Chelsea have made “concrete offer” for €30m Bundesliga striker, along with Premier League rivals | OneFootball

Chelsea used to compete with Real Madrid and Bayern Munich for transfer targets – these days, it’s mid table Premier League teams who are our opponents much of the time.

Our desire to sign a top striker has been clear for a long time, but one by one the elite options have been ruled out, and now we find ourselves talking about another youngster.

According to Florian Plettenberg we’re in the mix to try and sign Maximilian Beier, the young Hoffenheim striker. This isn’t the first we’ve heard in Blues interest in the 21 year old.

Plettenberg says we have submitted a “concrete offer” for the player, who had a €30m release clause. Aston Villa are also said to be in the mix, and have also submitted an offer.

The insider assures his readers that a final decision will be made “within the next 14 days.” One would imagine Chelsea want a deal wrapped up a lot sooner than that, given the season starts in 20 days.

The terms of a deal

The €30m release clause makes things interesting. Clearly neither Chelsea nor Villa have offered that yet, otherwise there would be no need for deliberations on Hoffenheim’s end. Presumably we’re offering less and hoping to get the Bundesliga side to agree to some sort of structured deal

We’re not the only ones in the mix – “two more top clubs from abroad” are mentioned, plus Bayer Leverkusen.

With all that interest, it seems likely that the final fee comes close to the €30m clause in the end anyway. If we really think Beier is the man we need to improve us, perhaps the smart move is to pay the clause now and get a deal done so that the German international can complete his move and get into preseason training as soon as possible.