‘Medical completed’: Chelsea agree ‘record fee’ with Man Utd attacker
Lauren James will complete a long-expected move to Chelsea after the club agreed a fee with Manchester United for the 19-year-old forward.
The deal is understood to be a record from one Women’s Super League club to another and includes an as yet unidentified Chelsea player moving in the opposite direction.
At Chelsea James will join her brother Reece, the England defender, who plays for the men’s team. Their father, Nigel, is a Uefa-licensed coach whom James has credited as having been key to her development.
However, Having gained United’s permission, James has already completed her medical and is widely expected to join manager Emma Hayes’s double-winning side in a deal worth an initial £200,000, rising to £300,000 with add-ons – the biggest transfer ever between two WSL clubs.
Chelsea’s manager, Emma Hayes, will have a challenge in how to fit the forward into her team alongside Fran Kirby, Pernille Harder and Sam Kerr but will no doubt be delighted to have secured the services of a player she has long admired.
The highly rated James joined United from Arsenal in 2017 when the club launched their women’s team. She flourished under the former United manager Casey Stoney, who eased her into the starting XI, and scored 14 goals in the club’s season in the Championship, winning promotion to the WSL.
Despite her short time with the club, James recorded several firsts for United. She scored the club’s first two goals in the Championship in a 12-0 defeat of Villa on the opening day of their first season, United’s first WSL goal in a 2-0 win against Liverpool in September 2019, and the team’s first Old Trafford goal in their March defeat of West Ham at the historic ground.
At the end of the curtailed 2019-20 season she was shortlisted for the Professional Footballers’ Association’s award for young player of the year.