Early in the summer it looked like Newcastle United had two centre-backs lined up as free transfers as Lloyd Kelly and Tosin Adarabioyo both looked set to join when their contracts expired at their old clubs.
Lloyd Kelly did in fact sign after his contract expired at Bournemouth, but at the 11th hour, Fulham's Tosin Adarabioyo opted to join Chelsea.
We're sure they're sold the dream pretty well at Chelsea, I mean, they must be, they've signed 8227 players since last night so they're clearly saying something right.
A move from Fulham to Chelsea would also have meant minimal upheaval for Tosin, so we can sort of see what he was thinking when he made his decision.
That being said, when you've got 11 players for each position fighting over a starting berth, it does seem a strange call to want to sign for Chelsea knowing how low your chances of getting in the first-team actually are.
Tosin obviously felt confident enough in his ability that he felt he could break into that Chelsea starting XI, but he's just been handed a big dent to that confidence.
Chelsea have announced their squad for the Europa Conference League and Tosin is not in it. England stars Raheem Sterling and Ben Chilwell are also missing as is £75 million signing Wesley Fofana.
Tosin Adarabioyo was on the bench for Chelsea's first game of the season but didn't make it any further than that, and now he's not even in the squad for their first Europa Conference League encounter.
It seems as though he's going to get just as much European football at Chelsea as he would have had if he'd joined Newcastle, although likely much less Premier League action.
Newcastle are still frantically trying to bring in Marc Guehi to fill the spot that Tosin would have filled. With Fabian Schar suspended for three games, Tosin would have three guaranteed starts.
Oh well, enjoy that crazy club and their massively overcrowded facilities.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
12 | 16 | 31 |
2 |
Manchester City
|
12 | 5 | 23 |
3 |
Chelsea
|
12 | 9 | 22 |
4 |
Arsenal
|
12 | 9 | 22 |
5 |
Brighton
|
12 | 5 | 22 |
6 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
12 | 14 | 19 |
7 |
Nottingham Forest
|
12 | 2 | 19 |
8 |
Aston Villa
|
12 | 0 | 19 |
9 |
Fulham
|
12 | 0 | 18 |
10 |
Newcastle United
|
12 | 0 | 18 |
11 |
Brentford
|
12 | 0 | 17 |
12 |
Manchester United
|
12 | 0 | 16 |
13 |
Bournemouth
|
12 | -1 | 15 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
12 | -4 | 15 |
15 |
Everton
|
12 | -7 | 11 |
16 |
Leicester
|
12 | -8 | 10 |
17 |
Wolves
|
12 | -8 | 9 |
18 |
Ipswich
|
12 | -10 | 9 |
19 |
Crystal Palace
|
12 | -7 | 8 |
20 |
Southampton
|
12 | -15 | 4 |