A couple of years ago, like a lot of people, I thought Cahill was a good centre-back. He was beginning to play for England and could pass the ball pretty well. He would never be truly world class but he was very good – and English, which seems to be a bonus for some people.
Now though, I am not so sure. He hasn’t played particularly well this season in a struggling Bolton team and it will be a lot to ask for him to come in and play well in a struggling Chelsea team. Of course, Chelsea are a much better team than Bolton, but they are suffering many of the same difficulties. Struggling to keep clean sheets and struggling to find a pattern of attacking play that works for them – I must stress that Chelsea are in a period of transition and I fully expect Andre Villas-Boas to turn them into a championship-winning team again.
The point though, is that there will be a lot of pressure on Cahill. I expect him to be able to handle the pressure of playing for a bigger club, but there will be added pressure on him to perform well, to simply turn his form around in a heartbeat.
And even at his best, is he good enough for Chelsea? As I said before, he is a good player, but Chelsea will have title winning aspirations next season (and possibly still this season). Cahill won’t become the John Terry of three or four years ago and he’s not as good on the ball as David Luiz – albeit he is a much better defender.
In my opinion Chelsea should have gone for Chris Samba. Samba has said recently that he wants to move to a bigger club. He is a beast of a centre-back who strikers hate to play against. He would make that Chelsea defence feared, as it was under Jose Mourinho, and he is a good communicator. He can play a bit as well. Samba would probably cost around the same as Cahill too, around €8million.
Cahill’s contract at Bolton was due to run out at the end of this season and I think it says a lot that he wasn’t bought in the summer, when lots of top teams were looking for central defenders. On top of this, Chelsea could have waited until the end of the season, when a free transfer would represent even less risk, although Tottenham were also thought to be interested in a January move and could have forced their hand.
I do like Cahill and I’m sure he will be a success at Chelsea…eventually, it just seems as though they have rushed into the signing. As if Villas-Boas is so desperate to stamp his authority on the squad that he has signed the first readily available half-decent player.
One thing is for certain, with Luiz still adapting to the Premier League and John Terry struggling, Chelsea need someone to come in and take charge of their defence. I can’t see Cahill being that someone.
Written by Daniel Cross for FootballTransferTavern.com.
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Talking, as I do, to many Bolton fans their concensus is that though they’d like Cahill in their side even now he really isn’t good enough to play for any top four team and at 26 is unlikely to ever make that jump and is only worthy of a bench/support role for Chelsea. They agree that his turnung is too slow, he’s not quick enough all round and football wise is a weak player of the ball. His strength is in being a kind of decent level JT impersonator but when the real thing isn’t really working why employ his shadow?
Secondly, 80,000 a week is more than Mata, Ramires or other(Sturridge!!)actual players get at Chelsea and were I their agent I’d be livid. Cahill, you’d have thought, would have been thought of best by Bolton fans and when they think he’s not worth a place and definitely not the cash being mooted then just why we haven’t just recalled Kalas is beyond me. We would even have been able to get Cahill in the summer for nothing if needed and, personally, I’d like to have given the chance to Chalobah and done it right now. I think Chelsea need to stop the nonsense which makes us think no one from the academty is even capable of being third choice for a first team berth and Cashlobah is the biggest CB/CDM talent I’ve ever seen at Chelsea.
Sadly, though we send talent like Josdh out to Swansea who, while mid table now, have a very tight and stlled unit in midfield-fitting in a kid who, no matter how good, will be up and down might drag them into relegation battles and if so he would not get a run of games and come back to Chelsea feeling he wasn’t even good enough for Swansea when the sad truth is it’s actually possibly a weaker midfield UNIT at the Bridge this season. Their three work together while ours are selfish and clueless-Lampard plays to try and make out the old ways are best, ramires is ood but doesn’t try to fit the rotating midfield enough, Mikel has lost it and Meireles is plain rubbish in every single way leaving, really, just Romeu doing his job every game and he’s the first sacrificed when the others make it go tits up!! Josh is the only creative mid at ?Chelsea right niw even with Essien returing we have no player with even sim ilarly impressive creation in the m uddle until we play Mata there but he’s a number ten FFS! Point is , if AVB and Rogers wwere both honest and brave enough with their sides to do what’s really best and not worry aboiut age Josh would never have gone to Swansea for more chances because they should be being offered every game in the Chelsea midfield as we are near death in creative terms and /swansea, honestly, are not and messing with ehri midfield three, barring injury, is a one way street down the table through no fault of Jossh even though he will get the blame.
Suicide loan when we need him and shows the idiocy behind signing Cahills when we could start playing our own. Esp so when they’re also pale replicas of a player we’re supposedly trying too hase out and doesn’t have the gifts to paly the desired high line.
wow. i wonder if you guys have ever seen cahill play. he is twice the player chris samba is for a start.
he is relatively quick, very mobile, technically very good & dominant in the air.
his main flaw is his positioning…he relies on his other attributes to get him out of trouble on that but it will be exposed at the levels chelsea operate at. that can be improved upon however…espcially playing alongside a good talker like jt.
i think he’ll turn out to be a good solid signing & better than anyone else we could have got for £7m. including the weirdly over-rated (only by internet bloggers it seems…no-one in the actual football community seems to think he is top drawer) samba.