Amid a centre-back crisis at Stamford Bridge – that crisis being Chelsea only have one good centre-back – the club has decided to recall Trevoh Chalobah from his productive loan spell at Crystal Palace to ‘be an important player’ on the bench for the rest of the season, presumably in an Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder ploy to ensure a swap with Marc Guehi in the summer.
Anyway, it got us thinking whether there are other loanees Premier League clubs would benefit from recalling, and we’ve come up with 10, the majority of whom we fully expect fans of their clubs to wholeheartedly disagree with.
Fabio Vieira (Arsenal from Porto)
Talking of slapped wrists, after Arsenal detectives had everyone convinced Vieira was being recalled on the basis of him not being picked for Porto’s game against Boavista at the end of December, with a private jet flying from Porto to London providing the irrefutable evidence, manager Vitor Bruno revealed Rashford-Garnacho-esque reasons for the snub.
“Fabio is very talented but talent has to be based on a series of pre-conditions. And when one or two of them end up falling apart, it makes everything more difficult.”
Something akin to not working hard enough may explain a) why he’s barely played for Arsenal, b) why he was allowed to leave on loan despite a dearth of creative options in midfield, and c) why Mikel Arteta probably doesn’t want him back.
But it would be nice to see someone other than Martin Odegaard providing technical quality in midfield for Arsenal not recruited with the Being Big mantra in mind. There have been at least a dozen games this season when Arsenal have struggled to break down opponents when the best version of Vieira (admittedly all too rarely seen at the Emirates) would have been of great use.
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Yan Couto (Manchester City from Borussia Dortmund)
Kyle Walker will be hoping the recruiters at the ‘elite European club’ he hopes to join this month haven’t been watching his displays over the last three months, but there will almost certainly be a couple of suitors thinking that this season’s malaise is a blip from which he will recover rather than what we assume it to be: a right-back whose one outstanding quality has diminished with age to the point where the other limited facets to his game are found wanting.
City have Rico Lewis as his replacement but could do with a back-up, and while no-one – Couto included – at any point thought their loaned-out right-back would be anything other than a means for PSR leeway, needs must and if he’s good enough to be starting games for Dortmund in the Bundesliga and Champions League then he will probably fine to play against Leyton Orient in the fourth round of the FA Cup.
Manor Solomon (Tottenham from Leeds)
There have been suggestions that rather than paying the last of three £10m instalments for Archie Gray, Spurs could instead allow Leeds to make Solomon’s loan move to Elland Road permanent. That feels more likely than the Israeli’s return to Tottenham even at the end of the season, let alone in January, but having watched captain Son Hueng-min struggle and back-up Timo Werner go beyond struggling, Solomon may well feel he could have added significant value to Ange Postecoglou’s side so far this season, and still could with the misfiring forwards showing no real sign of turning things around.
Hamed Traore (Bournemouth from Auxerre)
Very difficult to watch Antoine Semenyo’s display on the left wing and Justin Kluivert’s at No.10 against Chelsea and think what Andoni Iraola could do with in Bournemouth’s bid for European football is a guy who plays either on the left wing or as a No.10, but Traore’s performances for Auxerre this season provide ample evidence of his worth, at worst as the best back-up for that pair on the Cherries’ books. He’s got seven goals and one assist this season and has been the 18th-best player in the whole of Ligue 1 according to the WhoScored ratings.
Jadon Sancho (Manchester United from Chelsea)
The obligation to buy for between £20m and £25m at best makes a recall tricky and likely impossible, but considering everything that’s changed at Manchester United since Sancho’s departure, and indeed his performances for Chelsea in that time, we do wonder whether the Old Trafford Brains Bureau are cursing their decision to insert that clause.
We’re not going to claim with hindsight that it felt at the time as though Chelsea were pulling United’s pants down in some extraordinary transfer coup, and it’s not as though Sancho – though looking far more confident and effective than he ever did in a red shirt – has been so revelatory at Stamford Bridge that Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his cronies need wet wipes on hand after every Chelsea display to remove the egg from their faces. But Ruben Amorim would surely love to have him to call upon right now.
