By Rumour Monger
Could this man be on his way to the Bridge?
First we’ve heard, but the Daily Mail are reporting this morning that Chelsea have a sneaky £22 million bid for supposed Arsenal target Juan Mata knocked back by Valencia – but apparently, like some sort of cash-laden Terminator, ‘they will be back’.
Sounds ominous.
Elsewhere, the Telegraph have word that a Chelsea exec has landed in Portugal to ‘discuss the possibility’ of signing Porto pair Joao Moutinho and Alvaro Pereira before the end of the month.
Pereira, a spindly left-sided wing-back, is said to be the most likely arrival as a replacement for Yuri Zhirkov, with a bid of between €20-25 million (£17-22 million) enough to swing it – though the paper also seem fairly certain that the Blues will succeed where Everton failed a year or two ago and prise Moutinho away from Porto with an offer of €30 million (£26 million) and by playing on the ties he was with his former coach, Andre Villas-Boas.
So, who would you prefer to see wash up on the Chelsea shores before the end of August – Mata, Moutinho or Modric?