The Blues are believed to be in talks over what would be a very shrewd transfer for the Napoli hitman, but not all is as it seems
Chelsea’s never-ending search for a capable No.9 has led them to Napoli’s Victor Osimhen, as the Premier League club have seemingly stepped up their longstanding interest in the Nigerian, who has made it clear he wants to leave Italy. According to The Athletic, the clubs are locked in negotiations over a remarkable swap deal that would see Osimhen move to Stamford Bridge on loan, while £97.5 million ($125m) flop Romelu Lukaku heads in the other direction on a permanent basis.
Even if Osimhen isn’t signed on a permanent transfer, bringing him in and finally ridding themselves of Lukaku would be viewed as a very shrewd piece of business from Chelsea’s transfer specialists, sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart. It would be a timely deal, too, as a young side has made a disappointing start to pre-season under new head coach Enzo Maresca.
But is this potential transfer too good to be true from a Chelsea perspective? An agent’s intervention suggests that may well be the case, but this is a deal they should be pushing for nonetheless.
It is probably a misconception that Osimhen is a rampant goal-scorer who has been bagging 30+ times a season in Serie A. Perceptions were certainly skewed by his prolific 2022-23 season as he fired Napoli to a first Scudetto in 30 years with 26 strikes in 32 Serie A appearances, as well as five more in the Champions League.
Who knows, he could adapt seamlessly to the Premier League and reach similar heights, but while that season looks like something of an anomaly, he should be a reliable source of goals whatever happens. Osimhen has consistently hit double-figures in recent years, and given Mauricio Pochettino helped Chelsea collectively rediscover their goal-scoring touch last season as plenty of players across the squad contributed, Osimhen should be able to supplement their output nicely – something that could end up being the difference between finishing sixth and fourth.
On paper he boasts all the attributes required to succeed in English football and follow in the footsteps of some great Chelsea strikers, capable of physically dominating his marker and explosive finishing in the same vein as Didier Drogba and Diego Costa.
In a departure from their recent transfer strategy, at just 25 Osimhen would become one of the most experienced members of Chelsea’s squad. The Blues have deployed a policy of almost exclusively going after good value, high-potential young players this summer, signing the likes of Marc Guiu (18), Renato Veiga (20) and Omari Kellyman (18), but realistically they need more experience if they want to compete next season.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Tosin Adarabioyo – aged 25 and 26, respectively – have also been added for £30 million cumulatively, but neither has played for an elite club or in the Champions League. With the average age of the squad alarmingly young at 23, Chelsea could certainly do with some more experienced heads around.
Despite potentially still being short of his peak, Osimhen brings that know-how and nous that the Blues and Maresca will be looking for; a Scudetto winner with Napoli, he has five strong Champions League campaigns under his belt, as well as a season in Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga. At international level he is Nigeria’s talisman, carrying the weight of a football-obsessed country on his shoulders.
However, even though the deal is a proposed loan with an option to buy, it doesn’t come without an element of risk for a club with a history of terrible striker signings and forgettable loans. Indeed, Chelsea will not want to be the butt of the joke once again.
Rather alarmingly, Osimhen’s form fell off a cliff last season after he fired Napoli to the Scudetto in 2022-23, although he still managed to net 15 times in 25 league appearances during Gli Azzurri’s feeble title defence that ended in a mid-table finish. Chelsea will hope he will be rejuvenated by a fresh start in England, but there will be an adaptation period that will require patience.
The Nigerian would also be replacing arguably the biggest transfer failure in Chelsea’s history in the form of £100m ($128m) man Lukaku, who could head in the opposite direction. That in itself should serve as a warning to Osimhen, but he will also likely inherit the ‘cursed’ No.9 shirt that has weighed so heavily on the likes of Alvaro Morata, Fernando Torres and the Belgian.
Chelsea’s history of underwhelming loan deals is also reason for concern; recent failed short-term employees include Joao Felix, Saul Niguez, Denis Zakaria and Gonzalo Higuain. Mateo Kovacic, who now plies his trade for Man City, is pretty much their only success story in the loan market, and Chelsea will be desperate for Osimhen to buck the trend too.
