Snak

Hakim Ziyech´s agent has denied saying that the winger has asked to leave Galatasaray amid reports claiming his loan from Chelsea will be cut short.

We’ve already had it confirmed today that Andrey Santos and Zak Sturge will be returning from their unsuccessful spells elsewhere, and this evening Matt Law has added another fresh slice of news.

Alex Matos, the impressive young midfielder able to play further forward, joined the club last summer from Norwich and seems to have really impressed the staff at Chelsea. He’s been named on the bench a number of times for the first team, and made his debut as a sub in the Carabao Cup game against Blackburn Rovers. He also got a minute in the Premier League game against Fulham in October. All this has convinced Huddersfield Town that he’s ready for Championship action, and Law reports that he will head there immediately.

It’s a great chance for him to continue his upward trajectory, and if he can force his way into the team there that will be a huge milestone and a vindication of his move to Stamford Bridge.

It’s only taken half the season, but according to The Athletic, Chelsea have finally secured some extra sponsorship money by agreeing a deal with BingX to put their logo on our shirt sleeves.
BingX (no relation to Microsoft’s Bing search engine) is a crypto-trading platform based in Singapore, with operations in Southeast Asia as well as North America. It’s unclear how much they’re paying us for this deal (such deals are usually less than £10m), but let’s hope their business lasts longer than the seven months of Whalefin!

The deal with BingX looks to be for at least 18 months, but only the first six of those will be for the shirt sleeves. As per report, BingX will become our training kit sponsor next season. At the same time, Infinite Athlete will move from the front of the shirt to the sleeve — but only on the training gear. Presumably we will get both a new front-of-shirt sponsor (Riyadh Air has been the only concrete name mentioned in that capacity, though those rumors have died away recently) as well as a new shirt-sleeve sponsor for next season and beyond.

What’s even more unclear is what will happen with trivago, who had been sponsoring the training kits for the last few years, and were one of the few companies to stick with the club amid all the sanctions by the UK government against previous owner Roman Abramovich.

Chelsea are reportedly ‘confident’ that they are compliant with the boundaries of Financial Fair Play (FPP). The Blues are expected to continue splashing the cash this month on new signings following a poor start to the season, though questions were raised previously about whether they are capable of forking out the fees required to sign their targets.

According to The Athletic, the Blues believe that they are in ‘good shape’ financially and do not anticipate any issues with the Premier League over their spending. Despite speculation, they have insisted that they are wholly compliant with FFP and can therefore sign players this month without being overly wary of the limitations in place.

After Everton’s points deduction earlier this season, other Premier League clubs could face the same danger with several teams said to be in ‘potential trouble’. Clubs will find out the implications of any rule breaches later this month. There is no indication Chelsea are in any danger of breaching rules and the Blues are said to be confident they will not be affected.

Ian Maatsen and Trevoh Chalobah are also expected to be offloaded imminently, with both being eyed by German outfits. Armando Broja could also be sold for pure profit if another striker arrives and forces him down the pecking order.

Chelsea are set to land their number one target for the striker position, Victor Osimhen, after the Napoli man indicated he’s ready to sign a pre-agreement to join the West Londoners in the summer, as per TEAMTalk.

Chelsea’s hopes of signing the 25-year-old this month were dealt a severe blow when he penned a contract extension with Napoli, keeping him at the club until 2026. The new deal contains a release clause of around £112 million, as reported by TEAMTalk.

However, the report says that Osimhen is expected to leave Napoli in the summer and he’s now said ‘yes’ to joining Chelsea. The striker is even prepared to sign a pre-contract agreement this month to secure his move to Stamford Bridge at the end of the season.

The 25-year-old has been convinced to join the Blues following regular contact with Chelsea legends Didier Drogba and John Obi Mikel. The pair have convinced Osimhen to accept Chelsea’s project, according to TEAMtalk.