Chelsea to offer €30-40m after Olympique Lyonnais reject €20m for Malo Gusto — report

With a week to go in the January transfer window — and a week to go before relaxed amortization rules get tightened up — Chelsea are still plowing full steam ahead to get a few more big deals over the line before the deadline on the 31st. One of those appears to be promising 19-year-old right back Malo Gusto, currently still with Olympique Lyonnais.

Reports yesterday claimed that Chelsea already had one offer rejected, which Foot Mercato today says was for €20m. Given that Lyon’s asking price was rumored to be around €30m, that’s not a surprising rejection. Guess it doesn’t hurt to ask, but time is limited!

Foot Mercato’s report does add that a “new offer” is coming from us, and in the range of €30-40m, presumably with a decent base component and plenty of add-ons (much like the €70m + €30m structure of the Mykhailo Mudryk deal). It also sounds like we are indeed expecting Gusto to make an impact immediately, so aren’t looking for any sort of loan arrangement.

Let’s get it done.