Romano says defender “wants Chelsea” which could help Blues lower £17.2m fee | OneFootball

Things are moving fast today in terms of Chelsea transfer news.

The focus is on the Kiernan Dewsbury Hall deal which has dominated the last couple of days of headlines. But it seems in the background another deal is still moving forward.

Last week all the headlines were about Aaron Anselmino, the Boca Juniors centre back who we’re chasing.

Fabrizio Romano has today claimed that Chelsea now have a “full agreement” with the 19 year old on personal terms, and that the final stage is just agreeing on transfer terms with Boca. That could be tricky – as Romano points out, there’s interest from other Premier League clubs.

The good news is that the defender “wants Chelsea” as a preference over those other sides, giving us some extra leverage as discussions continue. We expect it wrapped up very soon.

A virtually done deal

Judging by this information, plus various other snippets from other top insiders over the last couple of weeks, this is almost a done deal, and is essentially a matter of time.

The question is what happens once the deal is done. What is confirmed is that Anselmino is coming to Chelsea rather than moving to sister club Strasbourg. But he may be loaned there – at least that’s what we’ve heard from a few places.

It will be very interesting to see what the sporting directors’ strategy is with him. We’re well stocked at the back with Trevoh Chalobah, Tosin Adarabioyo, Wesley Fofana, Benoit Badiashile, Levi Colwill and Axel Disasi already on the books. It would seem mad to throw Anselmino into that group and risk him playing very little, especially if Enzo Maresca uses a traditional back four.

We’d rather see him at Strasbourg where he has a genuine chance of cracking the first team at some point in the year.