There certainly were a lot of eyebrows raised when Chelsea spent close to 20 million pounds in signing Augsburg’s star defender, Baba Rahman. The 21-year-old Ghanaian certainly has not had the best of seasons for Chelsea in the Premier League and there have been calls for him to be sold in the upcoming summer transfer window.
Rahman is just 21 and still has time on his side but the fact that his performances weren’t all that great have only added fuel to the fire about his future at the club. The problem with Chelsea was that they sold someone who was actually a pretty decent left-back for reasons which are hard to understand even now.
Filipe Luis was sold back to Atletico Madrid after just one season and the fact that Baba Rahman is also being linked with something similar now after one season does not bode well for not only the player but also for the club.
Chelsea need someone to play regularly in the left-back slot, Cesar Azpilicueta might be doing a pretty good job but he is not a left-back and constantly playing him out of position will hurt his performances over the long run. The Spaniard played more games as left-back than right-back this season and he would be hoping to make it back to his regular position next season.
Rahman for his part did have one or two good games for the Blues, though it wasn’t enough to show what he really is capable of. People need to understand that this was a new country and a new league. The Bundesliga is not the same as the Premier League and Rahman isn’t the first star to have struggled after making the jump.
Even Bastian Schweinsteiger has struggled in his first season and we have seen even bigger players such as Andre Schurrle and even Michael Ballack were not able to get their first season going when they signed for Chelsea.
Maybe this is a sign that Chelsea should not sign players from the Bundesliga but the one thing on Rahman’s side is that he is young and with Antonio Conte coming into the manager’s role next season, anything could happen at Stamford Bridge.
Conte is known for playing with some wing-backs and if he does apply a similar ploy at Chelsea, Rahman could be one star who succeeds more than others next season.
Chelsea should keep the youngster for at least one more season and see how he does under the new boss and then decide on the future of the former Augsburg star.