barkley only for him to pull out at the last minute. Rumours that he actually had a medical appear to be untrue.
With Liverpool parading Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in a bright red shirt and Spurs also signing a right-back we had been linked with in Serge Aurier the day felt hollow despite the signing of Italy international right-back Davide Zappacosta, from Torino for a fee of around £23m, and the late capture of Danny Drinkwater for £35m from Leicester City.
Torino right-backs and Leicester midfielders are hardly the stuff of dreams but both should be very effective squad players. Drinkwater had a very productive relationship with N’Golo Kante for the Foxes and is a better player than many give him credit.
What was really weird was the failures; Oxlade-Chamberlain would rather sit on Liverpool’s bench than ours, Llorente went to Spurs for £12 measly million, couldn’t we find that much down the back of the sofa? And Ross Barkley was taking the piss, we understand he said he felt pressured to leave by Everton and prefers to wait until he is fit again in January and move to his preferred destination… you guessed it… Tottenham Hotspur.
The charitable explanation would be that we are trying to stick to the financial fair play rules, not long after Paris St Germain blew them out of the water by spending over £350m in one window on two players.
Better news came in the evening as Eden hazard played 77-minutes, scored and provided an assist in Belgium’s 9-0 against Gibraltar. It will be good to have the wee man back.
Rounding up the loans: Jordan Houghton has returned to Doncaster Rovers for at least the first half of the season; Charlie Wakefield celebrated his new Chelsea contract with a loan at Stevenage; Nathan will hop over the channel to Amiens; Fikayo Tomori became our latest Tiger joining Hull City.
Permanent deals take, Kyle Jameson to West Brom, Christian Cuevas to FC Twente, while Malakai Hinckson-Mars (not a cataclysmic asteroid on a collision course with earth but an academy striker) rejoined Barnet.
Somewhere in there George McEachran signed a new deal.
Friday 1 September
Loic Remy signed for Las Palmas as the Spanish window closed a day after ours. Loic’s biggest contribution came during our 2014/15 title-winning season but his time with us was interrupted by injury and loans – still 12 goals in 47 appearances is a reasonable return especially as few of those were starts.
Most noticeably Diego Costa did not sign for Atletico Madrid in this transfer window.
Watching England is always a pain but 0-1 in Malta with a minute to go somehow turned into an ill-deserved 0-4. Playing two defensive midfielders away to Malta suggests Gareth has very little understanding of what we want and need out of a national team. There was little to suggest the players know either as chances to break were squandered as often as pointless shots from thirty yards pinged into the crowd. Gary Cahill had to watch from the back but old-boy Chalobah didn’t make it off the bench after a minor niggle.
Elsewhere there were wins for Nigeria, Moses scored one of four, Germany where Rüdiger picked up another cap against the Czech Republic and Denmark.
Finally, the women drew a nice easy starter against Bayern Munich in the Champions League. The matches will be in the first week of October with the Kingsmeadow leg first.
Saturday 2 September
Alvaro Morata scored Spain’s third as they battered Italy 3-0. Our new striker continued his fine start to the season by running through half the Italy side and half the length of the pitch before accepting a tap in from the one-two.
Sunday 3 September
Chelsea 2:1 Everton
Possession, territorial edge and ultimately victory for the women as they hone their fitness ahead of the new season. Goals from Millie Bright and Gilly Flaherty sealed the win.
The lasses next head to Portugal for their final official warm-up game against Sporting.
Eden Hazard came on for the last twenty minutes against Greece as Belgium booked their ticket to Russia next summer with a 2-1 win.
Meanwhile, France handed Luxembourg their greatest result as they drew nil each in Paris. The plucky Lux missed a gilt-edge chance as well when the ball rocketed back off a post and the rebound went high and wide. N’Golo Kante watched the frustration from his usual berth in midfield.
