Earlier in the season in the match against Manchester City when Morata limped off in the 35th minute clutching his left hamstring, Conte’s decision to snub Michy Batshuayi, who is a direct replacement for Morata and introduce Willian instead, showed his lack of faith in Chelsea’s back-up striker.
Batshuayi despite scoring 10 goals this season has not shown the consistency Conte demands and the Italian’s decision to rebuff the striker for the City match exposed Chelsea’s lack of options up front while in crisis.
Batshuayi needs regular game time after a frustrating one and a half years at Chelsea. The 24-year-old Belgian striker was brought from Marseille in 2016. He arrived from the French club with a decent reputation as a talented hitman who had scored 23 goals in 50 games for the club in the 2015-16 season.
However, ever since his arrival to Chelsea, he has had to play as a backup option; first to Diego Costa and now to Alvaro Morata. With Dzeko now rumoured to be joining Chelsea, Conte feels it would be good for Batshuayi to have a loan spell outside. Here are 3 clubs who can look to bring him in.
AS Roma
Should the Edin Dzeko deal go through, it would mean that Chelsea’s triple raid on AS Roma this season coupled with another few departures have all gone through leaving the Italian outfit desperately short on numbers. However, given Roma’s constrained budgets due to their problems with Financial Fair Play, the Italian side will not be able to buy a quality player to replace the departing Dezko. A loan deal for Batshuayi, at least till the end of the season then would make good sense for the Romans as it would save them time and money of having to look for a new striker.
Newcastle United
Benitez’s men have endured a frustrating season in the league so far. Their owner Mike Ashley has played tough with the wallet and it left Newcastle with zero new incoming players back in the summer. With a large budget unlikely to be made available this time, Benitez can look to bring in his second Chelsea loan signing in the form of Batshuayi to the Magpies. He would be reunited with his London teammate Kenedy who recently completed his loan move.
Swansea City
The Swans already have one Chelsea striker on loan and his spell initially proved to be a success. Tammy Abraham’s decent run at Swansea might encourage all involved parties to push through for a deal for Batshuayi who is surely going to be a star player at the club and will get maximum game time at the Welsh club.
