£50m Premier League transfer has one good and one bad effect for Chelsea | OneFootball

Aston Villa are closing in the signing of Amadou Onana from Everton.

The powerful midfielder is close to a £50m move, according to top insider Fabrizio Romano, with a deal to be completed next week after the Belgian returned from the Euros.

Villa remain one of Chelsea’s top rivals for a place in the top 4, so it’s frustrating to see them strengthen with a quality player. They’ve appointed a great coach and sporting director, built a great squad and continue to make annoyingly solid moves every year.

At a fraction of the cost of Chelsea’s operation, they’ve refreshed their whole squad and made it to the Champions League. That will hopefully take its toll on their league form, but also gives them the cash and the draw to make these sorts of moves. The distance between us and them doesn’t look to be getting any smaller.

How the deal affects Chelsea

There are a few ways to view this deal from Chelsea’s point of view.

Firstly there are the large group of people who wanted us to sign him before he went to Everton, and still think we should have signed him from the Toffees. A year ago we could have snagged him for a similar fee, instead of either Moises Caicedo or Romeo Lavia. We would have had a player with a much strong track record in the Premier League.

But there’s another angle too – Everton are being pushed towards this sale because of their FFP issues. They will want to replace him cheaply, and one of their options appears to be taking Lesley Ugochukwu from us on loan, as we reported earlier today. So in that minor way, it’s a deal which benefits us.

Of course, signing Onana a year or two ago might have worked out even better.