The Daily Dirt, January 26, 2018: SOUND THE ALARM

Just when you thought silly season was coming to a close, it heats right back up. Yesterday featured an array of news from Atlanta to Chelsea. If you somehow missed it all, we got you covered.

Atlanta changes course, reportedly sells Carlos Carmona to Colo-Colo

Just four days after Atlanta United Technical Director, Carlos Bocanegra, emphatically stated that Carmona would remain with Atlanta for 2018, the team has reportedly sold Carmona. Carmona and his wife are expecting a child soon, and it has been reported that they want it to be born in Chile. Certainly, something new came up that made Atlanta and Carmona believe it would be best if he returned to his home country, Chile, for his wife and child.

This was 100% the right move by Atlanta but now raises the question of who will hold down the central defensive midfield (CDM) spot for the season that is rapidly approaching. Will they look internally at veteran Jeff Larentowicz? Possibly bring back a familiar name in Anton Walkes? Or will they look to bring in someone else? We had our top flight (Football Manager) scout, Joe Patrick look at possible options to replace Carmona.

Atlanta United tried to #SignAsad this offseason

So apparently the team did try to sign Yamil Asad earlier this offseason and reportedly even came to terms on a transfer fee. It’s not 100% why or how the transfer fell through. In my opinion, as to why Asad could have declined to rejoin the five stripes, he was offered a reduced role due to the Barco signing and he didn’t want to be riding the bench at this point of his career.

I think it’s still important to note that even if Atlanta and Asad couldn’t come to terms now, that doesn’t prevent something from ever being worked out in the future. MLSSoccer.com’s Sam Stejskal confirmed Atlanta still hold Asad’s MLS rights.

#SignAsad seems to be dead for now but we’ll keep a close eye as more as this story unfolds.

Chelsea sputter in Carabao Cup, just two wins in last seven matches

Chelsea is getting bit hard with the injury bug, and it’s showing up in the results, winning just two of their last seven with one coming off of PKs. Chelsea manager, Antonio Conte, made strong notice of the lack of depth saying “When there is an injury to one of your best players (Willan) it is not simple, especially when on the bench the only substitute is Ross Barkley”.

Conte would later go on to say that Barkley is a good player but still needs time to learn Chelsea football. Barkley, who recently joined Chelsea on a transfer from Everton, hadn’t played in a while and was super rusty.

It will be interesting to see what Chelsea plans to do; Do they finally spend more money and bolster the injury-plagued roster? Do they sit on what they have and hope it solves itself (not a great plan IMO)? In a more dramatic look, do they look to move on from Conte, placing the blame tactics more than the quality on the field?

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If you haven't already, I highly recommend taking a look at the articles below from Josh and Sam, both are fantastic, with Sam being comedic and Josh more serious and insightful (sorry Sam).