Chelsea transfers: Should Blues swap Renato Veiga for Juventus’ Dusan Vlahovic? | OneFootball

According to reports Chelsea defender Renato Veiga looks set to join Serie A side Juventus until the end of the season.

Veiga joined Chelsea from Basel in the summer and has played 18 times for the Blues across all competitions. But that converts to just 1,166 minutes, with over half of those coming in the Europa Conference League.

In the Premier League, Veiga has been restricted to just 177 minutes across seven appearances, with one start. And he hasn’t featured in the league for Chelsea since 8th December, an unused substitute in five games and not in the squad at all for two.

When Veiga was signed, he was definitely earmarked as one for the future — whether for Chelsea, or to sell for a profit. He’s only 21 and can play in multiple positions. But that’s what appears to be counting against him.

According to reports, Veiga isn’t happy with being utilised as a left-back, preferring to play in central defence. Across all competitions this season, 56% of Veiga’s minutes have come on the left side of the pitch, whether at full-back or wing-back. He’s played 22% of his minutes in midfield and 22% in central defence.

Those two centre-back appearances came in the Europa Conference League against Panathinaikos and Shamrock Rovers, as part of a back four. And in his three Uefa Nations League appearances for Portugal, Veiga started and played the full 90 minutes at centre-back in a back four or a back three.

Excluding Europa Conference League qualifiers, Veiga has two goals and one assist for Chelsea, taking 15 shots and creating 12 chances. He’s definitely more of a goalscoring threat than a creative defender, looking to get onto the end of crosses rather than providing them.

The Portuguese defender is decent on the ball, completing 89.76% of his passes with 12.67 completed final third passes per 90 minutes. But the general consensus among Chelsea fans is there are equally as good options to come through for the academy. So it’s win-win, whether Veiga returns a better defender or is in a position to sell for profit in the summer.

The question is, could Chelsea get more from Juventus? Recent reports suggest that Chelsea might try to get Dusan Vlahovic involved in the deal for Veiga, or vice versa — hoping the Portuguese defender would lower the fee for the striker.

And if they could, should they?

Nicolas Jackson has been the starting striker for Chelsea this season, with mixed results. He started the campaign well and was battling with the best in the Premier League for underlying metrics, including shot placement ratio. For all the talk of Jackson missing big opportunities, he was improving his chances scoring where he was placing his shots.

But at the moment, the Senegalese striker has been struggling. It’s now six games without a goal for Jackson, with Chelsea only scoring seven goals during that time. By comparison, Jackson scored nine goals in his first 15 league appearances of the season.

Vlahovic is on 12 goals in 25 appearances across all competitions for Juventus, with seven of those coming in Serie A. And those seven goals have been shared across five matches, with two braces.

So Vlahovic might not actually be the goalscoring upgrade on Jackson that Chelsea are being linked with.

Per 90 minutes, Jackson has scored more goals in the league than Vlahovic, though it’s close at 0.50 to 0.47. He also provides more assists per 90 at 0.22 to 0.07. Although Vlahovic (3.78) takes more shots per 90 than Jackson (3.25) in the league, the Senegalese striker hits the target more often (1.6 to 1.35). In terms of shot accuracy, that’s 49.15% for Jackson and 35.71% for Vlahovic.

Jackson is also better at Vlahovic when it comes to big chances. He’s scoring them more often (0.39 to 0.34) and missing them less frequently (0.77 to 0.81).

Now, Vlahovic does have a higher xG and xGOT than Jackson in the league this season. The Serbian’s xG is 0.68 per 90 and his xGOT is 0.6. Jackson, by comparison, has 0.6 xG and 0.58 xGOT. But, Jackson once again comes out on top for shot placement ratio at 0.97 to 0.87.

And it’s worth noting that Vlahovic’s xG is boosted by the fact that he’s on penalties. His non-penalty xG is at 0.47 per 90, lower than Jackson who obviously doesn’t take spot-kicks for Chelsea.

Vlahovic is not the xG-defying player he was when bursting onto the scene. And whatever money Chelsea might get off for Veiga still may not be worth it.