Chelsea, Tottenham, Liverpool linked with €100m-midfielder Bruno Fernandes

The Portuguese Primeira Liga provides a bountiful harvest of highly promising talent each and every year for the rest of Europe’s top leagues, and that’s unlikely to be any different this summer. One player who has caught the attention of many of top European clubs is Sporting Lisbon CP attacking midfielder Bruno Fernandes. (Ed.note: not to be confused with Brazilian goalkeeper Bruno Fernandes under any circumstance.)

According to Portuguese newspaper A Bola, Fernandes had long been a target of Atlético Madrid. However they are not alone — no one’s ever alone in the rumor mill — as Chelsea, Tottenham and Liverpool are also apparently keen on the 23-year-old. The latter were linked with an eye-watering £87m move a couple weeks ago in fact, which as it turns out is the value of the kid’s release clause (€100m).

This season, Fernandes has picked up 16 goals and 20 assists over 53 games and 4,437 minutes of play for the Leões. His form has earned him 4 caps with the Portuguese national team since 2017, and he is one of the men who will most likely feature in manager Fernando Santos’ list for the upcoming World Cup in Russia.

As of now, Chelsea only have Eden Hazard, Willian and Cesc Fàbregas as players in the first-team squad able to act as a no.10, although the last two in the list are not nearly as effective as the Belgian star. Adding a significantly younger understudy to the group would make plenty of sense, especially if we do not deem our youth stars good enough.

But first, we would need to power through Sporting president Bruno de Carvalho and his crazy acts. He makes Napoli’s Aurelio De Laurentiis seem like a totally reasonable guy in comparison. Known for moves such as suspending 19 players due to a public spat after a loss to Atlético Madrid in Europa League and refusing to pay transfer fees to fellow Portuguese clubs, Carvalho will be in to squeeze as much money from Chelsea or anyone else interested in Fernandes as possible.