Chelsea will have to be at their best when it comes to transfer negotiations in 2023 as a major pile of business mounts in front of the new owners. Graham Potter and his new recruitment team are ready for a continuation of the squad overhaul that started in the summer and are expected to be very active in the new year.
The Blues have contract issues and squad holes to patch up first before attention turns to strengthening and moving on underperforming players. But one thing they may not have planned for was the return of Romelu Lukaku. The Belgian is currently on loan at Inter Milan but is still owned by Chelsea and has a complex situation to sort out.
Having been signed last summer for a club record £97.5million he failed to live up to expectations and contributed to an ever more fractured changing room. His infamous interview all but ended his career at the club, but trying to sell on a major asset after scoring just 15 goals in all competitions isn't easy.
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Todd Boehly and Co had it slightly easier than Roman Abramovich in the sense that he was not their mistake so moving him on, even on loan, didn't look as bad on the regime, but it still taints the club. Now, with a little over six months to go on his deal in Italy, and just 249 minutes of league action played, a tough set of circumstances exist.
Despite Inter Milan paying a small loan fee they have only got him for this season with new FIFA rules not allowing for multiple season deals anymore, with the law stating, "the minimum period of a Temporary Transfer shall be the period between two consecutive Transfer Windows and the period of a Temporary Transfer shall not extend beyond 30 June next after it was entered into." It means that come the end of the Serie A season Lukaku will be a Chelsea player once more.
Graham Potter has never managed Lukaku, he was purchased under Tuchel and allowed to leave whilst Tuchel was in charge. He may not get the chance to have a say in Lukaku's future, especially if the player of the current squad continue to feel detached, but it raises a hurdle for Potter to get over.
Due to Inter's dire financial position, re-signing Lukaku may not be the easy deal that it would seem, and due to his fitness and performances, convincing the 2020/21 champions to commit to another season on the same terms may prove challenging.
Inter currently pay around 60% of his wages on top of a £5million loan fee, coming in at around £15million in total with bonuses included, according to Italian paper Tuttosport. Negotiations for a new deal will have to be fresh though, with no terms agreed for next year, even though there is a general consensus between the clubs that he will be rejoining.
This all creates a large and unwanted backdrop for what already promises to be an extremely turbulent summer at Stamford Bridge.
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