Chelsea, Roma separate Emerson and Dzeko deals — report

Plenty of questions remain about Chelsea’s pursuit of not only center forward Edin Dzeko but left wing-back Emerson Palmieri as well, both of AS Roma, as we enter the final four days of the transfer window.

Will they? Won’t they? Will they at the same time? Does one depend on the other? Are we trying to game the FFP system by combining the deals and assinging values as we see fit? Who’s the main culprit for all these delays and uncertainty? And so on and so forth.

The deadline for all this to get done was supposed to be Friday. That’s been extended to Monday, or at least Sunday night. It’s unclear what Chelsea would do if the deals fell through, though in the case of Emerson, we have apparently started looking at PSG’s Layvin Kurzawa as a last-minute solution (after loaning out both Kenedy and Baba). If Dzeko falls through, especially if it gets dragged out all the way to Wednesday, perhaps Batshuayi will end up staying.

While Emerson looked to be a done deal early last week, the concern that it’s in some way tied to the Dzeko deal has dragged it down into uncertain territory. However, Gazzetta dello Sport (via Sport Witness) are reporting that the two deals were actually separated late last week, and they are expecting Emerson to finalize his move tomorrow (Sunday) and be announced on Monday.

The deal for the 23-year-old should be around €20m with a €5m add-on, and wages of around £40k per week.