Chelsea, Monaco reach agreement in principle for Tiemoue Bakayoko — report

Chelsea have been working for the last 2-3 weeks to reach an agreement with AS Monaco for the transfer of Tiemoué Bakayoko, with the deal looking close multiple times but only reports of delays and frustrations emerging — save for that one episode when he was reported to be flying to London only to end up continuing on to New York City for holidays.

In any case, it looks like we’ve finally reached an “agreement in principle” with Monaco, for a price “close to €40m”, which matches the target that Chelsea were working towards as per the Telegraph’s report from a couple weeks ago and it also matches the reports that emerged during that London flight episode.

French transfer news these days don’t come any more trustworthy than from Mohamed Bouhafsi, whose tweet translates as “Agreement in principle found this evening between Chelsea and ASM for the transfer of Bakayoko close to 40m. Rest of details between CFC [and] player.”

Assuming there won’t be any significant delays over the personal terms between Bakayoko and Chelsea, we can probably rest assured that this transfer will be announced and then go through pretty close to that magic July 1st date.