Chelsea still trying to offload Romelu Lukaku; still not interested in Dušan Vlahović — reports

A picture of Romelu Lukaku in a (this year’s Chelsea training kit made the social media rounds earlier this week. Presumably it was taken at Cobham, but it doesn’t mean that Lukaku is back with the (first-)team. No, in fact, we’re still trying to get rid of him ... and still finding that very hard to accomplish.

Inter Milan would’ve been the obvious destination, but just when it looked like we had found a solution, Lukaku burned that bridge quite spectacularly. Inter legend Javier Zanetti recently called it a straight up betrayal. So yeah, that’s not happening.

The team that Lukaku “betrayed” Inter for was Juventus instead, but that potential move isn’t going well either, not exactly. Their fans staged a protest against him yesterday at a training match, but more importantly, we appear to be nowhere near(er) a potential deal. Juventus continue to insist on making this a part-exchange for Dušan Vlahović, and are asking for €40m in addition (yes, in addition!) to Lukaku.

Chelsea are not interested this at all, at least according to most, including Fabrizio Romano. Other transfer rumor-mongers claim that Chelsea might be okay with a smaller cash component (say, €20m, as per Gianluca Di Marzio), but even after Christopher Nkunku’s injury it seems highly unlikely that we’d want to trade one anchor for another in front of goal. (And hopefully we stick to that stance.)

Chelsea’s ideal solution remains the Saudi Pro League (SPL), but while that’s one place that would be welcoming to Romelu at this point, he’s not interested in going. At least not yet?

Three weeks to go in most transfer windows around Europe. The SPL’s is open until mid-September (the 20th, to be exact).