Chelsea have emerged from a week of complicated negotiations by signing the Colombia winger Juan Cuadrado from Fiorentina for a fee that could rise to £26.8m, the largest outlay by a Premier League club on this transfer deadline day.
Cuadrado’s arrival on a four-and-a-half-year contract was confirmed as the clock ticked towards Monday’s 11pm transfer deadline, with Mohamed Salah going the other way on a six-month loan as part of the deal. Yet the signing was effectively financed by the £24m sale of André Schürrle to Wolfsburg after 18 months at Stamford Bridge, a deal pushed through by the Bundesliga side just before the early evening cut-off in Germany.
Whereas the World Cup winner had become a bit-part player, making only five Premier League starts this season, Cuadrado will expect to play an integral part in a Chelsea team who lead the Premier League by five points and face a Champions League knockout tie with Paris Saint-Germain in two weeks’ time. The 26-year-old is eligible to play in that competition and, once clearance has been granted, should be involved in the squad for Saturday’s trip to Aston Villa.
“First of all I am very happy and thankful for this opportunity I’ve been given,” said Cuadrado on Chelsea TV. “This is a great club and, honestly, it is like a dream to join the Chelsea family and to know that the manager believes in me.
“The best part of this dream is knowing I am going to be part of such a big club. That is a huge motivation to perform well. I am a quick and positive player and I hope to show that out on the field and help all my team-mates.
It is amazing that I am going to be working with one of the best coaches anywhere in the world. I’m very proud to be playing for him. I think he will help me grow into a better player. We are a big club so we want to win important things. Playing for this team, winning the league championship is the most important thing, I think. As for everything else, Chelsea have big players so we want to win big things. I hope we can achieve a lot together.”
Cuadrado, who has 37 caps, had spent more than five years in Italy, with Udinese and on loan at Lecce before joining Fiorentina, and was a key player in Colombia’s fine showing in the 2014 World Cup. He contributed four assists and scored against Japan during a run to the quarter-finals where Colombia lost 2-1 to Brazil. He will provide Chelsea with options in central attacking positions and from wide.
José Mourinho, whose agent Jorge Mendes played a part in smoothing the deal when the complicated negotiations had threatened to stall, pushed for his purchase. Yet Chelsea could finalise a deal that pushed English top-flight clubs’ spending in the window above £100m only once Schürrle’s exit had been confirmed.
Wolfsburg, second in the Bundesliga with aspirations of qualifying for the Champions League and, ultimately, challenging Bayern Munich’s domestic dominance, secured Schürrle on a contract until 2019. He cost Chelsea £18m from Bayer Leverkusen in 2013 and the transfer means the club have raised in excess of £150m through the sales of David Luiz, Juan Mata, Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku and Schürrle.
Mourinho would have been content to have emerged from the window with no major alterations to his first-team squad but quickly earmarked Cuadrado as a recruit once it became clear Schürrle and Salah were unsettled on the periphery of the senior team.
The Egyptian was an £11m signing 12 months ago from Basel, for whom he scored the winner against Chelsea in the Champions League in 2013, but started only six Premier League games. Fiorentina have an option to make the 22-year-old’s loan move permanent in the summer.
Chelsea allowed a similar move to go through on Monday night by selling Ryan Bertrand to Southampton after the left-back had spent the first half of the season on loan there. Bertrand has signed a four-and-a-half-year deal and became Southampton’s second deadline day signing, after the attacking midfielder Filip Djuricic joined on loan from Benfica.
