Forget Man United's Garnacho – if Chelsea have £55m to spend, they have bigger fish to fry

If Chelsea’s owners want to move beyond the reputation for misplaced spending they earned through their exuberant and expensive early forays into the transfer market, then they should probably start by moving beyond the self-parody of signing yet another left winger – and yet here we are, with a string of rumours tying the Blues to a bid for Alejandro Garnacho as Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali once again find themselves staring at a wide forward with the longing and lusting gaze of Narcissus catching his reflection in a pond.

The case in favour of signing yet another winger for yet another hefty sum - £55m seems to be the ballpark the transfer stories have settled on - is made largely by the failings of those already on the books. Between them, João Félix, Jadon Sancho, Pedro Neto and Mykhaylo Mudryk have combined for four Premier League goals and seven assists, although including Mudryk is somewhat misleading, given that none of them are his. Besides, if you only count goals scored while actually playing on the left wing, that number drops to just two. Chelsea certainly can’t be described as being blessed with a balanced attack. But would signing Garnacho really fix that?

Chelsea may have bigger needs than a winger

The case against bringing Garnacho to Stamford Bridge comes in two parts. The first is that, as I argued in a column this weekend which looked at the move from Manchester United’s perspective, there is little proof that Garnacho will be all that good. His youthful tendency towards poor decision making has not appreciably improved, he has shown no great cutting edge inside the penalty area, and aside from his crossing he has not demonstrated much forward progress since breaking into the first team.

The second, and perhaps more persuasive, is simply that Chelsea have needs elsewhere which must be addressed as well. Up front, Nicolas Jackson’s promising early-season form has nosedived and it is clear that he cannot yet be relied upon the score the goals that Enzo Maresca needs on his own. At the back, the defensive cast is rotating without a clear first-choice centre-half emerging to partner Levi Colwill. And let’s not even get started on the goalkeeper – Robert Sánchez’s underlying stats are pretty solid, but he drops too many clangers to be leant on for the long haul.

Chelsea need a centre-back and a goalkeeper to be competitive, although Maresca could give Filip Jörgensen a chance to start in the league if he loses patience with Sánchez, while left-back could be a quiet requirement, too, with Ben Chilwell deep in the ‘bomb squad’ and Renato Veiga loaned out to Juventus. Left wing is not the only need, to say the least, and perhaps not the hole which would be filled to the greatest impact.

There are ways that Chelsea could better use the resources also available to them, as well. Sadly, it may be reasonable to discount Mudryk at this point given that he has failed to develop his skill set beyond his blistering pace, but other options are not being used to their best effect in Maresca’s system, and a little bit of flexibility could work wonders and help Chelsea save their pennies for other needs or, given the owners, extravagances.

Take Sancho, for example. When he first made his name with his buccaneering, penetrative runs at Borussia Dortmund, he was afforded plenty of flexibility in the way he attacked the opposition, often scything through the middle of the pitch and taking up narrower positions. Under Maresca, he sits wide and his options are limited, and given that his approach play is considerably better than his putting, as it were, it feels a shame not to give his skill set free rein and give him the chance to attack more centrally, driving at opposing defenders while Marc Cucurella offers a more aggressive form of support down the flank. He seems relatively unlikely to become a serious threat inside the box, after all, and should surely be playing the final pass and not the player on the end of it.

Similarly, while Félix has now failed over the course of a number of years to live up to the early goal-scoring form he flashed at Benfica, he can still be a tricksy and creative force in narrow areas, and certainly seems to be at his best when playing as a number ten, or as a support striker. Cole Palmer has that position on lockdown, of course, but there is no inherent reason that the front three can’t be condensed to give Sancho and Félix more of an opportunity to play to their strengths.

Garnacho isn’t the best answer anyway

Still, even though it certainly shouldn’t be at this point with all the players that have been signed and all the millions spent, the left wing remains a problem position. A side which plays an aggressive front there needs wingers who provide end product, whether that emerges in goals or assists, but as it stands, Maresca is almost laughably reliant on two or three players to all of the damage in and around the penalty area.

Palmer and Jackson account for almost exactly half of Chelsea’s expected goals in the Premier League so far this season, and just over half of the actual ones – 23 of the 45 the team have put past their opposition. Add Noni Madueke into the mix and two thirds of the expected and actual goals are accounted for. The load needs to be spread if the club are to maintain a challenge for the top four – and given the potential economic impact a return to the Champions League would have, putting spare funds towards a fix does make some sense. It’s scoring that’s been a bigger issue than conceding during their recent poor run of form, after all.

But that circles the entire debate back around to Garnacho – if the issue is end product and the ability to rack up goals and assists, then is the young Argentine really the right direction of travel? He looks the part and gets a lot of shots in, but scores far too infrequently for a player who takes as many pot shots as he does – this season he has scored three goals from the left wing from 4.84xG. His end product is functionally the same as everything Chelsea’s current crop of left wingers has put together, and there is no meaningful evidence that he offers an improvement over the course of the next four months, which could be a crucial phase in the development of this Chelsea team.

And while his crossing is a very genuine strength, installing a right-footed player on the left flank doesn’t beget too many crosses, and would encourage the use of a natural target man – something Chelsea unequivocally do not have – to make the most of them.

Just as Chelsea aren’t playing to Sancho’s strengths, or to Félix’s, Maresca’s system would likely not play to Garnacho’s. There is every chance that he has a breakthrough with his finishing and his end products ticks up – young players make leaps at unpredictable points, after all – but if the aim is to sign a player who will bag the goals that take them back to Europe’s top table, betting on Garnacho looks like betting against the house.

If Chelsea are to spend before the transfer window closes on 3 February it must, surely, be on a player who can provide an immediate solution to one of the squad’s problems. A 20-year-old who still needs to make some strides to become a first-rate player should not be the kind of player they court right now when so much is on the line between the end of January and May. Even if Garnacho is the right answer, it would probably be the answer to the wrong question.

Sign a striker. Sign Benjamin Šeško or Mathys Tel or whoever else the rumour mill throws up next. Sign a centre-half the manager believes in. Sign a marauding left-back to help Sancho and Félix come inside more often. Sign a goalkeeper, and cut out the errors that have cost Chelsea so many points. Just don’t sign another left winger who doesn’t score or set many up and complain that it isn’t working come the end of the season.