When it comes to their striker situation, Chelsea are playing the long game.
This time six months ago, the talk was all about a big splashy summer move for an elite player like Victor Osimhen or Viktor Gyokeres. But since then that chatter has faded, and the priority has become finding a backup or alternate for the increasingly impressive Nicolas Jackson.
They got deep into the weeds with Aston Villa over Jhon Duran, who seemed like he could be that man. But that trail has gone cold, for now
.Another prospect was Samu Omorodion, who we heard a lot of talk about two weeks ago. That too seems to be on the backburner – and the Sun today have revealed why.
Apparently Atletico Madrid, Omorodion’s club, are demanding £70m for the Spanish U21 striker.
That’s crazy money, and we’re sure it wouldn’t take that much to persuade them to sell, but the fact that our last bid was reportedly £42m tells you everything you need to know. A £28m gap is not easily bridged, unless we really do start want to including players as swaps.
A strong commitment to the strategy
In any case, if this striker signing truly is to be a backup or alternate to Jackson, spending so much on them is a bad idea, and we can see why our co-sporting directors have decided to go in another direction. Much like the Duran deal, this is something we can come back to later in the summer once we’ve got a better idea of how the squad is coming together.
There are so many forwards on the books, some of whom are expected to be sold, others loaned. It’s still not impossible we decide to back off these overpriced options and go with a Deivid Washington or an Armando Broja backing up Jackson and Christopher Nkunku.
