“Completely on standby” – Fabrizio Romano names transfer Chelsea shouldn’t expect before July | OneFootball

Chelsea’s sporting structure are working hard this June.

The Club World Cup starts in less than a week, and the Blues want as many players as they can signed up by the deadline tonight.

Chelsea pushing bigger deals back to post CWC

Fabrizio Romano’s report for CaughtOffside yesterday contained updates on a few of them.

With Liam Delap signed up, it would be easy to think that the Blues’ striker moves are done for the year. But we’ve heard from all over that they are interested in adding another forward, and top of their list right now is Hugo Ekitike.

“Ekitike is really appreciated by Chelsea, he’s a player they really like,” Romano wrote.

Given the Club World Cup transfer deadline is tonight, it should be no surprise that the insider says there’s no chance this hefty deal is aiming to be completed by then.

“But at the moment the negotiation is not closed at all because Chelsea were asking for information to Eintracht Frankfurt about the player and their answer was that his asking price is €100m… But for the Club World Cup, this deal is completely on standby, and not expected to happen.”

Gittens deal also postponed until post CWC

Jamie Gittens in action for Borussia Dortmund. (Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)

Presumably the same logic is true with Jamie Gittens – Romano reinforces here that we still like him, but given that deal still has a vast difference in values between our latest offer and Borussia Dortmund’s asking price, there’s no way it can be hammered out in a day, even if Gittens has already agreed personal terms.

Well, it’s possible, but we’re really expecting all these bigger deals to now slow down a lot as the pressure to get them done quickly drops significantly after tonight’s deadline passes.