Jamie Gittens would add much needed speed to Chelsea

Chelsea have been linked to Jamie Gittens for a couple of windows now, but they appear to be stepping up their interest after he put together an excellent season for Borussia Dortmund. Jacob Steinberg at The Guardian is reporting that a £50m bid is likely, and the Blues want to wrap up the move quickly to register Gittens for the Club World Cup.

This makes a lot of sense in conjunction with the news that Chelsea will pay the £5m penalty to send Jadon Sancho back to Manchester United after failing to meet his wage demands, as broken by David Ornstein.

Sancho had a decent season for Chelsea, but not one worth paying £10m wages for on a long-term contract. I think they’ve made the right decision to cut their losses and not invest any more money into him, especially when the opportunity cost would be signing a faster winger.

As good of a passer as Sancho is for a winger, he’s never been a speedster, and he looked visibly slower this season. Chelsea would like to add a winger with the ability to run and dribble past people. Gittens is exactly that:

Gittens is one of the most productive dribblers anywhere in the world, and Chelsea’s scouting department will love that his numbers are consistent across Bundesliga and Champions League play.

He’s still not an elite shooter or defensive player, but he’s added quite a bit to his game in those respects. In his first two seasons getting regular senior minutes, he was just a dribbler and not much else. This season, he’s added some decent shot production and pressing work to his game.

Gittens is still very much in need of improvement as a playmaker, though. He had 3 assists in the Bundesliga and some nice assist locations, but the volume is extremely low for a player who’s beating his defender and carrying the ball into the box so often.

Theoretically a good coaching staff should be able to teach a player with his skillset how to make better decisions around the penalty area and find his teammates with cutbacks more often, but it’s possible that he just lacks vision.

Gittens overperformed his xG this season by quite a bit, and isn’t likely to score this much again unless he improves his shot volume and locations quite a bit. Watching him, this is another thing I think he has the capacity to improve; Gittens is incredible at getting his shot off quickly when he decides he’s going to shoot with his second touch or following a dribble. He doesn’t need much space to get a clear shot off.

While Gittens is currently a little bit more tools than production, I think it’s more likely than not that he’s able to improve his goal and assist output as he matures. His athletic, technical, and creative dribbling gifts are top tier, and he’s shown progression in the mental side of his game from last season to this one.

There’s a bit of a risk here for Chelsea or any other suitor at £50m, but I think it’s one worth taking.

More transfer rumours:

• We’ve got a lot of Tottenham rumours today. They’re not going to pay the £55m clause they have to sign Mathys Tel, but they still want to buy him, and they’re negotiating with Bayern Munich. A price in the £30m range seems likely.

• Spurs and Bayern are, coincidentally, the two teams who have contacted Chelsea about signing Christopher Nkunku.

• Once again, big clubs are circling Everton center back Jarrod Branthwaite, and Everton are saying it’s £70m or do one. I can’t imagine Spurs or Chelsea (or anyone) pay that much.

• Sky Germany says Arsenal reps are in Germany and actively negotiating for Benjamin Šeško. Remember last week when they were in Lisbon actively negotiating for Viktor Gyökeres. What is the truth??? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH.

• Aston Villa and Manchester United are among the clubs interested in Lille goalkeeper Lucas Chevalier, who was awesome in Champions League this year. If either can sell their current goalkeeper for a PSR-positive fee and add Chevalier, that would be an upgrade.

• The Ornacle says Bryan Mbeumo has decided he wants to join Man United, but they haven’t even rang up Brentford to bid yet. I could copy-paste my Cunha newsletter: Good player but overperformed xG by a lot and will regress, too expensive, they need to improve at striker and central midfield much more than winger.

• Gazzetta say Inter Milan want Rasmus Hojlund, and uh, I couldn’t tell you why.

• The Champions League finalists are also in for Jonathan David, which makes a lot more sense. David has a lot of suitors though, no one seems to know where he’s going to end up.

• Man City are interested in Wolves left back Rayan Ait-Nouri, which the boys discussed at length on the podcast.

—KM

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