Enzo Fernández recently celebrated his third anniversary at Chelsea Football Club, moving past 150 appearances in all competitions, after joining us from Benfica in January 2023 for what was then a British-record transfer fee. Enzo was fresh off of winning the World Cup with Argentina just a month prior, announcing himself on the world stage with a star turn that earned him the tournament’s Young Player Award. He had the footballing world at his feet, but he was convinced by the Chelsea project.
Unfortunately, that project continues to sputter along. We did finally win a couple trophies last season, including the Club World Cup in the summer, but the current season is trending in the wrong direction and is showing no sign of turning around anytime soon. Chelsea’s ownership continue to believe that they’re building an actual winning team — or at least they go with that as public messaging — but we seem no closer to that goal than three years ago.
So it’s perhaps not at all surprising that in the wake of Chelsea’s heaviest defeat (on aggregate) in a two-legged European knockout tie, questions were asked from Enzo about his long-term future in the SW6. After all, the 25-year-old has been subject to transfer rumors multiple times in the past already (Real Madrid, chief among them), and those were while he was still just a young player. Now that he’s set to enter the prime years of his career, it would not be unreasonable to think that he could be questioning whether Chelsea’s still the club where he could fulfill his ultimate goals.
So he busted out the classic Hazardian “we’ll see” last night when asked about his long-term future. The short-term obviously belongs to Chelsea, but beyond that … yeah, we’ll see.
“We have to congratulate PSG, they were much better than us. I think they beat us very well tactically.
“Since I arrived at Chelsea, situations like this have happened. It’s time to support my teammates. We can turn this situation around; there are eight Premier League games left and we need to qualify for the next Champions League, which is what we want. And we want to win the FA Cup, that’s what we’ll fight for. It’s a title, and we play football to win.
“Can I guarantee my continued presence at Chelsea next season? I don’t know. Right now I’m focused on here, then there’s the World Cup and we’ll see.”
-Enzo Fernández; source: ESPN Argentina via Google Translate
Remember that time he celebrated a goal by standing in front of the fans at the Bridge and pointing adamantly at the turf to say here’s where he’s staying? Yeah, this is not like that time.
We’ll see.
Now, obviously, Enzo wouldn’t leave for anything less than a massive transfer fee, but the clubs he’s been linked with off and on over the years (say, Real Madrid or PSG) could certainly afford massive transfer fees. And if Chelsea do continue to hemorrhage money due to our terribly well managed finances, terribly well handled stadium situation, and terribly well thought out squad-building, we might need a massive transfer fee (or two) to stay onside of various balance sheets and profit-spend ratio calculations.
