Dean Jones at Give Me Sport has mentioned a new and rather convincing rumour connecting Chelsea with a player at a club that our new manager Enzo Maresca used to work at.
Stefan Ortega “appears to be a summer transfer target” for Chelsea, Jones reported.
The 31 year old journeyman suddenly was thrown in at the sharp end of the season for Man City and looked great this year. But after all that, the feeling is he may not want to go back to the bench now he’s proven he’s good enough to start in the Premier League.
He’s not glamorous, he’s not Brazilian or under 25, but if we are actually thinking about getting results and signing players that the new manager will want, he’s got to be high up the list.
An interesting idea – with plenty of risk
If Chelsea really are determined to dive in to Maresca’s approach whole-heartedly, it will indeed be necessary to sign a new goalkeeper. The two we’ve got barely cut it even before you start worrying about giving them significantly more passing to do.
In a way, we quite like the prospect of Ortega as a stop gap. He would be relatively cheap given his age and contract situation, and he’s already “Pep-proven” after working with the legendary coach.
Ederson missed some decent chunks of this season (he made 20 appearances in total), and Ortega always looked impressive when he stepped up. But as is always the risk when buying a player from a well-oiled machine like City, there’s the worry he might suddenly not look so assured and confident when taken out of that environment.
We wonder if Maresca has any interesting suggestions of his own about who he might want to bring in? Someone truly off the radar? We will be monitoring the rumours of the next months to see.
