Supporting Chelsea these days means also supporting their affiliate clubs.
While the Blues are staying pretty cautious in the transfer market, focusing on hoovering up young talents for the future and thus far not making big budget additions to the first team, sister club Strasbourg are making waves, despite a change of manager just last week.
Liam Rosenior oversaw his first game at the weekend – a 4-1 friendly defeat – but behind the scenes, work was going on to strengthen his group. Today L’Equipe report that the Alsatians are closing in on Goncalo Borges of Porto.
The 23 year old winger featured for his club as they beat Al Nassr of Saudi Arabia in a friendly of their own last night. But his future seems to be in Ligue 1, where he would slot in instantly as a star player for Strasbourg.
An agreement is “close to being reached” and should be expected “in the coming days.” A fee of around £8m base value is expected, with further money injected via add ons and bonuses. That’s a lot of money for Strasbourg, and one would imagine they’re only able to operate at this sort of level because of the money BlueCo are injecting.
What Borges is all about
A left footed right winger in the classic Portuguese style, Borges is full of technical skill. He has been a regular for Porto’s B team since being promoted to that level in 2019, and has also played plenty of times for the first team. He’s featured for Portugal up to U21 level.
Clearly the decision has been made that he’s not quite cut out to become a first team regular at the Dragao – but he’s got bags of talent and could be a real difference maker for Rosenior’s team this season. We saw Chelsea loanee Angelo Gabriel excel in the same place a year ago.
