On Nicolò Barella’s birthday, TuttoMercatoWeb recall the fact the Inter Milan star is a very wanted man in Europe, with Chelsea giving it a good go in the past.
While other Premier League clubs are all salivating at the idea of having the complete midfielder in their squad, it’s the Blues who actually took action last summer, but failed in their attempt.
It’s claimed ‘there was an offer’ from Chelsea for the 27-year-old star, with the Stamford Bridge side hoping to use Romelu Lukaku as a makeweight in the deal in ‘a swap’.
However, we all know what happened after that, since the Belgian eventually burnt all bridges with Inter by talking to Juventus, which was all for nothing as he eventually ended up at AS Roma on loan.
TuttoMercatoWeb claim the deal ‘fell through’ for two reasons, the first being the aforementioned decision from the Chelsea loanee to look elsewhere, but also because the London club ‘are out of the Champions League’ and probably will be ‘for the foreseeable future’.
That means a move to Stamford Bridge probably isn’t Barella’s plans, because he already earns a comfortable €6-7m/year at Inter, and would only leave for a club like Mauricio Pochettino’s if he saw a ‘big improvement’ on his salary being offered.
In short, if Chelsea do want him, they are going to have to give him some astronomical wages, which we all know is within the realms of possibility when Todd Boehly is involved.
