Eduardo Vargas (profiled here) is a name that's been linked pretty heavily to Chelsea over the last few weeks, but it sounds as though the 22-year-old Universidad de Chile star is heading to the Serie A rather than Stamford Bridge. According to reports out of Chile, Vargas is set to join the Blues next Champions League opponents SSC Napoli on Monday for a fee of around £10M, which could be a bargain for a player who some have described as the next Alexis Sanchez*.
*The Chilean Danny Sturridge would probably be a better description of him, however.
Vargas would have been an excellent pickup for Chelsea, and although there's always the hope that the reports are false, they're citing Universidad's majority owner, so I wouldn't hold your breath on that one. Losing out on him is, of course, a double blow - the fact that Napoli have significantly upgraded their depth with a non-cup-tied player ahead of a Champions League knockout match while Chelsea have missed out is pretty annoying. One of Napoli's major problems is their lack of depth in the attack, and Vargas will make them an even more difficult nut to crack come February.
Still, this isn't the end of the world. He'd have been a nice, interesting pickup, especially for that price, but I'm sure Chelsea will be able to move onto plan B (if Vargas wasn't plan B already). We'll see come January just what we have in mind.
PS: No this does not mean they're going to sell us Edinson Cavani now.