Chelsea’s search for a striker this summer is gradually coming into focus.
The club are never going to speak openly about their plans, but from sources close to the matter it seems pretty clear that the idea is to try to sign a young player to compete with Nicolas Jackson, rather than try to find an elite player who is an instant upgrade on him.
Recent days have made Liam Delap the clear favourite, thanks to his £30m release clause and his connections with Enzo Maresca. But there can be no guarantees that we will be able to sign him, given there will be serious competition from all over. It’s very much worth having a backup in mind, and it looks like that’s just what the sporting directors are about to do.
CaughtOffside’s latest piece throws a new name into the mix – Vangelis Pavlidis. The Benfica striker has been racking them up in the Portuguese top flight, scoring 24 and assisting 10 in all competitions. But we all know that those numbers won’t translate directly – Liverpool got their hands seriously burned in buying Darwin Nunez a few years ago after he had his own prolific spell in Portugal.
Price tag and Nunez memories may put off Blues from major move
Another rather off-putting factor is the £100m release clause that Pavlidis has in his contract. Of course nobody is going to pay anything close to that, but it does set the bar rather high regardless.
For now, we would put this one in the very unlikely category – unless something material changes, the different between what Benfica want and we would pay is just too big – especially for a player already 26 years old.
But we can’t rule anything out, especially if Benfica can be flexible on price.
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