With the exception of Belarus, South Korea and starting this Saturday, Germany, global football is currently suspended. The Premier League has been given the all clear by the government to restart after June 1, behind closed doors, and with that in mind, teams are now training awhile adhering to social distancing guidelines.
However, there are still plenty of questions to be answered when it comes to Project Restart, and we’ll learn more this week as meetings are held and votes taken. Until football returns, we still have plenty of transfer rumors to cover. So let’s take a spin with through the Blues rumor mill.
For part two of today’s Chelsea transfer talk go here.
Today’s edition is all about two more chapters in the long colorful book of United vs. Chelsea, head to head in the transfer market. Borussia Dortmund winger Jadon Sancho is the next front in this all out transfer window war, as he’s been strongly linked with both clubs.
Obviously, the coronavirus pandemic is hitting a lot of clubs hard in the ledger sheet, and thus it is thought that spending will sharply decline in this summer’s transfer window. Nevertheless, Sancho’s contract will remain a very expensive commodity, with talk of BVB holding steady at a price of £120 million.
To help raise the funding of that purchase, Chelsea will look to jettison two major flops- Tiemoue Bakayoko and Alvaro Morata.
That’s according to the Daily Express, who claim Stamford Bridge wants to bank close to £80 million for the pair. With Morata, 27, it shouldn’t be an issue as he’ll join Atletico Madrid on a permanent basis for a fee of €65 million once his 18-month (yes, it’s a year and a half) loan expires at the end of the season.
Bakayoko went back to his old club of Monaco until the end of this season on loan. The club of the principality have an option to buy we’ll see.
The 25-year-old midfielder spent last season with AC Milan, who turned down Chelsea’s offer of €35m.
So you have, naturally with a deal this big, a lot of moving parts to figure out.
Elsewhere, it’s time for an update on Lyon striker Moussa Dembele, who’s been linked with both Manchester United and Chelsea this spring. And according to this update, it’s bad news for Chelsea, as the Express claims an agreement in principle has been reached.
The publication quotes a fee agreed at £61.8 million (€70m), citing Todofichajes for the 23-year-old Frenchman, who came up through the Paris Saint-Germain and Fulham developmental systems.
Dembele could provide that need for a second striker, a void that’s been on display all season long. Behind Tammy Abraham there just isn’t a lot, as Olivier Giroud is long past his prime.
We’ve seen periods this season where the Blues attack has stalled out, and they’ve failed to find the back of the net.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly contributes to WGN TV, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Now and SB Nation.
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