'This week' - Fabrizio Romano confirms Chelsea's first January decision as £16m signing to travel to London
Chelsea are set to bolster their squad this week with the early return of one of their loan stars
Chelsea have reportedly decided to recall Aaron Anselmino early from his loan spell with Boca Juniors with the defender set to arrive in London later this week.
Anselmino signed for the Blues back in August from Boca, as a £16m deal was struck between the clubs. After signing a seven-year contract at Stamford Bridge, he immediately re-joined the Argentinian club on a 12-month loan deal but that is now set to be cut short with the 19-year-old to begin training at Cobham from next week. The decision comes amid a number of injuries in the defensive department for Chelsea, with Wesley Fofana and Benoit Badiashile currently sidelined.
Anselmino has also had injury problems recently after he missed the last five league games of Boca’s season with a hamstring complaint. BBC Sport has reported that Chelsea have made the decision to recall Anselmino while transfer reporter Fabrizio Romano, who wrote on X: “Aaron Anselmino returns to Chelsea as he will join Enzo Maresca’s squad with immediate effect.”
Chelsea’s defensive injury problems
Fofana picked up a hamstring injury against Aston Villa at the start of December is facing some time out. Addressing the issue two weeks ago, Maresca said: “Unfortunately it is bad news. It is a hamstring problem and these kind of things usually require at least three, four or five weeks, but in this moment that means we lose him for 10 or 12 games. The way he was playing, it’s a big loss for us, but we have more players and we will try to find a solution. It’s a big loss because he’s doing fantastic, but it’s normal when you play this amount of games unfortunately. Fortunately, it’s his first injury this season, and we are going to find a solution.”
Badiashile was injured ahead of the 2-1 win over Brentford earlier this month and appears to be another longer term problem. Speaking earlier this month, Maresca did not provide a detailed update on the defender but did admit he’d be out for a “long period.”
Chelsea planning for departures in January
The January transfer window is more likely to be one of outgoings for Chelsea with Maresca already saying a handful of players are likely to leave. Ben Chilwell and Carney Chukwuemeka have been left out of Maresca’s plans and will soon get a chance to move elsewhere. Addressing the duo’s future, Maresca said: “There are players who unfortunately didn’t play a lot with us in all the competitions, like [Ben] Chilwell, like Carney [Chukwuemeka], and probably they are the first who want to leave because they work every day, they train every day, because they want to play games.”
Earlier this week it was reported that Chilwell and Chukwuemeka were two of five players Chelsea would listen to offers for in January alongside Cesare Casadei, Harvey Vale and Alex Matos. Casadei was convinced to stay by Maresca after being offered a loan exit in the summer, but he has struggled for game time beyond the Conference League. A loan deal is inevitable this winter, and it looks as though the majority of interest is coming from Italy. AC Milan and Lazio have been linked most recently.