Last week, Chelsea were linked with Douglas Luiz, currently on loan from Juventus at Nottingham Forest, but it looks like the 27-year-old midfielder will be heading back to Aston Villa instead (also on loan, with an option to make it permanent). And that’s perfectly fine.
Since leaving Villa a couple years ago, Luiz has struggled for both form and fitness (not unrelated, those two) and though he could be a useful player when fit, we certainly don’t need another oft-injured midfielder. We’ve got plenty of those already!
It is perhaps due to such concerns, at least in part, that we’ve apparently “declined to pursue” his signature after an “initial enquiry”, as per The Athletic, who add that we’re instead “prioritising Andrey Santos among others” at the position. And that’s more than perfectly fine! Andrey’s been doing well all season, and has stepped up a gear since Liam Rosenior’s appointment. (They had worked together at Strasbourg, so this is a great situation for the young midfielder now.)
That said, Chelsea could probably still use another pair of legs at the position, depending on the injury situations of Roméo Lavia and Dário Essugo. The latter is set to be out for another month at least, and though the former has returned to training, he’s not been able to stay healthy for more than a minute ever since joining Chelsea. There was some talk of maybe trying for N’Golo Kanté on loan, and that would be amazing, I think we can all agree.