This feels like it’s going to be one of the maddest deadline days in a while – and it’s off to a strong start.
Chelsea have a phenomenal number of players to shift – so many that it feels impossible they all happen. Yet they continue to try and bring in new players.
Fabrizio Romano has just claimed that the Blues have “submitted an official bid” to Manchester United for Jadon Sancho. The Italian insider claims it’s a loan deal, with an option to buy at the end. It’s a similar arrangement to the one already on the table from Juventus.
Sancho, after a dreadful time at Old Trafford since making the move there from Borussia Dortmund, is “open” to the change, understandably. He must be keen to go anywhere, whether that’s Serie A or Stamford Bridge.
As Romano says, it’s all now down to Man U to work out what they think of our bid. The Red Devils must be keen to get rid of a highly paid underperformer – but we may also have tried our lucky with a real low ball that they won’t consider.
Head-scratching move seems to have legs
We don’t know what to make of this interest. It made sense, PSR and FFP accounting wise, to have some sort of trade where we got Raheem Sterling off our books, and took Sancho from United in return. But signing a player who has comprehensively flopped in the Premier League, on big wages, in a position where we’ve got players already, without even getting shot of Sterling in the process? That is hard to make sense of.
It makes so little sense that there must be some quid pro quo going on somewhere. If we do sign Sancho, we’d be very surprised if there isn’t a follow up deal somewhere along the line.