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We've spoken about Javier Pastore a lot over the past 24 hours, which turns out to be rather prescient timing because Palermo have just admitted that their 22-year-old midfield maestro is on the verge of departing Sicily's fair shores (but only in the metaphorical sense - he is, of course, already in Argentina for the Copa America) after an unnamed 'foreign club' put in a €50M (£45.1M) bid for his services.
The possibility that he (Pastore) stays next year is 10 per cent. I can confirm that an offer of 50million euros arrived from a foreign club.
-Palermo president Maurizio Zamparini. Source: Fulham & Hammersmith Chronicle
Without wishing to spread a silly rumour around, when you consider the teams with that much money and a strong interest in adding Pastore specifically to the midfield, there's just about one club that's realistically in the running, and that's Chelsea. The Blues have supposedly been after Pastore for some time, and with the desire to seriously upgrade the middle in the short and long term and plenty of money to burn it wouldn't come as a huge shock if they were willing to shell out the cash for the Argentinian playmaker.
That's not to say Chelsea have made the bid, of course - if I were Palermo and only one club had the sort of money and desire to lure Pastore away, I'd invent a phantom 'foreign club' as a mechanism by which to drive up the price even further. The fact they haven't named the team (nor has it been leaked) that's put in this supposed bid is extremely curious, but I'm sure we'll find out whether or not it was real in short order.
In the meantime, Steve put up a good preview of Pastore yesterday, so I'd suggest you take a look at that to get a better idea of what the man's all about. If it was indeed Chelsea putting an offer in, acquiring Pastore would be something to celebrate, even if in my book he's no Alexis Sanchez.