It’s been a busy morning of reports, with both top sources Matt Law and Fabrizio Romano commenting on the chaos at Cobham.
While on the one hand two new players are arriving to take medicals and sign documents ahead of their arrivals, there are also 4 players being frozen out of the first team picture. Romano and Law agree that Armando Broja, Trevoh Chalobah and David Fofana have all been told to train separately and look for moves away. With them is another big dog – £100m man Romelu Lukaku.
In his case, the training separately hardly feels like news. In fact it’s about the third summer running where we would have expected such treatment. The problem has always been getting a club to offer us good money for him, and that appears to still be a problem.
The Lukaku dilemma is back again
Romano says that he’s agreed a 3 year contract with Napoli, and is just waiting for the club to come to terms. But Law’s report says that Chelsea want a £37.8m buyout clause in his contract met, and the Italian club aren’t willing to come close to that.
In fact, reports in Italy say that the Neapolitans are only willing to stretch to €30m, around £26m.
That £11.8m is a lot, but Chelsea are so desperate to just rid themselves of this troublesome striker that they might just have to swallow the medicine. Usually a gap in valuation like that can be bridged with some bonuses and add ons – but Napoli president Aurelio de Laurentiis is a notoriously tough negotiator, and we couldn’t say we’d be surprised if they held out and forced our hand.
The £100m we paid for him looks like one of the worst deals in football history. Before you even think about wages and the opportunity cost.