Fabrizio Romano’s role as transfer guru in chief is all well and good until a player makes a move to a top club and then immediately does really well. It’s then tricky for the insider to get much juice out of them, and clearly they won’t be moving anywhere anytime soon.
Cole Palmer is a great example, but Romano has found his angle on this one already – addressing rumours that the attacking midfielder could be in line for a new contract.
Clearly that’s not the case. Chelsea’s attempts to lower their overall wage bill aren’t going to be very successful if they start giving players a raise the moment they do well for 6 months. Romano dismissed the idea pretty quickly in his column for Caughtoffside:
“[Palmer] only signed his current contract eight months ago, so it’s early to discuss these kinds of things. I’m sure Chelsea will always make their best efforts to keep Palmer happy at the club, but there’s no issue at all. He’s been a fantastic signing – he was a top secret target for weeks and they did an excellent job to prise this top talent away from Manchester City.”
What we’ve really got to worry about is if Palmer keeps playing this well, and if Chelsea keep going backwards. It will only take a year or so of that before we see Romano connecting the youngster with transfers away from Stamford Bridge.