Chelsea's wild £121m January transfer window predicted with Newcastle, Borussia Dortmund and Roma deals

Chelsea were arguably the story of the summer transfer window - in fact, it seems the Blues are the story of most transfer windows since Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital took charge at Stamford Bridge.

An eye-watering number of deals have been completed since the change of ownership just over two years ago and there has been little sign of any slowing up just yet. hroughout their most hectic summer in many a year, 25 outgoing deals were authorised and they ranged from the £38m sale of left-back Ian Maatsen to Premier League rivals Aston Villa to the free transfers that saw the likes of Thiago Silva, Malang Sarr, Tino Anjorin and Hakim Ziyech all leave Stamford Bridge.

In terms of incomings, 11 new arrivals were secured, with the £54m deal for Wolves winger Pedro Neto and the £47m deal for Atletico Madrid forward Joao Felix topping the bill. Surely, after such a hectic summer, the January transfer window will be a more quiet affair for the Stamford Bridge hierarchy. We wondered what could lie ahead so we fired up Football Manager 2024, edited the Blues squad to its present form and allowed the world’s most popular managerial simulation to predict what could lie ahead for Enzo Maresca and his squad:

Outs

Given the size of Chelsea’s current squad, it seems entirely predictable that the vast majority of their January transfer business would be taken up with departures - and that is exactly how it played out in the virtual world. Firstly, Ben Chilwell was allowed to leave Stamford Bridge as he made a £28m move to Newcastle United, where he will compete for a place at left-back with former Blues academy star Lewis Hall.

But the England defender was far from the only player to leave the club as midfielder Cesare Casadei joined Serie A club Roma in a £15m deal and Carney Chukwuemeka secured a £19m switch to Lyon. There were several loan exits as goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli joined Championship club Coventry City until the end of the season and young striker Marc Guiu and defender Axel Disasi made similar moves to Valencia and Borussia Dortmund respectively.

In what was a significant boost for the Blues income, Bournemouth and Everton converted loan deals for Chelsea duo Kepa Arrizabalaga and Armando Broja into early permanent moves at a combined cost of just under £30m.

Ins

After a hectic summer of transfer activity and the fact several members of Maresca’s squad will return to Stamford Bridge following the end of loan spells elsewhere, it was perhaps little surprise to see only one incoming transfer during the January transfer window - although it was not for a lack of trying on the Blues behalf.

A somewhat scattergun approach to recruitment brought sizeable - but ultimately unsuccessful - bids for Newcastle United striker Alexander Isak, AC Milan winger Rafael Leao, Barcelona defender Alejandro Balde and Bayern Munich star Joshua Kimmich. However, the only successful bid came with a £29m offer for Sporting CP defender Goncalo Inacio, who also had interest from a number of clubs across the Premier League and around Europe.