Paris Saint-Germain reportedly feel that Chelsea may have taken their eye off the ball slightly with Hakim Ziyech due to being so busy with the deal for Enzo Fernandez on Deadline Day.
That’s according to Ben Jacobs, who told Team Talk that Chelsea feel they did nothing wrong at their end, though it seems PSG aren’t entirely convinced the Ziyech deal had their full attention.
Ziyech has struggled for regular playing time at Stamford Bridge in recent times, and a loan move to PSG could have been ideal for him to get back to enjoying himself on the pitch again.
Still, Chelsea and PSG failed to get everything done in time, and so the Morocco international has had to accept staying in west London for a little longer.
PSG will be far from impressed as they missed out on a potentially quality signing, but Chelsea fans might well be pleased to see just how much the club was putting into getting the Fernandez deal over the line.
“Chelsea made it very clear from their end that it was not about ‘incompetence’, it was an unfortunate technical error out of their control. And they sent a minute-by-minute account of how things transpired,” Jacobs said.
“PSG appealed to the LFP [Ligue de Football Professionnel] the following day, who rejected it because they don’t want to set the precedent of allowing players to sign after the deadline. It was always very difficult to win that appeal and there was always low confidence from the PSG end.
“But Chelsea did help with that and provide their side of things to try and see whether a technical error might be deemed to be mitigating circumstances. Unfortunately for all parties nothing could be done.”
He added: “Chelsea were working on a lot of deals towards the end of the window, and although the club denies that their pursuit of Enzo Fernandez affected anything, PSG argue otherwise and sources there believe that Chelsea had too much on their plate.”