Chelsea Sign Alvaro Pereira For £20M, Claim Mirror

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This isn't over until we see Porto start issuing stock exchange announcements, but it sure sounds closer than we thought a few hours ago. If you're in the habit of listening to the Mirror, which is an experience fraught with peril (at best) left-sided utilityman Alvaro Pereira is now expected to sign for Chelsea FC after the club agreed a €22M fee with Porto.

Although this seems dubious for a number of reasons, chief amongst them being that Porto and Chelsea were locked at a €30M/€22M impasse and that it would be totally unlike the Portuguese side to just give in on the situation and second-chief being hey it's the Mirror, it's probably worth listening to the noise here, because even if certain newspapers have a habit over overstating everything they typically have their fingers on the pulse of this sort of deal.

Just as with the Andre Villas-Boas deal, this move would be for enough money for Porto to be forced to issue a statement to shareholders when a deal is closed, so it's not like they're going to sneak up on this with us, so don't take anything as complete until they give the say so. But still, interesting times afoot.