da spicy bet： Chelsea’s fight to balance the books is considerable given their usual expenditure on new players, with the West London club adopting an extensive scouting system to bring in young stars, loan them out and sell them on at a profit.
da betsul： Roman Abramovich may well have deep pockets when it comes to funding the Stamford Bridge club’s success, but selling on a star player for a sizeable fee will come as a welcome tonic on the profit and loss accounts.
Although the Russian oil tycoon has overseen some tremendous business during his tenure in charge of the current Premier League champions as world-class players arrive, one of the best deals of his time with Chelsea was the sale of a big-name player.
Last summer, Paris Saint-Germain paid a whopping £50 million for David Luiz, making him the most expensive defender in history and rewarding Chelsea with a handsome profit on a player that was never guaranteed a first-team spot at the Bridge.
Whether it is Luiz’s aura, ability on the ball or the fact that he scores the occasional wonder-goal, the Brazil international has something of an allure about him.
However, these favourable qualities mask the fact that this centre-half is not good at the thing that he is in a team to predominantly do; defend.
This fact was thoroughly proven in the recent South American World Cup qualifiers, with Brazil taking on age-old rivals Argentina in Buenos Aires in a crunch clash for both teams.
The hosts lacked their usual offensive malice without Lionel Messi and Sergio Aguero, but opened the scoring through Ezequiel Lavezzi.
For the goal, Luiz was caught hopelessly out of position, with Gonzalo Higuain able to utilise the space in behind the PSG man.
From there the Argentine forward centred the ball to the near post, where the Brazil centre-half should have been, but instead Lavezzi made the most of Luiz’s naïve positioning to score.
Late in the game and with Brazil level but under the cosh, the former Chelsea man was dismissed for two moments of madness, which reduced his side to ten and added pressure to the visitors.
Just how someone of like Luiz is a first-team regular in the Brazilian national team, but club team-mate Thiago Silva remains on the national fringes, is quite the mystery.
Even this season where Chelsea are struggling at the back, few of the Stamford Bridge faithful would request Luiz back in their side given the choice.
John Terry and Branislav Ivanovic are starting to feel their age, while the failure to land John Stones in the summer is clearly hurting the outgoing Premier League champions.
That said, with Luiz’s lack of discipline and positional naivety still real issues in his game, the fact that PSG paid so much money for him remains baffling.
With Southampton paying around £13 million for Virgil van Dijk, Tottenham shelling out £11.5m for Toby Alderweireld and Everton snapping up Ramiro Funes Mori for £9.5m, the French capital city side’s splurging on Luiz looks even more foolish.
Chelsea utilised Luiz in midfield on occasion with relatively positive results; as such it would be wise for PSG and Brazil to potentially replicate this ploy if they are to persist with having this unique figure in their respective teams.
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