A curious story on Spanish website Sport yesterday afternoon noted that Chelsea had offered €60m for Aurelien Tchouameni, and would now offer €80m to try and persuade Madrid to sell the France midfielder.
We’re really not sure why on Earth we would have tried that. Perhaps it’s a case of it’s so strange that it might be true? Tchouameni has really impressed since joining Madrid and is making great progress as a starter more and more often.
Yes they have signed Jude Bellingham, but there are still plenty of minutes to go round, and Toni Kroos and Luka Modric are a year older. Tchouameni should be delighted with his time in La Liga so far.
Why would he give that up to come to Chelsea, who aren’t even in the Champions League? We can’t see it. Perhaps it’s a power play, or Chinese whispers, or the Chelsea owners have heard about some kind of discontent behind the scenes, because from our point of view it makes little sense.
If we were simply going to try and overwhelm them with a huge offer, it would have needed to be a lot bigger than €60m or even €80m. He’s an important piece for one of the most successful and rich teams around, it will prove almost impossible to force them to sell while he still has a long contract remaining at the Bernabeu.