Bought from AS Monaco a while ago, Tiemoué Bakayoko’s time at Chelsea has been anything but a success.
Used by Antonio Conte at first, the defensive midfielder quickly saw his time on the pitch dwindle when Maurizio Sarri came along, and it never improved following Frank Lampard’s appointment.
That’s why multiple loans, some more successful than others, were organised, first at Milan, then at AS Monaco and finally the current one at Napoli.
Playing under Gennaro Gattuso for the first and third, there was hope that a second season under the former midfielder would help Bakayoko both regain his status and increase his price ahead of the upcoming transfer window.
While it all started positively in Naples, the ending has been close to disastrous.
Gazzetta dello Sport look at it on Wednesday, and explain why the Frenchman ‘will return to the Premier League’ at the end of the season.
That reason is Diego Demme, who has thrived alongside Fabián Ruiz in recent weeks in Gattuso’s 4-2-3-1 formation, allowing the Spaniard to ‘take more risks in the final 20m’, something that never worked when playing next to Bakayoko.
While the former Monaco man ‘was chosen directly by the manager’, the player ‘never managed to satisfy his demands or those of the team’.
Therefore, the decision to put Demme in instead is what ‘will lead to the renouncement of Bakayoko’s purchase’, and thus why he will be sent back to Stamford Bridge.
