Chelsea Prepared To Hijack Ivan Perisic Deal
Reuters / Giorgio Perottino
After a summer-long saga of developments and breakdowns, Jose Mourinho finally gave up his attempts to lure Ivan Perišić from Inter Milan earlier this month.
However, reports have now emerged that England still wants the Croatian winger – this time, however, it’s Chelsea.
Antonio Conte’s Blues were left to a shock 3-2 defeat against Burnley on opening day. The London club now seems to want to leave nothing to chance, and has, according to the Mirror, prepared a bid for the Inter Milan winger who has long been the target of Man Utd.
The 28-year old, who has impressed top flight European clubs heavily over the seasons, has been valued at £48m by his current club. The subject of the transfer fallout with the Red Devils was disagreement over this price, as the English giants were only willing to go as high as £35m to secure the services of the attacking midfielder who can also be deployed as a second striker.
If the reigning Premier League Champions do sign him, however, they’ll have a selection dilemma at hand. On the left, they already have the likes of Eden Hazard and Marcos Alonso playing brilliantly. The former, in particular, has been marked as unsellable by the Chelsea Board, having attracted heavy interest of his own from Real Madrid.
Moreover, this pursuit could rejuvenate another effort from the Manchester club, who might be willing to splash the cash after all.
However, after their resounding opening day performance which culminated in a 4-0 win over West Ham, it feels unlikely that they shall pursue the winger any further.
It is clear that the Portuguese boss is eying Premier League glory, but securing the Croatian could leave hope for something more. Most importantly, all this speculation comes in the midst of strong insistence from Inter that they are not willing to part ways with him. All in all, it seems likely that come September, Perisic shall remain in Italy.
Written by Naveen Kelvin 
A writer trying to craft the poetry within football. Purpose in life is to Make Good Art.