“Matter of time” – Chelsea’s first striker deal is imminent – but there’s a twist | OneFootball

Fabrizio Romano dropped some really juicy late night transfer info last night when he declared that Emanuel Emegha was a major target for Chelsea, who said to be preparing a “pre-agreement” for the forward from their sister club Strasbourg.

Insiders compete for edge on latest Chelsea deal

Santi Aouna’s Tweet about Emanuel Emegha.

That would mean the Dutch international joining next summer after a year spearheading the Alsatians’ European efforts. This afternoon, French transfer guru Santi Aouna has dropped some more details on the deal to flesh it out a little.

He says the Blues “have offered” (note the different tense to Romano’s “planning”) a six year deal to Emegha after his breakout campaign in Ligue 1 which saw him score 14 goals.

Aouna is also willing to stick his neck out further than his colleague Romano was last night, by saying that a full agreement is “just a matter of time.” Given we share owners with Strasbourg, negotiations should all be pretty straightforward and friendly, and hopefully set up to maximise benefit for both teams.

There will be some doubts about Emegha’s level, despite the obvious promise he’s shown in two years with Strasbourg since moving from the Austrian Bundesliga.

Chelsea still searching for this summer’s striker solution

It seems Emegha will be parked for at least one year in France, meaning the hunt for a striker to arrive this summer will continued. On that front it seems that Hugo Ekitike has been bumped up into the top tier of candidates along with Liam Delap.

It will be interesting to see how all this is arranged, with Marc Guiu and several talented academy players likely to be disappointed if we sign the 22 year old Dutchman to arrive next summer, as well as a more established player to compete with Nicolas Jackson immediately.