New-look Chelsea a puzzle for Champions League opponents Borussia Dortmund

Dig around the margins of Chelsea’s vast squad, and you find two of the good reasons why Borussia Dortmund are considered modern masters in the business of buying and selling. They are Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Christian Pulisic. In successive winter transfer windows, Dortmund sold those two strikers for combined fees of more than €120 million ($129m) and upwards of €100m in profit. That was a few years ago, before the sales by Dortmund of Jadon Sancho and Erling Haaland and just after they had drawn €140m out of Barcelona for a young Ousmane Dembele. It was a period when €120m was far more than might be routinely paid for a deep-lying midfielder with only six months experience in a European league, like it was last month for Enzo Fernandez . But that’s how inflation in the transfer market works. Chelsea, who visit Dortmund in the Champions League on Wednesday, are the drivers of the latest bout of it, the €120m Fernandez, their recruit from Benfica, just one of the huge new pricetags in their catalogue. The Chelsea team selected by Graham Potter, a manager whose debut in the knockout stage of the European Cup is bound to be judged on what use he makes of expensive new signings, will not include Pulisic, who is coming back from a knee injury. It cannot include Aubameyang, whose fall down the Chelsea hierarchy is one knock-on effect of the spectacular splurge on talent the London club have made in the last six months. Aubameyang, who joined Arsenal from Dortmund in 2018 and Chelsea last summer from Barcelona, has been left out entirely from Potter’s Champions League squad and now finds himself in the logjam of stars feeling suddenly surplus. The frenzied turnover of personnel at Stamford Bridge makes Chelsea a puzzle for opponents. “It means they are not easy to analyse,” said the Dortmund coach Edin Terzic. “We started looking at them after the draw [for the last-16] was made last year, and then they brought in a lot of players.” Eight in the winter window at a cost of more than €300m, only three of whom can be added, midseason, to the squad for European competition under Uefa rules. The chosen trio are Fernandez, Mykhailo Mudryk and the on-loan Joao Felix, who played respectively in the group phase for Benfica, Shakhtar Donetsk and Atletico Madrid. “They have brought in truly top players,” added Terzic. “There’ll be some on the bench who won the Champions League final only two years ago. We know the quality: Joao Felix has been in form recently, and moving across positions in a way that teammates are finding him. He and Fernandez can unlock games. Mudryk showed his ability on the wing at Shakhtar. But you can’t predict exactly what line-up they will use.” What Terzic can do is second-guess, with some authority, Potter’s instincts. The two managers, both in their 40s, got to know each other on coaching courses run in England, where Terzic worked as an assistant to Slaven Bilic at West Ham. He and Potter remained in touch. “He’s an impressive character,” said the German, who was promoted from within the Dortmund hierarchy to caretaker coach two seasons ago – just as Potter was enhancing his reputation at Brighton – and returned to the Dortmund post permanently last summer, just before Potter was poached by Chelsea. “Two years ago, we probably wouldn’t have forecast that we’d be seeing each other in the Champions League last-16,” the German said with a smile. Nor, given Chelsea’s January spending and the fact that Dortmund came into the new year sixth in the Bundesliga after successive defeats, would it have been predicted six weeks ago that Terzic’s side would be the form team going into the first leg. While juggling which of his new stars to pick and where to position them, Potter has overseen just one win in seven league games. Dortmund won their sixth on the trot at the weekend. That’s the sort of consistency that speaks of stable ideas, even if some of those wins, like the 4-3 see-saw against Augsburg or the stoppage-time comeback against Mainz, shredded Terzic’s nerves. Dortmund have strengthened in the winter window too. If the €5m addition of full-back Julian Ryerson is hardly the sort of transfer that would excite the Chelsea of 2023, the major good news of Dortmund’s new year was the return to action of striker Sebastien Haller, who joined last summer from Ajax but was almost immediately diagnosed with testicular cancer. His treatment has been successful. Haller made his debut for Dortmund last month and scored his first goal against Freiburg 11 days ago. On Wednesday evening he returns to a competition he has a special affinity with, having had his first taste of it last season with Ajax. He promptly scored 11 goals in just seven and a half games. “He’s important for us,” said Terzic, “and I feel not just his excitement but everybody’s.”

New-look Chelsea a puzzle for Champions League opponents Borussia Dortmund

German side's coach Edin Terzic admits he doesn't know what line-up to plan for after January transfer frenzy