There’s been a shifting assumption over the past few days, both in the Spanish and Italian media, that Chelsea, and Manchester City to a certain extent, are now favourites to sign Alvaro Morata.
The line of thinking is that Manchester United are out of the picture because they’re supposed to be signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Arsenal are also out of the running because they’re trying to sign Jamie Vardy from Leicester City.
That leaves, given the figures likely to be involved, Chelsea and Manchester City as favourites. Spanish newspaper AS claim in their Tuesday edition that Chelsea and Manchester City have taken the lead and everything could be decided ‘in the coming days’.
Firstly, Juventus and Real Madrid need to agree what they’re going to do, with the Spanish club almost certainly set to use their buyback option. Morata isn’t interested in playing second fiddle to Karim Benzema, so AS believe he’d rather move.
However, Chelsea have Diego Costa and Manchester City have Sergio Aguero, meaning Morata would be unlikely to get the central striker role.
AS believe an advantage for Chelsea is they’ll be managed by Antonio Conte, who took Morata to Juventus in the first place, but it’s also stated David Silva could be an advantage for Manchester City… based entirely on him being Spanish.
