The transfer disaster Chelsea can finally undo by beating Newcastle United to £70m star defender

Title-winning teams are built on strong defence. Great coaches know this, and for this reason, they don’t compromise on the quality of their defence, even when they have a free-scoring team. In a tough league like the Premier League, sometimes goals dry up, and a team’s only choice for picking up points is to ensure they don’t concede and make use of draws until the wins return.

There’s no hiding from the fact that while you need lethal scorers like Erling Haaland to win games, you need defenders like John Terry to win titles, as Chelsea fans will know. For this reason, Chelsea should give the same priority to the defence in the next transfer window as they did to the creativity department this summer.

The Blues should make a strong statement by snatching Marc Guehi from Crystal Palace and Newcastle, who have been following him for the last year but still haven’t been able to sign him, much to manager Eddie Howe’s deep frustration.

Guehi, though unassuming, has the qualities of a modern defender. Having come through Chelsea's prestigious Cobham academy, his biggest strength is his calm nature with the ball at his feet, which will help in the effectiveness of the expansive football Enzo Maresca wants to play at Chelsea. Even in high-pressure situations, the 24-year-old remains calm yet efficient.

In last season’s league, where he played more games under the old-school Roy Hodgson, he had a passing accuracy of 87.2%. What he showed at Euro 2024, playing for a highly demanding England side, proves he is ready to play for a big club where expectations are just as high as they are for the Three Lions.

In the Premier League era, the old Chelsea was a Chelsea of gold, built on a shrewd defence. Despite the creative talents and attacking force available to Pep Guardiola, he spent £78 million to get Josko Gvardiol when he already had John Stones and Ruben Dias.

Jose Mourinho set the tone for what would become a successful Chelsea era by building the team around a quality defence led by the unbeatable John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho.

Arsenal had the best defence in the 2023/24 season, yet Mikel Arteta spent £42 million to purchase Italian central defender Ricardo Calafiori to improve his squad. If an already good team is doing this, why should Chelsea be stuck with mediocrity when money and pulling power are certainly not problems, as evidenced by the last two transfer windows?

Once Maresca manages to elevate his team from the mediocrity of the post-Roman era, the next step is to make Chelsea a title challenger again, and Marc Guehi could be the ‘Van Dijk’ signing he needs.

Crystal Palace rejected a £60 million bid from Newcastle United for Guehi in the summer transfer window. Chelsea wouldn’t even need to pay that much if they wanted to sign him, due to some of the clauses that were inserted when they sold him. Liverpool historically are not massive spenders in the transfer window, but they had to cough up £75 million for Van Dijk when Jurgen Klopp needed to turn his then free-scoring, infuriatingly leaky team into robust title challengers. There’s a cue there for Chelsea to follow.

The Blues have become notorious for letting promising talents leave the club too soon - see Mohamed Salah, Kevin De Bruyne and Nathan Ake to name just three. Guehi clearly falls into this amply stocked bracket, and the Blues would do well to learn from their mistake and bring the powerhouse defender back to where it all began.