Chelsea make surprise Peter Crouch inquiry in bid to sign target man
Chelsea have made inquiries about Stoke City striker Peter Crouch as they cast their net ever wider to find a back-up to the unreliable goalscoring of Alvaro Morata and his current understudy Michy Batshuayi over this transfer window.
Crouch, who turns 37 this month, is one of a list of names the club had in mind for this January transfer window, including West Ham’s Andy Carroll, who was ruled out of action on Thursday with an ankle injury that could yet necessitate surgery and a four-month lay-off. The template of a proven Premier League goalscorer, with target-man qualities, is one which Chelsea have pursued in recent weeks, although any Crouch deal would present problems.
January 2018 transfer window
The former England international signed a one-year contract extension at Stoke in November, with an option for another year, and has returned to the first team amid their recent problems and Mark Hughes' sacking.
Ideally Chelsea would like a loan until the end of the season, but even if Stoke were prepared to let Crouch go after seven years at the club, they would first need a replacement.
Their new manager, Paul Lambert, has traditionally played with a target-man style forward up front. Other options considered by Chelsea have been Crystal Palace striker Christian Benteke and the Spanish forward Fernando Llorente, who decided to join Tottenham Hotspur over going to Stamford Bridge in the summer when he left Swansea. Llorente has been a disappointment at Spurs with just one Premier League goal so far.
The short-termism of Chelsea’s thinking in this transfer window suggests that they do not want to commit to major changes now with Antonio Conte’s future unresolved. Crouch was a Chelsea fan as a child and was at Wembley for the 1994 FA Cup final, their first since 1970. A regular ballboy at Stamford Bridge in his childhood, he opted to sign schoolboy terms with Spurs eventually before breaking through as a professional at Queen’s Park Rangers.
Quickest players to 100 Premier League goals
Meanwhile, Chelsea have learned that the first phase of a Fifa investigation into the club cited 25 cases of boys under the age of 18 allegedly being signed from overseas, despite not meeting the permitted exemptions threshold.
The governing body has a ban on the international transfer of minors, with a few exceptions, and could potentially sanction the club with a transfer embargo.
Chelsea have been accused by the compliance unit of Fifa’s Transfer Matching System and its findings have been passed on to the disciplinary committee which may yet find there is no case to answer.
In particular, Fifa are understood to be looking at the case of Bertrand Traore, the Burkina Faso international, now 22 and at Lyon, who was photographed playing for Chelsea aged 16.
The club has always maintained it had an agreement with the Premier League and the FA that allowed Traore to play as a trialist. They said: “Chelsea FC complies with all Fifa statutes and regulations when recruiting players.”
Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid have all been given transfer-window embargoes for breaking Fifa rules on the signing of minors.
