Transfer Thoughts: What Does The Sergio Aguero Deal Mean For Chelsea?

In case you hadn't already heard, Sergio Aguero is about to join Manchester City for £35M, which most are (correctly) describing as a pretty good deal for the denizens of Etihad Stadium. Sure, they're probably going to lose Carlos Tevez within the next few weeks, so on the face of things this isn't a huge upgrade, but Aguero is a good player and they didn't exactly have to pay through the nose for him. All told, £35M seems just about right.

Apart from strengthening City's attack (I'm still not buying them as a genuine title contender, but you never know) and providing Premier League fans with another exciting player to watch for the next few seasons, how does this deal impact Chelsea?

There are two aspects here.

• The first is that Manchester City are now almost certainly out of the race for Javier Pastore. Even if they raise a boatload of money by selling Tevez, by the time that they can refocus on the Palermo midfielder, he'll probably have already been sold. That one of their main competitors has essentially waved the white flag on the Pastore chase can only help the Blues here.
• The second is that Aguero provides a direct comparison with Pastore in negotiations. They're both young Argentinian superstars who have (or had) plenty of time left to run on their contracts with their clubs, and now one has been sold for £35M. That sets a nice little precedent for Chelsea, because despite them playing slightly different positions, it's not hard at all to see Aguero as setting some sort of precedent for a Pastore deal.

Even though I fully expect Aguero to be massively annoying to play against, I think City might have done us a favour here in terms of attracting our own summer targets. After signing Fernando Torres in January, Chelsea were never really in the hunt for Kun, so it's not like he's been swiped out from under our collective nose. And if his move to City helps us land Javier Pastore for a few million less than otherwise, great.