Top-5 Chelsea hijacks
The Blues are the best at transfer hijacks
Chelsea Football Club are the best at transfer hijacks. They’ve got the record to prove it.
Over the past few years, The Blues have managed to find a way to hijack almost done-deals at the last minute and have frustrated many a team by doing so.
Their latest victim was Manchester United when they managed to secure a deal for Pedro from FC Barcelona, but they certainly weren’t their first.
So here at SillySeason, we are now going to take a look into the history books and reveal other transfer hijacks they’ve done over the past few years.
Some are public knowledge that you would already know about, whereas others are slightly less known.
Lets start the list of Chelsea Hijacks!
5) Willian to Tottenham Hotspur
First on our list is Willian to Tottenham Hotspur.
Back in 2013, the Brazilian winger was all-but set to complete his transfer from Russian side Anzhi Makhachkala to White Hart Lane.
The transfer battle was initially between Spurs and Liverpool, but the London club thought they’d done enough to secure the transfer as they were willing to cough up £30million after selling Gareth Bale to Real Madrid.
The winger travelled to London and even had a medical at White Hart Lane.
However, during the final stages, Blues owner Roman Abramovich personally phoned the Anzhi owner, who is also Russian, and managed to hijack the deal late on.
Eventually Willian ditched the move to Spurs and joined Chelsea.
4) John Obi Mikel to Manchester United
This transfer saga was ridiculous.
John Obi Mikel was in a Manchester United shirt for a press conference and was even announced as a United player on their official website.
However, in a shock twist, the Nigerian revealed that he felt pressured into joining The Red Devils and actually wanted to join Chelsea instead.
After a lot of negotiations and talks, Mikel eventually left Lyn Oslo and joined Stamford Bridge after The Blues agreed to pay compensation to both his former-club and Manchester United.
The mistake United made was not allowing agents to be present. The club were expected to announce Mikel in January, but he never showed up.
Eventually Mikel admitted that he felt pressured to join United without his agent being present at the time, and he ended up refusing to move to Old Trafford.
3) Juan Mata to Arsenal
Arsenal were desperate to land Juan Mata back in 2011 and Arsene Wenger even decided he was worth breaking the club’s transfer record for.
The Gunners offered Valencia £18million, eclipsing their record by £3m, but the La Liga side rejected the offer and stated they wanted more money.
After being rejected, Wenger took time to weigh up the options and by sleeping on the deal, it allowed Chelsea to sneak in and hijack any proposed deal.
The Blues wasted no time in the negotiations and offered £23.5m for the Spaniard, who then agreed to a five-year deal at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea went on to sell the midfielder for £37.5m to Manchester United.
2) Mohamed Salah to Liverpool
Mohamed Salah is probably still regretting this decision.
Liverpool were in deep discussions with FC Basel regarding a deal for the Egyptian winger, who is named ‘The Egyptian Messi’ in his home-country.
However, The Reds took too long making a decision, similar to Arsenal in the Juan Mata chase, and it allowed Chelsea to sneak in and secure a deal.
The Blues were torn apart by Salah in the Champions League and Europa League, and those performances were enough for them to want to sign him.
Ian Ayre, Liverpool’s chief executive, commented on the missed transfer by saying ‘you win some, you lose some’, but then Salah’s agent confirmed that his client moved to Chelsea because Liverpool were too slow.
‘It was a long and fair negotiation with Liverpool, but it lasted two-and-a-half months – too long,’ Sascha Empacher said. ‘Both clubs could not agree on terms. When Chelsea contacted Basle, he was happy and took his chance. It was no financial matter.’
1) Pedro to Manchester United
The most recent hijack.
Manchester United were certain to sign Pedro from FC Barcelona after weeks of negotiating and Ed Woodward flying over to Spain in order to finalise the deal.
Pedro was wanted by Arsenal and Liverpool as well at one point over the summer, but those two teams soon dropped out of the race, leaving it between United and Chelsea.
However, The Blues went quiet for a while, leaving United in pole position to land the 28-year-old.
With talks ongoing, it looked promising for The Red Devils and a deal was all-but certain to be finalised.
This was the case until a few days ago.
Reports broke that United withdrew their interest in Pedro and that the winger was actually flying to London in order to complete a Chelsea medical.
Who knows what happened during those few days, but somehow, Chelsea hijacked once again.
So there you have it. Five Chelsea hijacks.
Written by Alex Batt – @AlexBatt