Without question the biggest transfer rumor of the day comes out of West London where Jose Mourinho looks to clean up Chelsea’s mess of missing out on Radamel Falcao by signaling his intent to bring in Brazilian striker Hulk from Zenit St Petersburg.
The Blues are reportedly willing to pay the Russian outfit £35 million for his services, which would be a £15 million loss on what Zenit paid to obtain the 26 year old striker from Porto just one year ago.
If Hulk does come to Stamford Bridge expect Mourinho to part ways with either Fernando Torres or Demba Ba, who have each provided modest returns over the course of last year. Mourinho will also need to figure out what to do about Romelu Lukaku, who impressed on a loan stint last year with West Brom, scoring 17 goals in 35 appearances.
But why stop at just Hulk? Chelsea are reportedly within a whisker of signing Bayer Leverkusen’s attacking midfielder come forward, Andre Schurrle. If reports out of Cologne are to be believed, the 22 year old is set to be Mourinho’s his first signing since returning to the Bridge.
If Schurrle does come to Chelsea, there will be question marks. While he’s a flexible player who could be deployed up top he tends to drift to the left side during matches and is best suited as a winger. The Blues, of course, have no shortage of those and whether Schurrle has the talent to displace the likes of Eden Hazard, Victor Moses or Oscar, remains to be seen.
Over at the Lane, Leandro Damiao’s agent is failing to rule out a move that will make his client a Lillywhite. “Our idea is to always work with big clubs, all players dream of playing in the Champions League,” Vinicius Prates said. “But Tottenham are an important club in London, we can’t rule them out.”
In other words, Leandro wants A) Champions League football, or B) a ton of money.
To the Midlands we go where Aston Villa continue to feel the growing shadow of clubs looming above them wanting to poach striker Christian Benteke. Mere days after rumors surfaced claiming that Atletico Madrid, Spurs and Arsenal were poised to launch bids of £17.5 million for the Belgian, the Villains have gone ahead and slapped a £40 million price tag on his head.
Ah yes, the old tag slap, a move guaranteed to drive an in-demand player positively bananas. Although I feel bad for Villa this is fast looking like a walk-out situation on Benteke’s part. While £40 million feels a bit aggressive, Paul Lambert’s side should look hard at getting a deal done for £25-30 million before things turn ugly and that price bottoms out.
Up in Manchester, we might be in for some much needed Carlos Tevez drama. Juventus are apparently looking to swoop the Argentine striker if they fail to finagle Fiorentina’s Stevan Jovetic away from Arsenal and Chelsea. The Serie A champions are also open to scooping up the rest of City’s scraps, including Javi Garcia, Edin Dzeko and Joleon Lescott.
Tevez to Juve could be a real possibility, especially if City snap up Edinson Cavani. If the Citizens do make a move for the Uruguayan striker, expect Carlitos to be sent to Turin for money that could be surprisingly reasonable. Such are the brakes of investing in a new player before selling off an old one.
