Super agent Jon Smith’s column for CaughtOffside was a great ready today, as ever, and while its focus was fairly broad he did drop in a Chelsea transfer mention.
“I’m also looking at Napoli’s Victor Osimhen, which is an obvious one to Chelsea,” Smith replied when asked to predict some of the big moves that we could see later in the summer once the Euros are over and when clubs have had a chance to sell some player to raise funds.
This follows reports earlier today that a move hasn’t been totally ruled out, as long as Osimhen’s club Napoli drop their asking price, which has remained extremely high, as you’d expect for an elite striker in his prime.
A move that has never looked as unlikely as now
We’re not ones to contradict someone as plugged in as Smith, but certainly from our perspective the Osimhen deal has never looked as unlikely as it does now.
Chelsea chased him intensely for years, and during that time we heard constant reports about their scouts watching him and what it would take to persuade Napoli to sell. Now it’s all gone totally silent – we’ve barely seen his name mentioned since the window opened, and the overall chatter about a move has really fallen off a cliff since about 6 months ago.
We’re not interested in spending the sort of money on transfer fee and wages it would take to bring him in, and the poor season the striker had by his high standards was hardly going to convince us to break the bank (and the wage structure) to move heaven and earth to sign him.
Smith predicts a “last minute rush” in the window in general, but we really don’t expect a €120m-odd offer from Chelsea to Napoli to be part of it.