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Tuesday's front page of La Gazzetta dello Sport proclaims loud and proud that Internazionale and Chelsea have reached an agreement over the transfer of Fredy Guarín.
#Gazzetta غرينتا الميلان ، روما يتوقف ، هتافات عنصرية من جمهور روما ضد بالو | إتفاق إنتر - تشيلسي : غوارين سيرحل pic.twitter.com/4fwm6hK0QF
— Zayеd ™ (@ACZayed) December 17, 2013
With all the rumblings about £12m bids and £15m bids and all the usual Twitter-heads chiming in (yes, we even got a Tancredi BOOM), this rumor is approaching critical mass.
#Inter. C'è l'intesa per #Guarin al #Chelsea: serve il si del giocatore. Poi caccia ai rinforzi #gds
— Carlo Laudisa (@carlolaudisa) December 16, 2013
Gazzetta are claiming an €18m price tag for the midfielder, which would match the £15m reported by The Guardian and several others yesterday. They go on to reason that Inter want the deal done early and quickly to allow them to look for their own reinforcements in the upcoming transfer window. A reunion for manager Walter Mazzarri with Ezequiel "El Pocho" Lavezzi has been mooted.
But back to Chelsea. Despite all these apparent confirmations and a clear need for (non-attacking) midfield reinforcement, we should keep in mind that Mourinho didn't think we'll be doing much of anything in the transfer window. While it's a possibility that he was ill-informed or deliberately misleading and/or vague (and certainly £15m isn't exactly an earth-shattering sum of money nowadays), there's still a decent chance that this is just idle chatter of the Cavani variety.
Yey, silly season!
