Chelsea Transfers: Predicting Jose Mourinho's Buys & Starting 11

4. Fabio Coentrao

Contrao Not to put too fine a point on it, but Chelsea have endured something of a crisis at left-back in recent weeks, as was evidenced by their recent exploits in the Europa League. Last month, the Blues had to travel to Russia without a recognised left sided defender due to Ashley Cole's hamstring injury and a virus picked up by his understudy Ryan Bertrand. That meant rookie Nathan Aké, 18, had to play against Rubin Kazan. Though Chelsea got away with it that time, if such an injury dilemma were to hit them again, they might not be quite so lucky second time round. Cole is 32 now and cannot go on forever and while Bertrand shows promise the Blues need someone with more experience. According to reports, Jose Mourinho wants to bring Fabio Coentrao with him when he makes the most back to West London in the summer, and there's little doubting Chelsea would benefit from the experience the 25-year old would bring with him to the Bridge, especially if Cole found himself sidelined by injury again.
Contributor
Contributor

Joseph is an accredited football journalist and has interviewed nearly all of the current 20 Barclay's Premier League managers. He is also a correspondent for Bleacher Report and has written for Caught Offside and Give Me Football.