Chelsea FC Transfer Rumours: Benfica Delegation Arrives in London

Chelsea's interest in Benfica's David Luiz is well known, but the amount of work that's gone into his so far non-transfer has reached the point of frustration for the fans, and possibly for the team as well. The Blues may have found a new negotiation technique in dealing with the Portuguese side by allegedly agreeing to a deal with Wolfsburg for Danish centreback Simon Kjaer earlier today. Obviously, transfers for Luiz and Kjaer are incompatible - Chelsea simply are not going to bring in two expensive central defenders at once, no matter how worrisome the injury situation for the back line may get.

The approach for Kjaer seems to be some combination of ensuring a consolation prize and negotiation tack with Benfica, and that seems to have worked, sending Luiz's current owners scrambling to try to finalise the transfer they've been working on for what seems like months. To save the deal, a delegation from Benfica have apparently arrived in London for talks:

Benfica delegation in London to try to finalise deal with #Chelsea for David Luiz #cfc

-Daniel Taylor, Guardian reporter. Source: Twitter.

Although Luiz has been pursued by other clubs, most notably Manchester City, Benfica appear to be more invested in a sale to Chelsea than any other side. With Luiz almost surely making a big-money move some time soon and every window taking millions of pounds off his value, Benfica need to move him now to make the most of their prized asset. If the deal with Chelsea doesn't work, they may not have time to move the defender until summertime, which could cost them a lot of money.

If there's a negotiation team from Benfica coming to visit Chelsea, that rather strongly implies that the Blues now have the upper hand in negotiations, which can only be good news for the club.