Over the past few months, Chelsea have been in the picture to sign Independiente del Valles’ Patrik Mercado.
On October 7th, Sport Witness covered claims from South America of both the Blues and Wolves being interested.
Two months ago, the same source reported Wolves were ahead of Chelsea in the race to sign the 22-year-old.
Fast forward to February and Wednesday’s edition of AS covers the latest on Chelsea when reporting Sevilla’s interest.
Chelsea to miss out on Mercado
The Andalusian club have also been pursuing the Ecuador international and even made advances to secure his services in the winter market. However, a move didn’t go through in the last window as a non-EU slot wasn’t vacant.
That hasn’t stopped them from chasing the midfielder desired by Liam Rosenior’s side. The newspaper now state ‘Sevilla have beaten Chelsea’ and other competitors to win the race for Mercado’s signature.
AS now state the La Liga side will pay €6m to Independiente del Valles for the Ecuadorian.
ABC Sevilla, a newspaper local to Sevilla, backs up Chelsea’s interest and then covers the latest. It’s claimed the Spanish club have secured a pre-agreement for the player to arrive in the summer.
Why there’s still hope for the Blues
However, the newspaper warns the ‘pre-agreement comes with significant implications and conditions’. In order to register the South American, Sevilla will have to first make changes within the club.
As Mercado is from Ecuador, the Spanish club will have to make a non-EU slot available for him. Brazilian Marcão and Chilean duo of Alexis Sánchez and Gabriel Suazo are now occupying it.
Marcão is in the process of obtaining a Spanish passport while Sánchez is likely to leave after this season.
In addition to this, Sevilla have to make room in their wage bill to sign Mercado. This can be done by offloading some of the players, which would also help them improve their finances.
These conditions may offer Chelsea time to hijack the operation from Sevilla’s clutches.