Chelsea beat Real Madrid & Manchester City to striker target?

Reports in Italy claim that Chelsea are leading the race for Napoli forward Edinson Cavani ahead of Manchester City and Real Madrid.

According Sport Mediaset, a fee between  €55m – €58m (£46.75m – £49.30m) has been agreed for the Uruguayan forward that will likely see him move to Stamford Bridge this summer.

They say it’s a cash only deal which is the reason why Chelsea’s bid is preferred as both Real Madrid and Manchester City wanted to use one or more players in exchange. Carlo Ancelotti and Manuel Pellegrini are expected to be named as the managers of the aforementioned respectively, but it’s thought that the fact neither are officially at work as yet may have held up their chances of signing the player.

The Italian publication also suggest that the 26-year-old would want to arrange a swift transfer as he is an admirer of Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho and they don’t anticipate it being long before he agrees terms with the West London club.

However, it’s merely a media report and will have to be taken with a pinch of salt in exactly the same way as any rumour you’d here in the British press, but it’s certainly worth keeping an eye on and most punters with the bookmakers fancy Cavani to end up in Chelsea blue.

Whether or not it would prove to be a good deal remains to be seen. It’s a lot of money for one player, but if he’s around for more than five years, scores regularly and helps us win titles then people will forget about the fee. But if he displays Torres-like form then he’ll never escape his price-tag and we could probably buy two top quality players for the money we’d spend on him alone.

Cavani scored 104 goals in 138 games for Napoli since moving to the Serie A club in 2010.

Source: Givemesport