How Chelsea secured impressive €25m discount on La Liga stopper | OneFootball

Chelsea are closing in on a deal for Villareal goalkeeper Filip Jorgensen.

According to Fabrizio Romano’s Tweet yesterday, the Blues have had a bid in the region of €20m accepted for the Danish youth international. His release clause is set at €45m, giving the impression we’ve got a huge discount here.

This time a year ago, Chelsea were busy signing Robert Sanchez and then Djordje Petrovic for similar amounts. Gabriel Slonina came in a year before, albeit for a smaller fee. It seems a scattergun policy, but the way we understand it is that the new coach wants to use his goalkeeper with the ball at his feet so much that a new style of keeper is required. The ones we have didn’t look settled even last season, without much of the ball.

There are also strong rumours that Petrovic will be sold, hopefully at least paying for Jorgensen and potentially even making a profit on the fee paid to New England Revolution a year ago.

Filip Jorgensen playing for Villareal.

The reality of a recently pumped up clause

So how are Chelsea getting this discount? It’s really just a question of timing. The goalkeeper has only just finished his first senior season for Villareal as a starter. That meant he was rewarded with a major new contract barely a month ago.

It was this contract that bumped his clause up to the impressive €45m it stands at now. But that is a very speculative number which was supposed to take into account the potential growth of his value over the length of that deal.

Of course, if the Blues had made this move a month ago, his release clause would have been far lower – and likely close to the €20m they’re paying, or perhaps even less given he was essentially on a youth contract from a team without a massive budget.