Last night Nizaar Kinsella dropped the exclusive that Chelsea are chasing Nicolas Jackson of Villareal, and today he’s followed up with further details on the deal.
Jackson has a €35m (£30m) release clause, and is keen to come to Chelsea, so it could be a deal that goes from rumour to reality in a very short period. The beauty of a release clause is how quickly things can get done – Chelsea can offer the sum right away, Villareal have to accept, we can organise personal terms in a matter of days, and then boom, we’ve got ourselves a new player with minimal fuss.
Kinsella’s piece says the club want to get a deal for “next week”, and there’s no reason to think that’s not a strong possibility. Whether it’s the right deal is another question, but it at least represents some progress.
A further twist in the tale is that Jackson’s agent is the same as Moises Caicedo’s, the Brighton midfielder who appears to be top of our list in that position now that Declan Rice is out of our price range.
There’s no telling if that will end up being significant, but it’s certainly something that’s worth noting once we have wrapped up a Jackson deal and start to push for the Ecuador international to come and join too.
That will be a much bigger and more difficult deal to do.
