Why Chelsea can’t seriously compete in chase for United winger without major change in policy
This whispers from earlier this week about Chelsea interest in Alejandro Garnacho are getting more and more convincing.
It was David Ornstein who had them first, but now other insiders are joining in.
Simon Johnson’s piece for the Athletic claimed that Chelsea could be interested on the basis that Mykhailo Mudryk is going to be out for a very long time with a doping ban, and that our other wingers prefer to play on the right.
The situation is that Napoli, having sold their star winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia to PSG, are ready to go in hard for Garnacho and have made an opening bid of €50m, according to Fabrizio Romano, as we discussed here.
United, for their part, are switching to a system which doesn’t use wingers, and are therefore happy to let him to in order to provide funds to strengthen elsewhere. One would assume they’d rather not sell to Chelsea and strengthen a rival, but ultimately money talks.
Chelsea’s major issue in signing Man U talent
The problem for Chelsea is that Napoli are already setting the bar very high. The Blues would love an opportunistic bid to snap up a rival’s unwanted player on the cheap. But if bidding is starting at €50m, it could clearly spiral way beyond that.
Romano says Man U “want more,” and they can probably get it. Napoli are offering big money and can offer the Argentine a very good chance of winning Serie A this season, plus potentially more trophies in the near future with Antonio Conte in charge.
Chelsea can offer a 7 or 8 year contract on low base salary… and that’s about it. RIght now, catching or beating Napoli’s offer both financially and in sporting terms looks very difficult for us without a major change in policy.