Chelsea, Lyon to finalize negotiations by end of the week for young forward — report

Chelsea and Lyon may not have been able to strike a deal over Corentin Tolisso, if there ever was a deal even attempted there — he looks set to join Bayern Munich — but according to L’Equipe, the negotiations over Bertrand Traoré’s transfer are going very well.

The report from Tuesday’s L’Equipe claims that negotiations have been making good progress over the weekend and now only the bonus structure is left to be agreed upon. Presumably, this refers to performance- or appearance-based bonuses that Lyon would pay Chelsea in addition to whatever transfer fee that may agree (claimed to be €20m earlier). There’s no word on a buy-back clause at this point, though hopefully that’s a cornerstone of the Chelsea demands.

The deal is expected conclude by the end of this week as Lyon look to ‘accelerate’ their transfer market following the departures of Mathieu Valbuena (confirmed) — when did he become 32 years old?? — and the aforementioned Corentin Tolisso (not yet confirmed), not to mention the expected departure still of Alexandre Lacazette.

No word as yet when Chelsea’s market is set to accelerate, though we should expect confirmation of Bakayoko sooner rather than later, one suspects.

As far as Traoré’s concerned, losing him now would be a bit of a disappointment after the promise of 2015-16 and the great effort we put in to get him signed in the first place, but business is business and it’s hard to blame the 21-year-old for wanting to move on from the loan-life.