Chelsea Transfer News: Grading Chelsea's Activity in the Summer Transfer Window

If you're a regular follower of my articles, then you may remember that earlier in August, I went through the 20 biggest clubs in Europe and graded each and every club's transfers in and transfers out, before assigning a final overall grade.

Now that the transfer window has closed until January and most players have had the opportunity to play with their teammates or at least know where they fit in their new team's plans, I've decided to go back through all 20 clubs and assign new final grades on each club's transfer activity.

The format will be as follows: Starting September 1 and ending September 12, I will be publishing "report cards" for one of the teams I reviewed in August.

The schedule should look like this:

September 1: Tottenham Hotspur

September 3: Arsenal

September 4: Liverpool 

September 5: Chelsea

September 6: Manchester City 

September 7: Manchester United

September 8: Juventus

September 9: AC Milan

September 10: Inter Milan

September 11: Real Madrid

September 12: FC Barcelona

Stay tuned and enjoy!

Transfers In: B

Transfers In: GK Thibaut Courtois, CM Oriol Romeu, CF Romelu Lukaku, LW Juan Mata, AM Ulises Davila, CM Raul Meireles

Normally, when a club spends £65 million-plus in the transfer market, you would expect that they'd be favorites for the league title and favored to make a deep run in the Champions League.

However, that isn't the case here. Chelsea have had a rather haphazard summer, and didn't really make any "good" signings until about two weeks before the close of the transfer. Prior to that, their transfers were actually rather poor.

Their £8 million signing of Courtois makes little sense. Chelsea paid a massive transfer fee for a goalkeeper who likely won't be first choice at the club for years to come, and doesn't really add much depth to the squad considering the club have four other goalkeepers, including the up-and-coming Matej Delac. Even worse, he's been sent to Atletico Madrid who also have a congestion of goalkeepers and thus will find it hard to develop further there as well.

The signing of Oriol Romeu is also perplexing. Like Courtois, he's a decent talent, but he's only ever made two appearances for the Barcelona first team. Even if he's simply a depth signing, the stipulations of his contract make it unlikely that Andre Villas-Boas will try to extensively develop the player.

So now we come to the later signings of the transfer window. Honestly, Romelu Lukaku, Juan Mata and Raul Meireles are all great or solid players. The question is though, how will they fit?

Early signs already indicate that Lukaku, despite his £18 million fee and massive potential, is not highly regarded by Villas-Boas, or at least not in most of his plans. He has made one substitute appearance in the 83rd minute for Chelsea in the league, and has been left out of Chelsea's Champions League squad, in favor of a player like Oriol Romeu, who, as I've shown earlier, is far less developed and game-ready than Lukaku. 

Juan Mata and Raul Meireles will likely break into the rotation at Chelsea, but still face competition from the regulars at Chelsea. Whether they're young and lively enough to add life back into a Chelsea team that has looked very rigid in recent weeks remains to be seen.

Transfers Out: C+

Transfers Out: ST Fabio Borini, CB Michael Mancienne, AM Jacopo Sala, GK Jan Sebek, CM Michael Woods, ST Danny Philliskirk, AM Gokhan Tore, DM Jack Cork, LM Yuri Zhirkov, CB Slobodan Rajkovic

Despite the aging nature of Chelsea's squad, Chelsea ended up allowing six U-21 players to leave over the summer, as well as three U-23 players.

Understandably, many of these U-21 players just never lived up to their potential, like Woods, Philliskirk and Sebek. But others, like Borini, Sala and Tore were never really given a chance.

The same applies to the above-21 players. Rajkovic, Mancienne and Cork were given practically no opportunities with the senior squad at Chelsea, despite impressing and getting regular play at their loan clubs.

Meanwhile, the squad remains as congested as ever up front. With the signing of Romelu Lukaku, it may have been wise to sell Didier Drogba in order to provide the Belgian youngster with more opportunities to play, but that didn't happen. Similarly, one of Salomon Kalou or Nicolas Anelka (more the former than the latter) should've been sold to free up playing time for Daniel Sturridge, who looked excellent at Bolton, but that didn't happen either.

Now, the club has Juan Mata, Florent Malouda, Nicolas Anelka, Salomon Kalou and Daniel Sturridge all vying for playing time at the wing positions on either side of Fernando Torres, and with all five players in their prime or in need of playing time, Andre Villas-Boas has a huge selection headache on his hands.

Overall Grade: B-

There are numerous questions that need to be answered about Chelsea's squad. Are they too old? Can the old guard of Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba and John Terry still lead Chelsea to success? Will the new focal points of the team, like Fernando Torres, be able to emulate the success of their predecessors?

Like Liverpool, Chelsea are very much a team in transition. However, unlike Liverpool, they look in store for a much rougher transition, as no "new guard" has yet emerged for Chelsea. Fernando Torres has struggled badly in the goals department since leaving Liverpool, and Ramires has looked solid on occasions, but has been nowhere near as dominant as, for example, Michael Essien. David Luiz, another supposed member of the new guard, has yet to inspire confidence alongside John Terry.

Juan Mata looked solid on his debut, and Raul Miereles has always been a dynamic midfielder, but their impact on the team going forward is still to be seen. Andre Villas-Boas will need to start putting his stamp on his new team soon, and stop playing Salomon Kalou, Paulo Ferreira or John Obi Mikel just because they've been with the team for a long time.

Thoughts?

What do you think?  Do you believe that the grades are too lenient on Chelsea? Maybe too harsh? 

Do you believe there are some players Chelsea should've pursued with greater intensity or players Chelsea has retained that should've been sold?

Also, I'd love to hear your predictions on where you think Chelsea will finish in the 2011-12 season based on their transfer acquisitions and sales.

I believe Chelsea look on course to finish fourth with the way they've gone about their transfer business this summer. 

However, I also believe that there is a possibility that Chelsea may just get their game together and work their way up to third. However, on Chelsea's current form and displays I'm skeptical of this happening.

I look forward to hearing your opinions and reading your comments in the comments section below.