It’s set to be a rather quiet January around Stamford Bridge, at least in the transfer market, though that hasn’t stopped the rumor mill from floating a few juicy nuggets as if they were on Hot Ones.
Among those names has been one Benoît Badiashile, a steady presence in our second-choice midweek lineups, with the occasional step up to the A Team like last weekend, but generally not seen as a crucial piece at the moment. And that’s perhaps disappointing a bit given how promising he had looked at first.
Still, according to Foot Mercato, the 23-year-old remains strong in his resolve to make his time at Chelsea a success — despite French media reporting interest from Marseille earlier this week — which matches reports from earlier this month that Chelsea weren’t giving up either. In fact, Big Bada Shile himself made it pretty clear a few weeks ago (prior to the FC Noah game) that he’s not looking to leave, but words don’t matter in the rumor mill, only speculation.
“Yes of course I want to stay. Chelsea are a big club. I know it’s difficult to succeed here, but I will try to do my best to do it.”
-Benoît Badiashile, source: Yahoo! Sports
Levi Colwill and Wesley Fofana seem entrenched as the first-choice center back pairing right now, but Badiashile has put in a few decent shifts of late and did get the nod last weekend when we had to scramble a bit due to injuries.
The time to reevaluate things will be in the summer, not just for Benoît but for everyone else in the squad as well.