Nizaar Kinsella’s piece in the Evening Standard today has confirmed what we had suspected – Strasbourg want to keep Chelsea loanee Andrey Santos at the club next season.
The midfielder only arrived in Ligue 1 in January but went on to have a really nice second half of the season at our sister club. After signing for us for £18m in January 2023, Santos has shown plenty of promise, but needs some consistency after playing on loan for Vasco de Gama, then Nottingham Forest, then Strasbourg all in short order.
It was at that final stop, playing for Patrick Vieira, that he finally found some consistency, and his game started coming on leaps and bounds. We’re sure his impressive showings will generate interest from higher up the pyramid, but this seems like a good move to both help Andrey and to help improve Strasbourg’s interests too. They want him for 12 more months, and it feels likely he will be happy to stay.
An obvious yes from a football perspective.
The situation is a bit of a no brainer to us. We saw how frustrating it was for everyone at the start of last season with Santos kicking his heels on the bench at Forest. At Strasbourg it was the opposite. Not only was he playing, he was very quickly becoming an important player and a leader. These loans are about more than just getting touches on the ball, they’re about developing your character too, and the whole thing seemed like a perfect marriage.
Chelsea will have other concerns of course, but we really hope that getting a bigger loan fee or putting Santos in a more significant shop window doesn’t become a chief concern. If he plays well and plays regularly, that will help him become a good player, and that should be our only worry right now.
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