However, depending on the structure of the agreement, Chelsea will probably view a loan for Osimhen as relatively low risk. The hope will be that he and Nicolas Jackson, who enjoyed a productive season but is not ready to lead the line alone, share the goal-scoring burden and that by the end of the season he has done enough to justify triggering the buy option, but that won’t necessarily mean he’ll be required to score 30 times.
A whole season, rather than six months, will give the striker time to settle and adapt to the rigours of English football, but if the move does not work out – amid the inevitable ridicule – the club can simply pass up the option to sign him permanently. They will hope it does not come to that, though.
Although his reputation has taken something of a hit, evidenced by a lack of transfer interest from most of Europe’s elite clubs apart from Paris Saint-Germain, a loan for a striker of Osimhen’s quality makes sense for a club that is in the midst of a gruelling rebuild. If it works out, it will look like a masterstroke from their transfer negotiators.
The player has spoken openly about his admiration for the Premier League and claimed he knew where his future lay, saying earlier this year: “The Premier League is one of the biggest leagues in the world. I want to finish the season with Napoli strong then come up with the decision I’ve already made.”
During his hot streak in 2023 he admitted: “I’m working so hard to make sure that I achieve my dream of playing in the Premier League some day. But like I said, it’s a process and I just want to keep on this momentum and continue to do well.”
Perhaps the best thing about this potential deal, though, is the fact that Chelsea will finally be freeing of themselves of a huge financial burden in Lukaku. While they are set to take a huge hit on the £97.5m ($125m) they paid Inter for the Belgian in 2021, getting his eye-watering £325,000-per-week ($417,000) wages off their books will be of utmost importance.
Lukaku has not played for Chelsea for more than two years now and at this stage he is simply a financial drain for a club he will never play for again, returning on loan to Italy to Inter and Roma in the past two seasons after one injury-hit campaign back at Stamford Bridge, where he became a pariah after a monumental falling out with then-manager Thomas Tuchel.
It is very convenient that Napoli boss Antonio Conte is keen on a reunion with Lukaku in Naples after they worked together and won a Scudetto at Inter. Chelsea’s hierarchy will now be desperate to make his ill-fated return a thing of the past, and the Osimhen deal enabling that will be seen as a huge bonus.
Chelsea could certainly do with some good news at the moment. They have endured a concerning start to pre-season, first being held by League One side Wrexham before a humbling 4-1 defeat to Scottish champions Celtic on tour in the U.S..
Eyebrows have also been raised by their insistence on signing a plethora of young players rather than targeting established names who could be solutions to some of their problem positions, with a number of outgoings making them feel like something of an unknown quantity again under another new head coach in Maresca.
As previously touched upon, the Boehly-Clearlake ownership saw its business acumen called into question after a host of ill-fated, high-cost transfers before sporting directors Stewart and Winstanley were handed the reins. Things have improved since, with Cole Palmer and Malo Gusto the notable success stories of last summer, but a shrewd deal for Osimhen would start to shift perceptions.
A big-name signing would go some way to allaying fears that Chelsea are on course for a repeat of the previous two campaigns, where they have toiled in mid-table for months on end. Indeed, if he can hit the ground running in the Premier League then someone like Osimhen could be transformative.
However, it seems there are no guarantees here. Despite the news of Chelsea being in talks over Osimhen being broken by the ever-reliable David Ornstein, his agent has vehemently denied there is any truth to the story.
Taking to social media, Roberto Calenda wrote: “I read about imaginative exchanges with Victor sent here and there as if he were a package to be delivered quickly. This package, however, is the top scorer of the third Scudetto in Napoli’s history. Respect and stop with fake news!”
Of course, the words of an outspoken agent should always be taken with a pinch of salt as they will have their client’s interests in mind at all times and he could be trying to leverage a better package for the player, but Calenda has certainly cast doubt over exactly where the truth lies.
There is usually no smoke without fire, though. It could be that Calenda and his client would not be willing to agree to a loan, while Sky Sport Italia have reported that Napoli are actually demanding a €70m (£59m/$76m) fee plus Lukaku to part ways with their hitman – the kind of deal that Chelsea surely would not entertain.
This feels like a negotiation that is in its infancy and one that could drag on for some time, but the west London club will be overjoyed if they can land a player of Osimhen’s calibre and rid themselves of Lukaku without paying over the odds – or, indeed, a penny.
