According to reports, Chelsea are the ‘expected winner’ in the race to sign a Manchester United star as they have been ‘given the answer’ on a transfer.
Chelsea are second in our ranking of this summer’s biggest spenders in Europe as they have invested around £250m on signings, but they are far from finished in this window.
The Blues remain in the market for forwards as they are plotting moves for Xavi Simons and Alejandro Garnacho.
The London outfit were among the clubs interested in Garnacho after Man Utd made him available in this year’s winter window for around £70m as they looked to sanction a pure profit sale.
Man Utd’s huge demands put off interested clubs in January as they couldn’t reach an agreement over Garnacho’s exit, but his departure is more likely this summer as he’s dropped further in the pecking order after falling out with head coach Ruben Amorim.
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Garnacho is part of United’s so-called bomb squad and Chelsea remain interested in the winger.
Former Premier League chief scout Mick Brown, who ‘remains very well-connected within the game’, has named the Blues as the ‘expected winner’ in the race to sign him, with an ‘answer given’.
“Everybody is expecting Garnacho to leave,” Brown told Football Insider.
“Chelsea are the one club who have shown a genuine desire to bring him in. He’s been linked with a lot of clubs, the likes of Tottenham and a few others, but none of them have made a move yet and Chelsea have.
“It feels like Chelsea are signing anybody and everybody at the moment, I don’t know how they do it.
“Garnacho is one they’ve been looking at for a while, and there is that desire from all sides to get the deal done because he doesn’t have a part to play under Amorim.
“He’s a very talented player, but the answer for him has always been to get a move away. So for that reason, it feels like they are confident of getting that move.
“Chelsea have been speaking to him and his agent, so I think it won’t be too long until they reach an agreement over a price with United.“
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Earlier this week, football finance expert Stefan Borson claimed Man Utd may have to accept a £40m cut to offload Garnacho in a deal worth around £30m.
“I think it feels like a bit of a no-brainer for £30million,” Borson claimed.
“You would be hard pushed to lose money at £30million because I think he is a player whose wages are manageable right now because he’s young and he’s not had that big uplift.
“I think he would get a sizeable contract at Chelsea, but I think to the point where he’s the kind of player that if you bought him for £30million and he was okay, not disastrous, but you wanted to shift him on next summer or the summer after, it feels very doable to Europe.
“I do think it’s a low-risk deal. But then, if it is so low risk, then it is interesting that so far nobody has bitten. There seems to be very little interest aside from Chelsea, which is slightly surprising.”