Caughtoffside’s Daily Briefing with Fabrizio Romano usually has top stuff from the big man himself – but today it’s French football expert Jonathan Johnson taking the reins.
His topic is something we’ve been curious about too – how Chelsea ended up signing Estevao Willian. The Brazilian wonderkid just looks so far ahead of every other player in the world in that age group right now, yet we seemed to snap him up with relatively little competition earlier this summer.
Yes we were willing to pay a lot, and that’s ultimately what sealed the deal. But it does seem curious there weren’t more overt efforts from elsewhere to tie him down.
PSG did their best – Chelsea were more decisive
According to Johnson, however, there was a major push from at least one rival. PSG made a “significant effort”, but couldn’t get past Chelsea’s even bigger and better commitment:
“PSG monitored the Brazilian youngster very closely, as well as other players, having of course signed both Lucas Beraldo and Gabriel Moscardo last winter,” Johnson wrote.
“Estevao, or ‘Messinho’ as he’s sometimes known, was another player PSG were looking at, and they made an attempt to sign him. PSG tried to do a deal with Palmeiras, but couldn’t quite come to an agreement, and for that reason they decided to focus on Beraldo and Moscardo instead.”
He also mentions the fact that PSG sporting director Luis Campos felt that PSG were being “priced out” of the deal by Palmeiras. So in a few years we will have to look back at the winger’s development and see if Chelsea were right to pay up – or if Paris were right to pull out.
The pair they signed look top quality too – and you can’t sign them all, despite the Chelsea sporting directors’ best efforts…
