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“It burns for Bakayoko at Monaco!” reads the Google-translated tweet from French Transfer Oracle, Mohamed Bouhafsi today. That sounds painful and a bit personal; he might want to see a medical professional about that.
Ça brûle pour #Bakayoko à Monaco ! Monaco et Chelsea sont tout proches de trouver un accord pour un prêt avec option d’achat de 35M€ ! Le joueur lui est d’ores et déjà d’accord avec Monaco. #RMCsport
— Mohamed Bouhafsi (@mohamedbouhafsi) August 28, 2019
All kidding aside, it sounds like Tiemoue Bakayoko’s long-awaited loan move to AS Monaco is getting close, with Bouhafsi reporting that the season-long loan will come with a €35m option to buy, which is almost exactly as much as Chelsea gave Monaco for Bakayoko two years ago!
The 25-year-old midfielder flopped pretty hard in his first season at Stamford Bridge, but showed that there’s plenty of talent and quality there still while on loan at AC Milan last season. Milan eventually passed on their buy-option for various sporting and personnel reasons (did not qualify for the Champions League and changed both the head coach and the sporting director!) but were recently rumored to be still interested in case the Monaco option fell through.
However, it sounds like the Monaco option is very much happening. Let’s do it!