Andrey Santos’ loan to Nottingham Forest has been an utter disaster, and the youngster will be returning to Chelsea in January to seek a new home for the rest of the campaign.
Athletic journalist Daniel Taylor is very plugged in to goings on at Forest, and he pointed out what an odd move it had been from both points of view.
“The Andrey Santos deal, in particular, always seemed really strange to me and I’m told it can be added to the list of transfers — Gustavo Scarpa, Jesse Lingard, Andrew Omobamidele and a few others — that didn’t really involve [Forest manager Steve] Cooper to a great degree.
“Why sign an 18-year-old on loan from another Premier League club? If Chelsea thought Santos was ready for top-division football, they would have kept him. It just doesn’t make sense.”
We said similar things are the time. Clubs who are aware that they are going to be in a relegation scrap are not where you want to send raw teenagers with potential. Those teams will pick experience and grit over talent every day of the week, and the last thing they’re interested in is developing players for bigger teams in the league. Santos never really had a chance. He would have been far better off at a lower level, but playing every week.
