Aubameyang a ‘stop-gap solution’ for Chelsea until next summer — report

Chelsea’s pursuit of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang continues, and while reports of a €27m bid may have been premature, we certainly seem to be well on course to complete this mission before the end of the transfer window — and hopefully at a more reasonable fee in the end.

Reports throughout Thursday spoke of talks focusing primarily on personal terms between Chelsea and the 33-year-old striker, who apparently gets paid quite well by his current club that’s constantly teetering on the edge of financial collapse. It’s unclear if a “breakthrough” has been reached in this regard (the talks, not the teetering), which thus may or may not be gating an actual and official bid — not that Barcelona seem all that willing to let him go, despite the aforementioned accounting issues, which are currently still preventing them from registering Jules Koundé or completing the Marcos Alonso deal.

As much as such things are often a formality — Chelsea pay as well as any team in the world — our supposed intention to use Auba simply as a “stop-gap” until next summer may be a factor. According to the Telegraph, he is only meant to tide us over until the Hot Days of 2023, when the likes of Christopher Nkunku or Rafael Leão, or whoever the flavor of the season might be by then, would be potentially available.

That sounds like a reasonable plan, with shades of Thiago Silva’s signing in 2020 — though a) Silva came for free, and b) we still managed to mangle the rebuild. Hopefully we’ve learned our lessons.