Lewis Hall’s loan move to Chelsea is one of those deals that insiders will refer to as ‘complicated.’
At the time, we all assumed that Hall’s loan move was with a guaranteed obligation for him to join them on a permanent move in the summer. But apparently not….
Eddie Howe says he “can’t confirm” whether Hall will sign for Newcastle permanently at the end of the season. There are still some certain criteria to hit to trigger the obligation to buy clause in loan deal from Chelsea.
Not one outlet or journalist had this info, we all assumed it was a done deal that Hall was now a Newcastle player and it was only a loan with obligation for FFP purposes on Newcastle’’s side.
I assume that with Newcastle’s exit from Europe and potential FFP charges pending, that they might not decide to buy Hall and then deliberately not meet the criteria to sign him.
The whole situation was very complex and there was a lot of rumours going around at the time as to why Hall moved to Newcastle, and there was a lot of finger pointing and blame.
I was, and still am, disappointed that Hall left Chelsea, he is a player I rate very highly and think he will be a top player for a top six Premier League side. And maybe that will now be Chelsea?
We have to see obviously if the criteria is met and the actual details behind it all, but Hall possibly still being a Chelsea player does excite me, I can’t lie.
Chelsea’s left back situation could very much open up, with both Ian Maatsen and Marc Cucurella having question marks over their future, and Ben Chilwell being super injury prone.
Chelsea are keen on a new left back in 2024 and of course, have both Alphonso Davies of Bayern Munich, and Valentin Barco of Boca Juniors on their radar as potential targets for that area. I first reported this some weeks back now on my Substack site – Si Phillips Talks Chelsea.
So it will be interesting to see how the Hall thing develops.
Hall of course always saw himself as a midfielder, but he might be wise to keep that very open and try and perfect a left-sided role.
He’s such a good prospect and could really develop into something great. I was gutted when he left, but maybe it’s not the end at all.
