Chelsea being used to push Milan flop Krzysztof Piatek to Tottenham Hotspur — reports

Half-season wonder Krzysztof Piatek, 24, wants out from AC Milan (and the feeling’s probably mutual), especially after the arrival of an actual good though much older striker, Zlatan Ibrahimović.

Piatek, who scored 19 goals in 21 appearances in all competitions for Genoa, leveraged that good form into a big move to AC Milan twelve months ago. He’s gone on to score 16 goals in 40 since, and only 5 in 19 this season — blaming the media, the club, and his teammates in equal measure along the way. Still, solid work by the agent, who’s now back at it to find his client a good new home.

That home may or may not be Tottenham Hotspur, who are finally allowing Christian Eriksen to leave and thus have a bit of cash to burn, which is what AC Milan are looking for. €30m is their number, though it’s unlikely that anyone will meet those demands — and thus their talks have hit a bit of an impasse. But what if there were another team possibly interested in Piatek? Maybe that would lubricate the gears a bit!

Oh look, here come Monitoring FC! Right on cue!

According to a weekend report from Gazzetta dello Sport’s usually ignored source, Nico Schira, Chelsea have been offered a chance to sign Piatek. That report was picked up by the Mail and the Express yesterday and has been repeated in the Independent this morning, while the Telegraph’s Matt Law went with that classic “monitoring” angle. Surely, Chelsea were already aware of Piatek. We passed on him twelve months ago, much to the chagrin of many, for the even more useless Gonzalo Higuain! Maybe we need more monitoring.

Chelsea’s supposed interest is predicated on Olivier Giroud leaving and Edinson Cavani not arriving — neither of which should be surprising developments at this point.

Also not surprising: Piatek wants to be more than just a backup.

“Kris wants to reach Euro 2020 in good shape and that means he can’t be a reserve sitting on the bench, but wants to be a regular starter. If he can’t do that at Milan, then he’ll gladly do it elsewhere. He is on the transfer market in January, just like Lucas Paqueta, Suso and Hakan Calhanoglu.

“Many clubs are asking to take him on loan, but Milan want to sell straight away to recover the money they paid Genoa a year ago and reinvest immediately in new players. It’ll all go down to the final week of the transfer window, when his future will be decided.”

-Wladyslaw Piatek; source: Sportowefakty via Football Italia

All that to say, don’t buy his shirt just yet, right?

Maybe if Chelsea could work a loan for Piatek, this might be something. But it’s unlikely that this turns into Lampard’s requested short-term fix.

Here is an interesting tidbit from Matt Law’s report which is quite mind boggling.

Chelsea are still hopeful of signing a striker this week [but] not currently pursuing Real Madrid’s Luka Jovic, although they are aware he may be available for loan if they run out of other options.

-source: Telegraph

First of all, why are we not currently pursuing Luka Jovic? Second of all, why are we not currently pursuing Luka Jovic?

Jovic, who’s barely gotten a look in at Madrid thus far, may actually be available for a loan unlike Piatek, he is a better option than Piatek, and a more well-rounded player than Piatek.

Also, we could potentially do another Kovacic and turn his head so he joins us permanently, if it goes well.