Chelsea signed a 2 year contract with Barcelona’s Brazilian right-fullback Juliano Belletti for a sum of 5.5 million pounds. Belletti likes to play on the wing like a typical Brazilian fullback and will also give some extra potency to Chelsea’s defense. He had famously scored the winner against Arsenal to help Barca lift the Champions League 2 years ago.
This signing seems to have completed Chelsea’s shopping for the season with them seemingly having a couple of good men for every position on the field. The right back position was the only place where Chelsea were looking vulnerable and Belletti’s inclusion will certainly come as a relief for coach Jose Mourinho.
Mourinho has had to do with a stop gap arrangement of making Michael Essien, who is an attacking midfielder, play as a right back for the beginning of the season. It evidently hasn’t proved too well an arrangement considering that Chelsea have let in 4 goals in their first 3 matches with 2 against newly promoted Birmingham City. This signing will help Essien play in the midfield and would certainly give a boost to their midfield which was looking increasingly blunt with Michael Ballack injured and Frank Lampard not at his best.
The process of signing Belletti was indeed a very quick one considering that the defender got to know about the idea only 2 days back. Belletti was getting completely sidelined in the Barca team after the inclusion on Italian Gianluca Zambrotta and had managed to feature in only 13 games last season. It will also come as a monetary relief for Chelsea as they would have had to shell out close to 30 million pounds for Sevilla’s right back Daniel Alves whom they had been targeting since quite some time.
VIA:BBC Sport