Sancho’s infamous beef was with Erik ten Hag. If the Dutchman had left in the summer when he should have done then Sancho would probably still be there, and likely playing a significant amount of football assuming the slaps on the wrist for Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho aren’t based on a general distaste for left wingers.
Andrey Santos (Chelsea from Strasbourg)
The Brazilian returned to Chelsea a year ago after 97 minutes of football in six months at Nottingham Forest but his recall would be for very different reasons this time around.
Only Mason Greenwood, Ousmane Dembele, Achraf Hakimi and Joao Neves have been better than him in Ligue 1 according to the WhoScored numbers, with the 20-year-old scoring six goals from a deep-lying midfield role for Chelsea’s sister club Strasbourg, also captaining them on one occasion this season.
Chelsea’s midfield looks to be something of a closed shop thanks to the improvements of Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez, but in a bid to stop his side drifting in games as has happened all too frequently in recent weeks, Enzo Maresca could do with a replacement he trusts from the bench (clearly not Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall or Carney Chukwuemeka) who can come on and provide fresh legs to see out games. Romeo Lavia’s ongoing struggle for fitness is another reason for midfield reinforcement.
Nayef Aguerd (West Ham from Real Sociedad)
The defender made it pretty clear having made his loan move to Real Sociedad that he thought he had played his last game for West Ham, thanking the supporters for his time there etc. but Graham Potter could really do with him now.
Unconfirmed reports claim West Ham don’t have the option of recalling the centre-back, who we reckon may have been quite useful in preventing some of the 41 goals the Hammers have shipped in the Premier League this season. Julen Lopetegui ‘didn’t fancy him’ apparently; he knows best.
Neal Maupay (Everton from Marseille)
We’re not sure we’ve ever wanted anything more.
Maupay’s having a lovely time in Marseille, remarkably playing quite a lot of football for the title-chasers, helping them out with three goals and five assists in their bid to haul in Paris Saint-Germain at the top of the table. We imagine a return to Merseyside from the south of France is the last thing on his mind, though we’re sure Everton fans would be there to welcome him at John Lennon having been encouraged by the striker’s admission that he’s keeping track of his parent club’s results.
‘Whenever I’m having a bad day I just check the Everton score and smile,’ Maupay wrote on X.
That dig would make it an incredibly bold and brave call from returning hero David Moyes to chance one of the things Everton fans love most – their Premier League stalwart status – on bringing back the guy they hate most. But the facts are the Toffees are desperate for goals and Maupay has more goals and more assists than anyone in the squad. Please, please do it.
Fabio Silva (Wolves from Las Palmas)
There’s been a steady decline in his value ever since Wolves paid way over the odds to sign Silva from Porto in the summer of 2020. Loans at Anderlecht and PSV Eindhoven barely moved the dial before a horror spell at Rangers saw him fall to a low of £9.2m having joined for £35m. But glory be his value has nearly doubled in just six months with Las Palmas – no mean feat – with the striker earning rave reviews having got five goals and two assists for the La Liga minnows.
Conceding goals has been the big problem for Wolves this season, but not so much under Vitor Pereira, who’s eased some of their relegation concerns but would surely see merit in bringing back a big striker to compete with Jorgen Strand Larsen with his side only a goal above the drop zone as things stand.
Shea Charles (Southampton from Sheffield Wednesday)
Arguably the best centre-mid in the Championship this season, making the decision to send him to Sheffield Wednesday in favour of Lesley Ugochukwu a mad one even before you consider how bang average the Chelsea loanee has been for the Saints.
Ivan Juric is apparently currently deciding whether to recall Charles, which sounds like a no-brainer, although the club may be of a mind to spare the young man the pain of getting battered in the Premier League every week rather than thriving for a winning team in the lower tier.
