€105m spend unrealistic – Chelsea to end interest in River Plate wonderkid if Brazilian winger secured | OneFootball

Transfer news around Chelsea this week has been focused on one thing and one thing only – Estevao Willian.

The Palmeiras winger is considered among the top players of his age in the world, and according to rumours swirling around from top sources like Fabrizio Romano, the Blues are preparing to drop a serious amount of money (€60m or so) on him.

That would seriously limit our ability to strengthen the first team this summer, given our financial restrictions. For that reason, plenty of fans are against the move despite Willian’s obvious quality.

And if it is going to stop us upgrading the first team it’s certainly going to use up our whole budget for South American talents this summer

That’s why the latest reporting on the future of Franco Mastantuono from Matteo Moretto is so confusing. He insists that the Blues are still in the chase for the River Plate talent:

“Many teams have enquired, and are enquiring about River Plate’s 16-year-old Franco Mastantuono, Chelsea are one of them,” Moretto wrote in an exclusive for Fabrizio Romano’s Substack.

Hard numbers to square up

If you go by Moretto’s numbers, that would be a €45m signing on top of a €60m signing. There’s no way we can afford to pay €105m for two players this summer, let alone two players who have a combined age of 33.

So if we do sign Estevao Willian, we can expect this to be the last we hear of links to Mastantuono – unless by some strange circumstance he’s still on the market in a year or two when we’ve rebuilt our bank balance a little.

That doesn’t sound likely however – Real Madrid are hot on his heels and Moretto says the midfielder “only has Real Madrid on his mind – he sees it as the top option.”

Oh well, you can’t sign them all…