Dzeko approves Chelsea move despite agent denials — reports

Today’s Chelsea striker search update involves only one name, but if what last night’s reports from Italy claim are true, it’s a big update with massive implications.

Here’s Di Marzio, as usual, on the leading edge of the signal, claiming that Edin Dzeko has “approved” a Chelsea move. Sky Italia would later claim an actual agreement, even.

This comes on the heels of Dzeko’s agent saying the day before that “the truth is that Dzeko wants to stay at Roma”. Of course, it is entirely possible is that his client wants to stay but, having learned of Chelsea’s bid and Roma’s (assumed) willingness to sell, he’d also approve of a potential move.

A similar report comes from Angelo Mangiante, whom we might remember for being one of the first to correctly report on Antonio Rüdiger in the summer and one of the few to consistently maintain that Alex Sandro wasn’t leaving Juventus.

What doesn’t change in this round of reporting is the financial burden (about €25m each plus bonuses) and the cold hard facts of Dzeko’s age (just a couple a months shy of 32) and Chelsea’s policy of no long-term deals for players over 30 years of age. Goals or no goals, Chelsea spending €25-30m plus bonuses on a player for a year or perhaps year and a half is just ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as giving him a long contract (3-4 years) would be.

Any fee in that region would also blow the transfer fee record out of the water for older players. While these records should be expected to get broken as the market continues to spiral out of control, it should still give us pause if the club is so willing to spend twice as much, if not more, than what Spurs paid for Fernando Llorente just six months ago.

Sure, Dzeko could conceivably compete for Morata’s starting job, not just be a glorified backup. But his signing simply does not fit the Chelsea m.o. of looking for opportunistic good deals (Barkley, for example) or signing players in their early-to-mid-20s who are already good but have a high ceiling towards which they can work and improve, the two types of signings that make up the majority of the first-team’s transfer activities.

It would be very, very surprising if Dzeko were to come to Chelsea, especially at the numbers being thrown around.

That’s why we call it Silly Season.