Chelsea to sell 21-goals player to hijack £207k-per-week star deal for Enzo Maresca
Romelu Lukaku, a highly paid striker for Chelsea, is set to be sold in order to raise money to try and sabotage a club’s acquisition of a player who makes £207,000 a week.
Serie A teams are interested in Lukaku as Chelsea sets the price.
Three years after Chelsea re-signed Lukaku from Inter in a headline £98 million deal, the Belgian will go down as one of their most embarrassing transfer disasters in recent memory.
With only one full season at the club before choosing to go out on multiple loan stints, Lukaku hasn’t exactly lived up to the cost Chelsea paid to bring him back to Stamford Bridge from Italy. For the 2022–2023 season, the former Everton player was temporarily returned to Inter, where he managed 14 goals and seven assists in all competitions under Simone Inzaghi, before joining Roma for 2023/24.
Lukaku scored 21 goals and registered a further four assists in total at the Stadio Olimpico, showcasing the fact he is still a reliable goalscorer, but he endured a nightmare at Euro 2024 – missing chance after chance and having multiple goals disallowed while representing his country in Germany.
The £325,000-per-week forward appears destined to leave Chelsea for good, with Serie A sides once again expressing a serious interest. Both Milan and Napoli are contending to sign Lukaku, according to reports in Italy, but Antonio Conte’s side might have the edge.
Some media sources state that Lukaku has already agreed to join Napoli and reunite with Conte in the process. The pair enjoyed a terrific time together at Inter, with Lukaku’s impressive 24 goals and 10 assists guiding the Nerazzurri to a Scudetto triumph in 2021 before he re-joined Chelsea.
Chelsea have set Lukaku’s price tag at around £38 million, according to reliable transfer journalist Fabrizio Romano, but it remains to be seen whether Milan or Napoli agree to pay that sum for a player approaching his twilight years. In any case, the striker’s sale would do wonders to help Chelsea fund their own transfer activity, as the west Londoners remain contenders to sign Napoli star Victor Osimhen.
Chelsea set to sell Lukaku so they can fund Osimhen hijack
As per CaughtOffside, Chelsea are ready to sell Lukaku and Armando Broja to fund a move for Osimhen, and they could hijack Paris Saint-Germain’s talks to sign the Nigerian by doing so.
Enzo Maresca’s side have not given up hope on landing Osimhen, despite the Ligue 1 champions currently being in talks with Napoli as they look to reach a compromise on his £110 million release clause. Osimhen, who’s scored 76 goals in 133 appearances since joining Napoli from Lille, also boasts an impressive 21 goals in 35 international caps for his country. The £207,000-per-week star has been one of Serie A’s most prolific stars for a number of years, and the race to sign him now looks to be hotting up.