Well it’s happening. Pedro Neto is soon to be a Chelsea player, having had his medical today.
Ben Jacobs has now popped up with some details about the deal in full. He says it’s a €0m deal with a further €3m in bonuses available.
It was a whirlwind deal from our perspective. There had been some mention of interest in Neto way back at the start of the summer, but nothing very concrete. Then suddenly it all kicked off. Jacobs says we had a bid rejected on Thursday, then an improved offer accepted on Friday.
What’s also interesting is the mention of a cash plus player deal. We wonder who was involved in that? One would imagine a full list of available Blues was presented, with those currently being frozen out of training at the top of it.
But in the end the Midlands side have gone for the full cash option, and it’s quite a hefty fee in the end. €63m is several tiers above what we’ve been spending so far this summer. Only fellow new arrival Samu Omorodion, also formalising his move today, comes close to this fee.
Pedro Neto will sign a six-year contract at #CFC having undergone his medical today.
€60m+€3m package. Chelsea tried first with a cash-player offer, then had another bid rejected on Thursday before finally their offer was accepted on Friday.🇵🇹 pic.twitter.com/PKJQuFiyVx
— Ben Jacobs (@JacobsBen) August 10, 2024
A lot of money – but proven quality
We’ve been crying out for some proven Premier League quality and Neto certainly has that. There are questions about his injury record, and more importantly where he fits into this team, but we’d be lying if we said we weren’t more excited about his name on the teamsheet than we would be about Raheem Sterling, Mykhailo Mudryk or Noni Madueke.
Neto has had a full preseason with Wolves, and while we expect a watching brief for tomorrow’s friendly against Inter, there’s plenty of time to get him integrated ahead of our opening fixture of the Premier League season next weekend against Man City.
