Manchester United to gazump Chelsea for Lukaku, and Rooney’s involved, too — reports

Auspicious and rather serendipitous timing for this latest “SENSATIONAL TWIST” in the Romelu Lukaku saga, coming so soon after Mourinho’s complaints of Manchester United dragging their feet in the transfer market, and Chelsea continuing to seem reticent to pay Everton’s £100m asking price for the Premier League’s second leading scorer. Nothing like a bit drama to stir up some action, right, especially with players starting to return from summer holidays and looking to get their futures sorted.

If you’re actually worried about this, despite Lukaku making it quite clear some weeks ago that he’s going against his agent Mino Raiola’s advice by picking Chelsea over Manchester United (thus launching United down the Álvaro Morata rabbit-hole), the presence of Wayne Rooney should allay your fears. Creative swap deals may be considered on Craigslist, but they’re a rarity, to say the least, in the transfer market. Not to mention, Rooney or no Rooney — rough value of approximately £0 — Everton continue to ask for £100m, so at this point it’s whoever can stump up that cold hard cash and/or get Everton to lower their demands that will win this transfer battle.

The only concerning part for Chelsea is this price point that we seem unlikely to meet despite an ever-growing need for reinforcement at center forward as Diego Costa heads for the exit. Unless we’re waiting to unveil a sudden ace up our sleeves (Belotti?), we need to start making some progress in this situation. It won’t be cheap, but this is the hand the we’ve been dealt and we cannot simply fold at this point.

UPDATE: United definitely trying; advantage should still be Chelsea’s.