Chelsea’s pursuit of Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall is dominating the news right now. The top insiders are reporting on it almost hourly, and it looks like a move that could be completed fairly soon, with new manager Enzo Maresca giving the green light for the move for his former player.
It’s been suggested that Chelsea could include players in part exchange to bring the Leicester midfielder’s price down. There were also suggestions that his arrival could precipitate the departure of Carney Chukwuemeka, who was signed two years ago for £20m.
But Fabrizio Romano’s latest update on the situation denies that entirely. The Blues have “no intention to let [Chukwuemeka] leave on loan,” Romano Tweeted.
“Chelsea remain very happy with Carney and the only way for potential exit is on a permanent transfer, in case of good proposal,” he added.
Given how much he’s rated, and given we’ve heard the club want £50m to consider letting him leave, we can imagine the price required to get them to change their mind would be something in that region.
A difficult situation becomes more difficult
This will certainly give a lot of fans some relief. The idea of signing Dewsbury-Hall isn’t that popular to begin with. If it also involved selling Chukwuemeka it would be extremely unpopular.
We can’t see any team offering the kind of money we’d want to sell Chukwuemeka. He simply hasn’t played enough minutes in the last two years for anyone to take a punt on him at a high price.
We’re also pleased he’s not going to be sent on loan – but that begs the question of what the plan is for all these midfielders. Chukwuemeka has already struggled to work his way into the first team, and Dewsbury-Hall’s arrival (if it happens) is going to make that situation even more difficult.
