BREAKING: Romano says Chelsea have deal with Bournemouth to sell 19 year old winger

Amongst all the chaos at Chelsea this month – with lots of first team players being linked with moves away, Trevoh Chalobah being surprisingly recalled and results turning sour, one move has slipped under the radar.

Fabrizio Romano has just put out a Tweet claiming that the Blues have agreed a fee with Tuesday night’s opposition Bournemouth to sell them 19 year old Cobham product Zain Silcott-Duberry.

The 19 year old winger is outgrowing the Development Squad, and while he would normally be sent on loan at this stage of his career, the structure of this deal is set up in a similar way. Clearly not rated as having the potential to be a first team player, ZSD will go to the South Coast on what is likely to be a very low fee, but with lots of sell-on fees and incentives to reward us for future development from the youngster.

He will sign a contract with Bournemouth until June 2028.

Chelsea taking the risk of bigger money further down the line from latest crop of young talents

We heard today that Harvey Vale is going to be allowed to leave for free in a deal with a similar setup, which is definitely the sensible way to do things. We’ve seen how much talent and potential these Cobham kids have, and we’d much rather be protected against their development into a star in the future than cash in now.

The alternative is loaning them out to develop them, but this saves us the loan spot and probably helps the player by giving them a clean break. What Bournemouth plan to do with him is another question – could they loan him out for 6 months, or does their attacking injury crisis give him a chance right away? We will be watching their next few team sheets very curiously.