Brazilian club Sao Paulo have rejected a £32.3 million bid from Chelsea for Lucas Moura, but the club’s president Juvenal Juvencio has admitted that the west London club are currently the closest to signing the 19-year-old.
Lucas Moura is a long-term target of Chelsea’s and it would seem as though they are stepping up their chase for him along with Eden Hazard, who they have been keeping an eye on for some time now, as they seek to rebuild this summer.
But Sao Paulo do not want to sell their most prized asset who has a release clause of around £64.6m and Chelsea face competition from Inter Milan and Real Madrid for the player’s signature.
At the moment the Blues are leading the race and Juvencio said:
“At the moment it is Chelsea that are the closest team to Lucas.
“Inter have presented an offer but that was not considered satisfactory to us. Real Madrid are another one of the teams and there have been contacts with [president] Florentino Perez who admires the player very much.
“I do not know what it will take [for Moura to leave]. There are many factors. He is happy here and he will only go if there is an important proposal.”
Back in March Moura had spoken of his preference for Inter Milan amongst his suitors but that may have changed since Chelsea crowned themselves kings of Europe by winning the UEFA Champions League, which has made them a far more attractive prospect than the side Andre Villas-Boas was struggling with back in March.
Chelsea have done business with the Brazilian club before for Lucas Piazon and with Piazon, David Luiz and Ramires at the club amongst a few other Portuguese speakers it could be the ideal environment for Moura to settle should he leave his native Brazil.
However, according to recent reports in the press the club do not want to sign both Moura and Hazard. The latter would be the preference in my opinion and although he’ll command more wages his transfer fee could be considerably less and we would be getting a lot more of a player for our money.
Hazard had been heavily linked heavily with the Manchester clubs but it’s unlikely that he’ll sign for United as they are put off by the club’s wage demands. City had been favourites to sign Hazard but he’s since ‘changed his mind’ about his future and even his club has no idea of his preference. Surely it isn’t a coincidence that Hazard may have had a change of heart shortly after Chelsea win the Champions League.
hope we sign both hazard & lucas ! they 2 and mata playing off torres in 4-2-3-1 formation would be awesome !!
If Chelsea can get dis guyz, championz league will b back to back for us…..cos Lucas and Eden re d best signing for d season and no regret….let robbie rule………………………..up bluesssssssss
screw neymar, this guy is a forward thinking midfielder similar to snijder or baggio i guess. still distinctively brazilian, not to mention he scored more goals than neymar. i think torres has struggled because we do not have a link man,instead balls were just aimed at drogba to chase. torres runs trough the middle and i think this guy is guy would be more important than hazard.
Don’t know enough about him to comment. So I’ll leave that to the Chelsea scouts to decide. If he is a great offensive midfielder that could only be an improvement on Malouda (not that he hasn’t served Chelsea well in the past)