For a few weeks now, the talk of a Ruben Lotus-Cheek move to AC Milan has been hotting up.
We’ve seen it reported in England and in Italy, and when the midfielder was subbed off on Sunday he made a very obvious farewell gesture to the fans at Stamford Bridge.
But in Italy some sources are still creating some doubt – Football Italia reels off a list of alternatives that Milan could chase should a deal with Chelsea for RLC not work out.
That seems unnecessarily cautious on their end. We know Chelsea are keen to sell to raise funds to pay for last summer’s excesses, and with just one year left on his deal, Loftus-Cheek is now an affordable target for Milan.
We wouldn’t expect a player who didn’t have something pretty concrete lined up to make a grand farewell like Ruben did.
Of course it’s possible that Ruben has simply been told he’s for sale, and there’s no indication that a deal with Milan is almost done – but the way he applauded all four sides of Stamford Bridge made him look very much like a player pretty confident that he knew he was going to be on his way.
Either way, we should find out pretty soon. The ownership are keen to wrap deals up before the end of June for accounting purposes, and transfers which look relatively easy to complete like this one will be top of the list.
