Chelsea-born Antoine Semenyo may be a big fan of Chelsea, but it would appear that Chelsea are not big fans of him. According to the latest reports, the Blues have decided against pursuing his signature following an inquiry that was made this week.
The 25-year-old striker’s blistering start to the season at AFC Bournemouth — only Erling
Haaland and Igor Thiago(?!) have scored more than Semenyo’s eight in the Premier League so far — has put him on the radar of all the big teams, with Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United … and also Spurs … all launching an inquiry and apparently offering similar potential terms. Chelsea did so as well, but according to The Athletic’s David Ornstein, we’re not planning on progressing out interest beyond that.
Semenyo set a career high with 13 goals last season (11 in the league) and he looks well on course to best that this year, continuing his upward trending statistical output ever since joining Bournemouth three years ago in a £10m deal. The Cherries will command a fair bit more in any upcoming transfer, even with Semenyo making it quite clear that he intends to leave in order to further his career.
Chelsea’s reluctance to pursue a deal at this point is understandable, even if Bournemouth would be reportedly open to a pre-agreed transfer for the summer.
We seem to be fairly happy with our current options in João Pedro and Liam Delap — especially if Delap could stay healthy — while Emmanuel Emegha will be coming over from BlueCo sister club RC Strasbourg in the summer. And it seems unlikely that Bayern Munich would exercise their buy-option on Nicolas Jackson, so his future would need sorting as well. Given the various financial controls that we need to meet, we are going to have to keep a very close eye on that transfer budget.
UPDATE: It looks like this saga will end just as quickly as it began, with Semenyo possibly set to join Manchester City in a £65m deal!
