Chelsea are on the verge of agreeing on a deal to sign Barcelona misfit Philippe Coutinho and this news is coming out at a time when the Blues have been asking their players to take a pay cut due to the ongoing crisis.
Arsenal players have already agreed to take a 12.5% pay cut for the rest of the year while reports suggest the Blues are also heading in the exact same direction.
Sky Sports claim: “Chelsea’s players are in talks about taking a 10 per cent pay cut as part of their response to the coronavirus crisis.
“Chelsea director Marina Granovskaia is holding discussions with captain Cesar Azpilicueta over the issue.”
And according to Gary Neville, the fact that Chelsea are willing to spend such a huge sum of money on signing Philippe Coutinho could cause a lot of tension inside the dressing room.
He said on a Sky Sports show: “It’s like a parallel universe. A story has been breaking every three days, that [Chelsea captain] Cesar Azpilicueta has been in talks with the Chelsea board about a reported 10-15 per cent pay cut.
“That might be fabrication, but I doubt it because we’ve heard it far too often. So, to hear in the next breath, as a Chelsea player looking at a 10-15 per cent wage deferral or reduction, that they are looking to buy Coutinho for £70-odd million, you’d be like ‘well, which one is it?’
“If I was a player in a dressing room now, I would look at a referral that could turn into a pay cut at a certain point in time. But, if the club increase their budget or sign a player for £75m I’d be saying, ‘you have to pay our money first’.
“You cannot go and sign a player for £75m and tell your players you cannot pay them, it’s just illogical.”
While we totally agree with Neville on the fact that the current Chelsea players will not look at this deal too happily but the club have not spent a single penny in the transfer market during the last two windows so they are bound to make some big money signings this time around.
Also, Philippe Coutinho will not be the only player who is brought in for an extraordinary amount of money since Lampard is also looking to sign a new centre-forward and we feel the club will have to spend big in this department also.
