Chelsea hold secret wonderkid talks after transfer mistake
Tom Weber
- Updated: 6 Oct 2023 16:03 BST
- 4 min read
Steve Cooper has admitted that he had talks with Chelsea over Andrey Santos' lack of game time.
The Nottingham Forest boss managed to snap up one of the world's most exciting young midfielders when he brought Andrey Santos in on loan from Chelsea. Cooper, however, has not utilised the 19-year-old at all in the Premier League since the move.
In fact, the Brazilian's only outing for Forest thus far came in the Carabao Cup against Burnley. The youngster's lack of minutes has left Chelsea fans infuriated and even the club felt the need to step in, as revealed by Cooper.
READ: Toney or Osimhen? The surprise answer to Chelsea's No.9 curse
"He's obviously a really good young player," Cooper said, "I had a really good chat with Chelsea actually this week. I didn't realise that some stuff had been written about him."
"Like I said before, there's a lot of new players here and we're really trying to get the balance right in integrating all the players at the right time while trying to perform as best we can in every single game to get the results that we want and that's a process. With young players, it can take longer than others to settle in."
"I'm not saying that he's not [settling in], it's just circumstantial with some of the games like for example, Brentford would have been a really good game for him to come off the bench and then we go down to 10 men and he's not feeling too well on the side so that went against him because he was definitely in our thinking for a change."
Chelsea mistake
Fabrizio Romano has revealed that Santos had more than 10 loan offers in the summer, so Chelsea appear to have picked the worst possible destination for him. Moreover, there have been reports that the Blues could have used Santos in the summer as a makeweight to land Bradley Barcola as Lyon had been keen on a swap.
Instead, the Blues have ended up without Barcola and they now have a young player stuck out on loan getting no game time. Recently, Barcelona had been linked with a shock swoop for Santos, but given their financial situation that seems unlikely to materialise.
READ: Six Chelsea stars Frank Lampard could sign at Rangers
Another side of this tragic story is the fact that Santos could have actually been of use to his parent club. Recent good results can't overshadow the simple truth that the Blues have, on the whole, been underwhelming this season. The Brazilian had impressed in pre-season and he could have been an important asset during their poor run early on.
