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This morning, Duncan Castles had some news that Chelsea were "preparing a bid" for Aston Villa striker Christian Benteke. If you could look beyond the fact that the story came from a reporter without a great track record involving Chelsea (although he was one of the first to hit on the Van Ginkel thing), and that it was published on a website known for making up garbage, it seemed like an interesting story. Benteke is, after all, a fantastic young player that turned the heads of basically everyone last season.
If you were thinking about getting your hopes up on this story, you should probably be aware of these:
1. There has been no contact between #CFC and Christian #Benteke, neither between #CFC his agent. "Bullshit", says his agent. #AVFC
— Kristof Terreur (@HLNinEngeland) July 8, 2013
2. An agent once asked #Benteke's agent if he could bring his client to #CFC. That's all. His agent:"Chelsea has other options than Benteke"
— Kristof Terreur (@HLNinEngeland) July 8, 2013
The idea that Aston Villa would sell their best player (who happens to be on very low wages and a very long deal) after one season (when vastly increased TV revenue is right around the corner) seems ridiculous at best. Unless Chelsea were to decide to offer relatively stupid money, it would be pretty logical to assume that Villa aren't even going to have a conversation about their star man.
Regardless of Villa's motivation to sell (or Chelsea's motivation to spend stupid money), it doesn't sound like Benteke would be all that motivated to move either. Staying at Villa (where he is already well established) during a World Cup year makes a ton of sense, especially as his main competition for the starting center forward job with Belgium looks like he'll be battling with Fernando Torres and Demba Ba for minutes. I think we can safely chalk the latest from Goal up as unlikely, assuming you hadn't done so already as soon as you saw where it was published.
