No quotes on this one but virtually all of the major outlets are claiming that Kevin de Bruyne is set to finalise his transfer to Chelsea today, and that the Genk winger is currently in London for a medical. The plan, apparently, is to pay Genk £6.7M (figure per Guardian), sign de Bruyne to a five-and-a-half year deal and then loan the 20-year-old back to the defending Jupiler League champions for the rest of the season.
In other words, this is a transfer for the long run, just like the Thibaut Courtois and Romelu Lukaku moves this summer. It won't help the team to wrap up fourth place this season, and it probably won't even be a particularly helpful move for 2012/13. But de Bruyne is an excellent prospect, and one we've had our eye on for some time, and it's great to see this deal finally getting done. We missed out on him this summer, but there's enough sources reporting that he's ours to be pretty confident that we've landed one of Europe's top young attacking talents - assuming he passes the medical, of course.