Chelsea received a huge boost in their pursuit of Serie A sensation Andrea Belotti as Torino have reportedly rejected a bid for the star striker from Inter Milan. Following his 31 goal heroics in all competitions for Torino last season, the 23-year-old is on the target list of every major European clubs.
Chelsea face a stiff competition from Manchester United in landing the Italian forward, who are also looking to bring in world class reinforcements with the possible departures of Wayne Rooney and Zlatan Ibrahimovic from Old Trafford. The Blues haven’t had any big arrivals since last summer despite a number of departures taking place.
Antonio Conte’s perfect domestic campaign has led many to believe that the Blues squad is perfectly complete with very little changes needed. However, their FA Cup final’s display against Arsenal has left the manager thinking of the lack of depth on their bench. Conte has little to no quality up front in the striker’s role after Diego Costa. While Michy Batshuayi did show some promise in the end games, one cannot overlook his ineffective substitute appearances throughout the season.
It is no surprise that Chelsea are looking to add new faces in that role and Costa’s possible departure this summer makes it all the more imminent. Everton’s Romelu Lukaku has been one of their top targets in the summer whom the Toffees have labelled at £100 million, which the London club wants to facilitate the sale of Costa.
However, Lukaku fetching such amount for the club is quite improbable and Belotti looks like their second priority. The Italian has a release clause of a mammoth £86 million to his name and Chelsea could meet that with Costa’s selling price. Although Inter got a £61.5 million bid rejected for Belotti, which included three of their players as well, we believe Torino would rather sell their star striker outside of Serie A than strengthening Italian sides.
Belotti has scored 26 goals in 36 Serie A appearances last season finishing as the third highest scorer in the Italian league after Edin Dzeko and Dries Mertens. And it is obvious that Torino wouldn’t want to let him go at any cost. However, if his release clause is met, there is hardly anything the club can do.
Meanwhile, Chinese side Tianjin Quanjian had shown immense interest in Diego Costa in January that linked him with a staggering £76 million move. However, now with the Chinese Football Association announcing ‘100 percent tax’ on foreign player spending, that looks a distant occurrence.
