Mauro Icardi will NOT be heading to Atletico Madrid in the summer, which has handed Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri a huge boost in his Chelsea pursuit.
Despite having Olivier Giroud and Gonzalo Higuaín on the books at Chelsea, there has been a lot of transfer speculation in the media over the past few months which has all suggested that Chelsea are looking for a more long-term solution, with Icardi high up o the shopping list.
Icardi is regarded as one of the finest strikers in world football and continually nets 25-plus goals a season for the Italian side, but he has been stalling on a new contract with Inter, with reports suggesting they will not pay his demands, which has alerted a number of top clubs in England and Spain.
But Tuttomercatoweb are now reporting that Atletico are not pushing for a deal, despite rumours in the Spanish media, and it means Chelsea would likely have a straight-up battle with Real Madrid – Atletico’s city rivals – to sign the Argentina international.
However, it is also believed that Inter wants close to £100 million for their goal-machine, but nwither Chelsea nor Real are willing to go that high and would prefer to land Icardi for close to the £80 million mark.
Chelsea are facing that huge transfer ban so all this speculation is just that, speculation. But there is a good chance that the ban will get overturned in the coming weeks and if that is the case, then acquiring a world class goal-machine like Icardi is the right move from the Chelsea hierarchy.
Higuaín has struggled, Giroud is hit and miss, while Eden Hazard looks all set to pack his bags and make that big money move to Real Madrid, so Sarri will be lacking a whole load of goals when the Belgian leaves. So if they can convince Icardi that the Premier League is the better move over Madrid, then they would be serious challengers for the title next season.
Chelsea are going trough a tricky phase right now and need to be careful about whom they sell, as if the transfer ban is not overturned, then they could have serious problems even challenging for the Champions League spots next season, something which Chelsea fans don’t want to hear, but is the case if they are not able to improve their squad in the next few transfer windows.