Chelsea asking €25m from Leeds United for Michy Batshuayi — report

Having finally found a potential taker for Michy Batshuayi after months of looking, you’d think Chelsea would be happy with whatever pittance we might get in return. But of course we don’t roll like that. Apparently we’re hoping for something actually meaningful in return, with Belgian outlet HLN reporting that we’ve asked for €25m from Leeds United.

Leeds may be back in the Premier League, but after the club’s spectacular financial collapse of the early 2000s and subsequent freefall down to the third division, they will surely be a lot more careful this time around. Repeating the mistakes of the Ridsdale era would surely not do, and spending a club record amount on Michy Batshuayi, beating the £18m they spent on Rio Ferdinand in 2000, sounds very much like a potential mistake along those lines.

Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa and Michy may go back a ways, to a season spent together at Marseille, but that alone won’t guarantee success in these negotiations. While €25m would be a tremendous deal for Chelsea for a fourth-choice striker with just one year left on his contract, we probably should set our expectations, and asking price, a fair bit lower.