Osimhen to Chelsea? Blues’ dream signing feels closer than ever

Robin Bairner

5 Aug 2024 02:23 CDT
5 min read

Victor Osimhen’s transfer to Chelsea is slowly but surely starting to fall into place.

Article continues under the video

A deal for the Nigeria international striker may be days or perhaps even still weeks away, but as Transfer Deadline Day looms, Chelsea have the man they have for so long craved in their sights.

Make no mistake, the Blues are coming. PSG may remain in pole position for the 25-year-old Napoli hitman, but their status as frontrunners looks increasingly vulnerable as the hours pass.

Indeed, the longer this saga drags out, the likelier Osimhen is to go to Chelsea.

Current ETV

Victor Osimhen

F (C)

Napoli

Victor Osimhen

F (C)

Napoli

ETV Range

€53.3M - €88.9M

Osimhen deal could explode at any moment

The main worry is that the matter comes to a head too rapidly, which is what Napoli head coach Antonio Conte wants.

Some sources even suggest the former Blues boss has threatened to quit his new job over the issue, although Naples paper Il Mattino says that he is being relatively patient for now, even if he wants five new recruits to work with. There is no doubt he is exerting pressure on Napoli.

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What Conte wants will only be possible if Osimhen is sold, yet this will only occur if and when the Serie A side reduce their transfer demands. These currently stand at €120 million, the value of the player’s release clause.

PSG have been persistently frustrated with this, despite having agreed a contract with the prolific striker.

Chelsea and Arsenal, too, have been put off. Both, though, are circling again, aware of Napoli’s increasingly weak position. The Italians, after all, cannot operate with Osimhen’s €11m wage burdening them and no Champions League football to act as a financial counterweight.

Napoli’s need to sell plus the increasing frustration of the mercurial Conte is, therefore, playing into the hands of the Stamford Bridge side.

Romelu Lukaku is another factor aiding Chelsea. The Belgium international is the striker that Conte wants to replace Osimhen. Of course, the Blues will have no problem including him in a deal. For reasons of the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), it would be preferable for them to conduct a separate deal for Lukaku, but this seems a relatively minor hurdle in this complex transfer saga.

Neither Arsenal nor PSG have such leverage.

STATS

Victor Osimhen

F (C)

Napoli

Victor Osimhen

F (C)

Napoli

32

Games
17

Goals
4

Assists

And if raw cash was a problem for the Stamford Bridge side, too, earlier in the market, this issue appears to have taken a step closer to being resolved.

Conor Gallagher’s agreement to move to Atletico Madrid on a deal worth €40m – more than €10m below his Estimated Transfer Value (ETV) – opens up new horizons for the club in the transfer market. The England midfielder is, after all, considered a ‘pure profit player’, the windfall from which can be poured immediately back into other deals.

It may be that Chelsea need to make more such sales, perhaps one or two, but with Lukaku on board, the Stamford Bridge side find themselves as close to Osimhen as they ever have been this summer.