Chelsea are expected to push in the next week or so to try and sign Moises Caicedo from Brighton & Hove Albion, but that may rely on outgoings at Stamford Bridge.
The Blues are expected to offload ten-plus players over the summer in order to somewhat balance the books after an extraordinary past couple of transfer windows. One player whose time at Stamford Bridge looks to have almost concluded is Ruben Loftus-Cheek.
The 27-year-old, who has been at Chelsea since the age of eight, is close to joining AC Milan, football.london understands. As reported on Monday morning, talks between Chelsea and Milan have been progressing really well in recent weeks with the Lewisham-born midfielder now set to embark on a new chapter in his career at the San Siro.
However, it has been quite the eventful 24 hours or so on the red half of Milan. Paolo Maldini has allegedly been sacked as the club's technical director which has postponed further meetings between the Italian outfit and the Chelsea midfielder.
Reports from Italy suggest Maldini and the board did not see eye-to-eye on how to take the club forward and a decision to part company took place. This has somewhat thrown Loftus-Cheek's seemingly inevitable departure from Chelsea into a bit of doubt.
It's understood that Loftus-Cheek wants to leave Stamford Bridge this summer and the club are equally open to offloading the ten-time England international with there being just 12 months remaining on his contract. So the expectation remains that Loftus-Cheek will leave the club but the Milan move has been made a little bit more complicated with the chaos behind the scenes at the San Siro.
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Loftus-Cheek, however, has interest from Germany, as well as the Premier League, so if a move was to fall through – albeit there is absolutely no suggestion it will at the moment – then the midfielder will not be short of potential suitors. He is one of many Chelsea players that could be leaving the club this summer.
N'Golo Kante is now looking increasingly likely to call time on his seven-year stay in west London with the Frenchman understood to have lucrative offers from Saudi Arabia. Kante sees his contract with the Blues expire at the end of June and despite positive talks over a new deal a couple of months ago, there has been no progression on that front since.
Meanwhile, Chelsea are listening to offers for Mateo Kovacic. The Croatian has just over a year remaining on his deal and Manchester City are very interested in signing the former Real Madrid midfielder in the summer transfer window.
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