Chelsea ‘confident’ in reducing Gonzalo Higuaín’s price tag — report

The initial impressions of Gonzalo Higuaín’s tenure as the Chelsea first-choice striker have been fairly good, even if the team’s results have been rather bad. After scoring his first two goals for the club in the 5-0 demolishing of Huddersfield, he was one of the few players to come out with any sort of credit — at least he seemed to be trying — from the 6-0 thrashing by Manchester City a few days later.

Higuaín should be quite motivated to do well, lest he end up back at Juventus at the end of the season, but it’s a bit too early to begin any talk of extending his loan deal for a further year, let alone making his stay permanent — especially at the prices quoted in the present arrangement with the Old Lady. But, at the same time, Chelsea are apparently “confident” that the price tag for the permanent move can be reduced from the €36m currently stipulated.

Chelsea are paying €9m in loan fees for the half-season loan and would have to shell out twice as much for a full year next season, or twice as much again to make the stay permanent. That linear scale does leave room for negotiation, though Higuaín will turn 32 next season and it’s far from guaranteed that his biggest fan, Maurizio Sarri will even be around by then.

Yet another reason for Higuaín to score lots and lots of goals then.