Aston Villa are reportedly willing to blow Napoli out of the water to sign Romelu Lukaku from Chelsea this summer.
Lukaku returned to Chelsea for £97m from Inter Milan in the summer of 2021 but things didn’t go to plan despite his claim he has “unfinished business” at Stamford Bridge, as he hit out at then manager Thomas Tuchel and claimed he wanted to return to Inter in a bombshell interview.
The striker has spent the last two seasons out on loan from Chelsea, first back at Inter and then with Roma, with the Belgian scoring 21 goals in 47 appearances for the latter in 2023/24.
The Blues are desperate to find a buyer for Lukaku this summer and the 31-year-old is desperate to reunite with Antonio Conte, the manager he thrived under at Inter Milan, now in charge of Napoli.
The Belgian is tied up in negotiations between Chelsea and Napoli for fellow striker Victor Osimhen, with reports claiming the Blues are ‘on the verge’ of agreeing a part-exchange deal with the Serie A side.
It’s claimed Chelsea will send Lukaku and Cesare Casadei to Naples along with £38.5m in exchange for Osimhen, who’s valued by the Italian’s at €100m.
But that deal could now be in doubt according to Corriere dello Sport, who claim Villa are set to offer Lukaku’s full release clause to prise him away from Chelsea.
Napoli have so far stretched to €25m plus €5m in add-ons for Lukaku, while Villa are ready to go the whole hog and splash €43m on the striker, who would be competing with Ollie Watkins for a spot in the starting XI at Villa Park.
As things stand Lukaku only has eyes for Napoli and Conte but if the Serie A side can’t come to an agreement with Chelsea, as part of a deal for Osimhen or in a separate negotiation, then the Belgium international will have to consider alternative options.
We would advise taking a claim of Villa’s readiness to trigger the release clause with a pinch of salt as while a report earlier this month detailing Unai Emery’s interest arguably provides more credence, suggestions at that time that Chelsea had ‘come to an agreement with Aston Villa’ were clearly wide of the mark.
It was further added that Chelsea had put Lukaku’s ‘back to the wall’ as they ‘would like the Belgian to accept the move to Birmingham’, but Lukaku ‘just wants to go back to his old master’.
The Blues were ‘losing patience’ then with Lukaku, who is currently training alone at the Cobham training ground while the rest of the squad is on the pre-season tour of the United States, so must be at the end of their tether now.
