Chelsea boss does deadline day on the cheap after failing to sign Pogba and Stones

Paul Pogba will remain at Juventus after Chelsea failed to capture the France international

JOSE MOURINHO has spent the past two weeks chasing two players worth £134million.

 

Yesterday the Chelsea manager had to settle for a closing stage of the transfer window which brought him just £6.75m worth of new talent.

As the final hours of the transfer window ticked away, Chelsea completed the £2.75m signing of Nantes' Senegal international defender Papy Djilobodji, before surprisingly pouncing to sign Reading's Jamaican central defender Michael Hector in a £4.5m switch.

 

Michael Hector was a surprise signing for Chelsea on deadline day

It was not the return the Mourinho wanted from this summer transfer window, after the earlier signings of Radamel Falcao, Asmir Begovic, Kenedy, Nathan, Danilo Pantic, Baba Rahman and Pedro.

Chelsea had wanted a marquee name to wrap up their dealings, and boost a squad that has started the defence of their Premier League title badly, taking just four points from their opening four league games.  

The Stamford Bridge club were until yesterday morning still holding out faint hopes of landing landing Juventus' £72m France midfielder Paul Pogba, but the refusal of the Italian champions to budge on their price or take players in exchange, plus Pogba’s wage demands of £318,000 a week, eventually scuppered that idea.

 

The Blues will go back in for the 22-year-old next summer, when they are expected to go toe-to-toe with Barcelona for the former Manchester United player.

Similarly, Chelsea are expected to re-enter the market in January for Everton’s England defender John Stones, having had a fourth bid of £37m rejected.

But the failure to land either of those two massive deals in this window was a major blow for Mourinho. In the past 48 hours, in the wake of the Stones rebuttal, the club also had two bids for Paris Saint-Germain’s £25m Brazilian central defender Marquinhos rejected, missed out on Real Madrid’s Rapahel Varane, Zenit St Petersburg’s Ezequiel Garay and saw £22m Monaco star Aymen Abdennour choose to join Valencia instead.

Mourinho had said that he had presented his transfer targets for this summer to the board in April, so the Portuguese will be less than happy with the final results of his club’s efforts - and he has already warned his current underperforming stars, after last Saturday’s 2-1 defeat against Crystal Palace, that they have to do better.

 

It was not a transfer deadline day that lifted the gloom and tension around Stamford Bridge - with Djilobodji and Hector, 23, who goes straight back on loan to Reading, clearly cover players.

One club that did get all their various deals over the line yesterday were West Ham, who brought in four players.

They snapped up forwards Michail Antonio from Nottingham Forest for £7m, and Nikica Jelavic from Hull for £3m, and also recruited Alex Song on loan from Barcelona and Victor Moses on another season long loan from Chelsea.

Southampton were the other major spenders on the final day of the window, St Mary’s manager Ronald Keoman splashing out £11.5m on Dutch defender Virgil Van Dijk.