Rafael Benitez has told officials at Napoli that he would like to sign Fernando Torres for the Serie A club and this could pave the way for Edinson Cavani to move in the opposite direction, according to reports in the Express.
The Spaniard became the manager of the Naples club following his interim role at Chelsea, where he won the Europa League and finished third-place in the Premier League. He worked with Torres at Liverpool previously and enjoyed some success with the troubled forward for a second spell, so has told Aurelio De Laurentiis that he would be happy to see the Naples outfit accept a Torres plus cash offer for Cavani.
It was reported last week that Chelsea believe Cavani’s release clause is far too high and would be unwilling to pay it, but are happy to exchange players after having an initial £40 million bid rejected. But there’s a difference of opinion as to how much Torres is worth as the Blues believe his value to be £30m whilst Napoli think more like £20m.
The Express also believe that Manchester City have opted out of the race for Cavani which leaves Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain as Chelsea’s main competitors for his signature, with Real probably being the main threat as they’re in more need for a forward than the Parisians.
If Benitez is pushing the Torres option then Chelsea probably should capitalise on it as there probably aren’t many sides that will be willing to take the forward on and who needs a £170,000-a-week forward giving daggers to his manager from the bench all season?
My personal choice for a centre forward now that Radamel Falcao is out of the equation would be Bayern Munich’s Mario Gomez as he has been a consistent goal-scorer in stronger competitions, even when out of favour, and would be less than half the cost of Cavani. I don’t doubt that the 26-year-old Uruguayan would score plenty of goals should he move to West London but Chelsea will have to have a long think over how much they want him as they could purchase at least two big names with the money it’d take to land him.
If Jose Mourinho really is keen of shifting Torres then it could tip the balance.
Source: Express
