Souness baffled by ‘strange’ Chelsea transfer as pundit hits out at Blues over £150m Kane blunder

Lewis Oldham 03 Sep 2023 1:25 PM

Souness slams Chelsea — Graeme Souness in disbelief over Chelsea transfer.

Liverpool legend Graeme Souness is surprised that Chelsea have opted to spend around £42.5m to sign Cole Palmer from Manchester City.

Chelsea’s deal for Palmer takes their spending under Todd Boehly to over £1bn and he made his debut off the bench in their 1-0 loss to Nottingham Forest on Saturday afternoon.

The 21-year-old was always highly-rated during his time at Man City but he was unable to establish himself as a regular under Pep Guardiola.

Palmer often impressed when he was given a chance at Man City, but they have done well to get £42.5m for him at this stage of his career.

Souness has admitted that the Palmer transfer “strikes him as strange and extremely bold”.

“Chelsea’s decision to spend £42.5million on Cole Palmer, a 21-year-old with three Premier League starts, strikes me as strange and extremely bold,” Souness told The Daily Mail.

“It might all come together for Chelsea, who are spending a fortune on players of enormous potential who one day, with a big question mark attached, might be top men for them.

“Their supporters, like all others, want instant success. After a miserable season, they will have limited patience and won’t be slow in venting their frustration. I can see where they’re coming from.”

Ex-Premier League forward Gabby Agbonlahor meanwhile reckons Chelsea’s loss to Forest exposes their lack of quality up front.

He has also argued that they should have focused on signing Kylian Mbappe and Harry Kane this summer.

“What I don’t understand with Chelsea is that they had 21 shots and guess how many on target? Two,” Agbonlahor told talkSPORT.

“They’re getting into the positions but they just don’t have the quality and it seems to be a theme now.

“You look on social media and the story is that Chelsea sign players but they lose games.

“They’ve spent £1billion. Why didn’t Chelsea use a quarter of that money and go out and buy a star? Go and give Paris Saint-Germain an offer for Mbappe that they can’t refuse.

“Harry Kane, “There you go, Daniel Levy. Whatever you want”. £150million for Harry Kane and you’ve got two superstars.

“They’ve bought loads of players who are average. Mudryk came on and he nearly gave away two goals! He was absolutely useless. He’s had 19 games, zero goals and they haven’t got a style of play.”

Chelsea Cole Palmer