Can Chelsea afford not to dabble in the January market?

Football FanCast columnist Ross Mooring wonders if Carlo Ancelotti needs to dabble in the transfer market in January.

It is a claim often rejected by Chelsea fans that their team is too old to win things and indeed, in that respect, they are right. The club is stocked full of talented players at all positions and they’re winning games consistently and in the same way that “kids” can win things Mr Hansen, so can teams with more than one player over the age of 30.

However, in order for clubs to remain competitive through several evolutions of the team (see Manchester United since the early 90s and in spite of the lack of trophies, Arsenal since the late 90s) aging players have to be replaced and preferably, not all at once. One look at the Chelsea squad and in terms of members under the age of 25 things are slightly worrying.

Ross Turnbull is a backup goalkeeper, Nemanja Matic has not played for the club yet, Daniel Sturridge may or may not be a future great and the other two, John Mikel Obi and Salomon Kalou, aren’t good enough to be considered first choice in the current setup. At the other end of the scale, Nicolas Anelka, Frank Lampard, Ricardo Carvalho, Deco, Didier Drogba and Michael Ballack have all already passed their 30^th birthdays.

Usually, this would not be an immediate problem, but should Chelsea fail to win their appeal against the Kakuta affair transfer ban the club will not be able to sign players for another 18 months after the upcoming transfer window. During that time, the above players will have aged further, Florent Malouda will have hit 30 and John Terry and Ashley Cole will both be only six months short of that mark. While not a disaster in and of itself the whole situation is a time-bomb waiting to happen.

The first way to mitigate this, funds permitting, is to sign younger players in January; preferably those who can contribute straight away since another persuasive factor is the African Cup of Nations in the new year, which will take away Michael Essien, Drogba, Kalou and Mikel for anywhere between three and five weeks.

Names mentioned as potential targets are Angel Di Maria, Benfica’s 21 year old Argentinean who is a quick and shifty, skilful left winger (where he would play in the current diamond formation is unknown), Atletico Madrid’s electric striker Sergio Aguero, who put in a sterling audition with a brace against Chelsea just last week and Napoli’s Slovakian goalscoring midfielder Marek Hamsik. Hamsik is probably the most intriguing of the bunch as he would be a clear long term replacement for Frank Lampard. He’s two footed, times forward runs well and is good in the air considering his slender disposition.

Also linked have been Franck Ribery, Patrick Vieira (please no) and David Villa, but the advantage of the first three is that they’re younger and, excluding Aguero, are available for Champions League action in the knockout stages.

Given the news that Ashley Cole is out for several weeks with a depressed leg fracture that depending on how it heals, could keep the left back out for longer and that Yury Zhirkov is having problems keeping fit, not to mention Jose Bosingwa now being ruled out until potentially March, the club could also go in search of a full back on top of a midfielder and forward.

This January might be the last chance to sign players until the summer of 2011 and one thing is for sure, crossing our fingers with the Court of Arbitration for Sport is no way to manage a squad when short and long term problems are already presenting themselves.

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