Fabrizio Romano in black and white.
Fabrizio Romano in black and white.

Romano clears up transfer confusion – €6m deal with no loan confirmed

Earlier this afternoon, transfer insider Gianluca Di Marzio dropped some rather surprising information.

He claimed that Chelsea were going to sign Rennes right back Guela Doué for a fee potentially rising to €9m, and then loan him to their affiliate club Strasbourg.

This is also what seems to be about to happen with recent signing from MLS, left back Caleb Wiley.

The move didn’t make much sense to us – Chelsea are limited to just 6 foreign loan slots, and they have a whole host of players they need to send out on development loans, and others who no longer have a first team place whose value they want to protect or grow.

We were confused, but Fabrizio Romano has swopped in this afternoon to clear things up – once again running rings around Di Marzio. He says that it’s a straight transfer for Doué from Rennes to Strasbourg, with no Chelsea involvement (beyond having the same ownership as the Alsatians). Romano also claims the price in “in excess of €6m,” as opposed to the “€7m plus €2m bonuses” that

Doué looks to be a great signing for Strasbourg, and can immediately help the first team under new manager Liam Rosenior, who was confirmed today in his new position.

Confusion returns

This arrangement makes a hell of a lot more sense – and it’s interesting to note that this isn’t the first time that we’ve had a Chelsea-Strasbourg deal reported initially the wrong way round, only for someone better sourced to come in shortly after and correct the original story.

Whether it was Di Marzio getting the weong information, or just misunderstanding and misreporting it isn’t clear. The good news is that it’s cleared up now, and we no longer have to worry about a precious foreign loan slot being taken up just to help Strasbourg.

Tags Guela Doué
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