Collapse of midfielder move does open up doors to exciting new transfer for Chelsea | OneFootball

Manuel Ugarte’s move to Chelsea looks like it’s collapsed, and that can only be bad for the club.

Clearly they had identified him as a player they wanted, and had found a fee they were happy with. They didn’t offer as much as PSG did on the wage front however, and now it seems the fat lady is singing, with the midfielder now reportedly in Paris to wrap up his move there.

But every time a door closes another opens, and given we will certainly be signing at least one central midfielder this summer, the end of our chase of the Sporting man brings other possibilities into play.

Moises Caicedo has long been our top option, but with Brighton asking for £80m or more, it had seemed like we were giving up on that front and had moved on to Ugarte as a cheaper option. The Ecuador star could now be back in the frame, as could Romeo Lavia, the Southampton man we were heavily linked with less than a year ago.

Then there’s someone like Gabri Veiga, who has not been spoken about in connection with us as much as some others, presumably because it had been expected we would sign Ugarte. Now we’re back in the market, we could yet see fresh connections to the Celta man, as well as other relatively new faces in the increasingly open summer market.