Chelsea to Exploit Whelan Loop-hole for Zaki?

Zaki to Chelsea? A bit of an obvious one for the red tops to pick up on given the player´s explosive impact upon the Premier League isn’t it? But the main source for this story comes from The Independent newspaper whose piece is eerily sympathetic in its tone towards Chelsea. Have they been briefed by Chelsea suits?

Apparently Scolari favours Zaki to Vagner Love as the former already has Premier League experience and likely to hit the ground running.  The bid will be for £6m for the 25 year old Egyptian who is currently on loan from Zamalek to Wigan.

Wigan Athletic chairman will not want to lose Zaki (if he goes to Chelsea we can no doubt expect another tirade in our direction from him).

“When you look at this lad and his build, he is the same height, weight, everything about him, he is like Alan Shearer. He has the same confidence when he gets the ball, he knows where the goal is, he doesn't need to look up, he has this instinct. Strikers like that have an instinct as to where the goal is. You can't describe it; you can't give it to anybody.”

 

Wigan do not have a fixed-price deal agreement with Zamalek (bit of a cock-up by Whelan!) which means that any club that wants him can enter into a bidding war for his services.

The article also details other information such as Scolari´s recommendation that we make a move for the Fluminense central defender Thiago Silva who is available on a free transfer (What? Another Centre-half?!), and wanted by both Milan clubs and that it is this move has only added to prompt Alex to hand in a transfer request (So where does that leave us with Mancienne?  There would have to be a lot of movement in the summer if we want to hang on to him).

There are plenty of fans who want Zaki for their own clubs due to his exploits since joining Wigan although I am a bit more guarded.  We have seen plenty of “flash in the pan” performances from new players over the years that eventually dissipate into averageness – if he signs for us then obviously I would hope that is not the case, but I do find it a bit of a concern that most of the transfer rumours with regard to Chelsea emanating from the media focus on strikers and not quality wide players that I feel should be of a higher priority for us. 

We currently have Drogba almost back to full fitness and Di Santo shouldn’t be more than a few weeks away.  True, if either Anelka or Drogba (or both!) got injured we would be without a senior striker which would be uncomfortable to say the least, but nevertheless, we would have Kalou and Di Santo to slot in temporarily (unless of course, the club has other plans for Kalou in January?).  Ideally we’d sign both a striker and a wide player.

Still, we must trust in Scolari and after the Robinho fracas in the summer we must also trust in the club to back him.