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Chelsea have reached an agreement with Willian Estevao and his agents on the contract – everything is ready between Chelsea and the player, and now the Blues want to close the deal with Palmeiras. The interest has been there for a long time, with concrete contacts starting a few months ago, and now they’re making progress on signing this exciting young talent, considered one of the best prospects in the world, not just South America.
Conversations are ongoing between Chelsea and Palmeiras, and my understanding as we wait for an official bid is that Chelsea’s first proposal will be around €32m plus add-ons. What I’m hearing is that the structure of the add-ons would take the bid over the value of Estevao’s release clause. It could be €32m now and a further €25m over multiple payments – not guaranteed money, but depending on performances they could pay that over the course of multiple years.
Now it depends on Palmeiras, but for sure Chelsea are working hard to sign Estevao, who was also previously a target for Paris Saint-Germain. You may remember that PSG tried to sign him as well as Endrick, making a bid of €90m to Palmeiras for both players, but the Brazilian club said no. They sold Endrick to Real Madrid and now Estevao is close to joining Chelsea.
We’re likely to see departures at Chelsea this summer, particularly with the players who are currently out on loan. As previously reported, the plan is for Armando Broja to be sold once he comes back from his loan at Fulham, and Hakim Ziyech can already be considered to have played his last game for Chelsea. I also expect Romelu Lukaku and Ian Maatsen to leave Chelsea, but for the others we have to wait and see what happens.
Omari Hutchinson, for instance, will be an interesting one to follow after his fine form on loan at Ipswich Town. There will be a meeting between Omari’s camp and Chelsea to discuss his…
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