Premier League chief opens up on 'really unusual' Chelsea transfer move
Chelsea made a strange move by recalling one of their players on deadline day.
Sundeland chief Kristjaan Speakman has been speaking about the strange turn of events that saw Marc Guiu return to Chelsea on deadline day. Guiu joined the Black Cats in the summer on a season-long loan, with the striker looking as though he would struggle for game time at Stamford Bridge.
Guiu likely could have featured regularly at the Stadium of Light, and he did feature in two of their first three games. But with Chelsea deciding to loan out Nicolas Jackson to Bayern Munich, they then proposed a return for Guiu in a strange turnaround less than a month after agreeing the initial loan deal.
Speaking to the Sunderland Echo about the situation, Speakman said “It was a really unusual situation. Not one that I can think that I’ve come across personally in the transfer windows over recent years. We have to be really respectful to the parent club of the player that we take on loan because we want to make sure we’ve got healthy relationships.
“And also most importantly, to the player. Chelsea came to us with a suggestion, Marc as a player would want to go and play for his parent club and have the opportunity that he’s been working for, which is what ultimately he was coming here to try and earn in the future. That meant there was a position where it was on us to make a decision over what we wanted to do.
“We weren’t going to make a decision that put us in a detrimental position, but Brian (Brobbey) is a player who we’ve been tracking all summer. There’s one or two other players that we’ve been tracking too, and always in the transfer window, it’s about timing. For us, the timing of being able to take Brian and the timing of our position with Chelsea and with Marc meant that we could agree to it. We’re really disappointed on one hand because we really liked Marc. But at the same time, we also really like Brian and we’re really pleased that Brian’s here because we think he’s a player for now and a player for the future."
Guiu is likely to be Chelsea’s number three striker behind Joao Pedro and Liam Delap, but the latter is likely to be out for around 6-8 weeks with a hamstring issue.
Sunderland sign ex-Chelsea man
Sunderland went on to sign former Chelsea striker Bertrand Traore on a bargain £2.5million deal. “Bertrand’s availability came fairly late in the window," Speakman added. “In our planning, we had some key positions to make sure we got sorted out first. Once we were comfortable we had those positions in place, with Lutsha [Geertrudia] for example, then that [winger] was going to be our next move.
“Luckily, we were able to do that within the timeframe. It was really tight with it being the end of the window – there was literally minutes to spare, really. But we feel he’s a really important part of the group moving forward. Letting Patrick go – a wide right, left footer – we felt we needed to replace that type of profile. He’s got experience at the top level, so we felt it was a good one for us to move on considering the quality of the player and the type of deal it was.”
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