Why are Chelsea going back for Joao Felix despite his 2023 flop? How might Carlos Soler help West Ham return to European football? And which three players are hurting Barcelona the most in the wage department?
Here are the latest takes around the world football transfer rumor mill.
Making sense of Joao Felix to Chelsea
Leave it to Chelsea to make the most shocking transfer of the summer window, because for a fee of 45 million pounds, the Blues have agreed to bring Joao Felix back to Stamford Bridge…on a permanent basis.
It’s not like Felix set the Bridge on fire when he arrived in the second half of the 2022/23 season, nor is it as if he was such a rousing success at the Camp Nou either.
Felix is who he is at this stage. A very talented, very limited playmaker who plays more for himself than the team and lacks the kind of goal threat most nine-figure transfers are supposed to carry.
As we saw last season at Barcelona, Felix isn’t really able to play positions away from the attacking midfield or right wing, because he’s a delicate, linking player who needs to be around others and close to the goal in positions where his left foot is shooting at the net.
Chelsea already invested in Willian Estevao as their right winger of the future, and Cole Palmer can play that position at a much higher level than Joao Felix can, based on what we saw last season when Palmer was a Premier League Player of the Season candidate.
Felix as a punt on loan made sense for both Chelsea and Barcelona, but, this whole time, nobody thought any team would be crazy enough to acquire Felix for the 50 million euro price tag Atletico Madrid wanted, especially since it was so painfully obvious that Felix had no future at Atleti.
And he had no future with Los Rojiblancos precisely because he was so unwilling to listen to Diego Simeone, so lethargic defensively, and so thoroughly underwhelming statistically with no seasons of 10 goals or 5 assists for Atleti.
I can sit here all day and bash how bizarre of a signing this is for Chelsea, who have become specialists in this kind of move, but it would be more productive to attempt to make sense of the transfer.
Look, Felix is a very talented footballer. To pretend otherwise would be disingenuous. He has a languid, graceful way of dribbling, elegant flicks in tight spaces, and flashes of the potential to be a double-digit goal-scorer and assist provider.
Felix just needs the right environment to put things together. A half-season loan on a dysfunctional Chelsea side was never going to work, nor was a full season out of position at an underwhelming Barcelona going to coax the Benfica prospect out of Felix.
Meanwhile his years at Atleti were effectively wasted at a club that never should have signed him in the first place due to a philosophy that differed completely from the kind of player Felix is.
So, in effect, you can argue that Chelsea are paying around one third of the original price tag for Felix while he is still young at 24, and they are giving him a clean slate and a more attacking project to work with.
Joao Felix to Chelsea is a pretty crazy transfer at first glance, but when you boil it down to its most simplest terms, it’s actually not the most egregious risk Chelsea have taken this summer – and it isn’t even as big of a risk as the 40 million pound transfer of Georginio Rutter to Brighton.
It’s just that Chelsea, by virtue of their most recent business under new owner Todd Boehly, are never going to get the same grace or inclination towards praise as Brighton because of the magnitude of transfers gambles they have made that have yet (keyword there) to pay off.
Why West Ham want to sign Carlos Soler
West Ham have already made seven of the biggest signings in the Premier League this summer in Wolves center back Max Kilman, Leeds young forward Crysencio Summerville, star center back Jean-Clair Todibo on loan from Nice, Dortmund striker Niclas Fullkrug, LaLiga free agent Guido Rodriguez, ex-Manchester United man Aaron Wan-Bissaka, and Brazilian prospect Luis Guilherme.
That’s a pretty comprehensive list of upgrades for West Ham to give to new manager Julen Lopetegui, but the Hammers may have one more in the bag – and he could be their most reliable new attacking contributor with plenty of LaLiga experience that Lopetegui will be familiar with.
According to Fabrizio Romano, West Ham have made initial contacts to sign Carlos Soler from PSG not even two full seasons after the former Valencia star made his rather ill-fated move to PSG.
Soler is a very good footballer whose stock plummeted as a result of joining PSG, who didn’t really need Soler as part of their project with Champions League ambitions back when they had Kylian Mbappe.
Now, PSG are going younger, and the 27-year-old Soler is better off moving to a club that would value him more as an every-game starter and attacking upgrade, benefiting from his consistency, end product, and versatility.
Yes, West Ham do make sense for Soler, so long as the price is reasonable. Soler had two seasons with 11 goals and at least 5 assists back-to-back for Valencia before joining PSG.
This is a player capable of playing a starring role on either wing or as a 10, and he can put up two key passes and two fouls drawn per game on a synergistic attacking side like West Ham.
The Hammers already had one of the best attacking trios in the Premier League in Mohammed Kudus, Jarrod Bowen, and Lucas Paqueta, but they could now add a legitimately starting-caliber trident on summer transfers alone in Fullkrug, Summerville, and Soler.
Best yet, all six of these players would have very different skill-sets. Soler is a leader in the attack who likes to have the ball but is willing to spread it around and create, overlapping across the flanks or interiorly to find space.
West Ham value versatile, well-rounded attacking players who perform in a team system, and Soler did that quite well on Valencia, forming a great attacking partnership with Goncalo Guedes and even a young Ferran Torres before that.
Barcelona’s 4 worst wage offenders
Barcelona’s economic situation is an ongoing topic of discussions and may remain unresolved for several more years at this rate of mismanagement, which has only dissipated in the sense that it is not nearly as egregious under Joan Laporta as it was under Josep Maria Bartomeu.
Because all you have to do is take a look at Barca’s wage structure to see that the club has overspent on the transfer fees and wages of players who are either of no use to the team now or will be of no use to them in three to five years.
Frenkie de Jong’s bloated 37.5 million euro salary has become a big topic of discussion and the launching pad for various transfer rumors, but at least he was one of LaLiga’s best players in the 2022/23 season and has several years of long-term use for Barcelona at the age of 26.
Is he worth nearly 40 million euros, though? Obviously not, considering he is highest-paid player in LaLiga, even above Real Madrid’s legitimate superstar Ballon d’Or, revenue-generating trio of Jude Bellingham, Kylian Mbappe, and Vinicius Junior.
Behind him, Barcelona are paying Robert Lewandowski close to 30 million, and although he is the team’s top scorer and arguably the best pure striker in LaLliga, he is 34 and declining. And even if he is a great player still, he isn’t a 30 million euro player.
And then behind him, Barca’s third-highest-paid player is Ilkay Gundogan, age 33, who makes nearly 20 million euros and is already the subject of fierce transfer rumors, just one year after joining Barcelona as an expensive free agent – with Barca being rewarded by finishing worse in LaLiga with him.
Lewandowski and Gundogan are prime examples of Barcelona spending big money on aging players who sound great on paper but materially don’t help Barcelona build a project for the next decade. If anything, the wages – and minutes – they command hamstring Barca from signing and developing young talent in those positions.
Finally, the fourth terrible contract is that of Ferran Torres. He makes around 10 million euros to sit on the bench and is, like Lewandowski and Gundogan, the subject of transfer speculation because of his lack of a role.
Torres has never been important to Barcelona since they acquired him from Manchester City. Even at the age of 23, Torres seems useless to Barcelona because he hasn’t even started half the games in the LaLiga season since arriving in 2021.
That 10 million euro fee is a lot for a backup player who isn’t significantly better than the next intriguing La Masia product, and, again, Torres raises questions of Barca’s transfer strategy and integration.
He is the least egregious case but the least helpful of these four, having never played a key role for Barcelona since the club invested in him – once again, probably only signing him because he was, at the time, another shiny new toy to distract a quietly disconcerted loyal fanbase.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.