€30m may be a reasonable return to watch skilful midfielder lifting trophies with Man City

Earlier today we heard major advances on the whispers about a Mateo Kovacic move to Manchester City.

It’s been rumoured for some time, but Fabrizio Romano’s exclusive claimed that we’ve reached the stage of “concrete talks,” which presumably mean we’ve advanced beyond preliminary discussions of willingness to sell or buy and reached the stage of actually talking numbers.

Jacob Steinberg of the Guardian added that the “expectation” was that “a deal will be done.”

At this stage, not many Chelsea fans are going to object. After initially enjoying the rush of a brilliant dribbler in central midfield, the affection for Kovacic has worn off as his ineffectiveness in many games started to grate.

He’s managed 6 goals and 15 goals in 221 games for the club, not really goo enough

Fans will be pretty happy to get some money for him and move on. But don’t be surprised if they’re left frustrated by a reborn Kovacic in Manchester.

Most players look better as part of Pep Guardiola’s winning machine, and while it takes a certain type of player to adapt to it, those who survive can often end up looking better than ever as part of the winning machine.

But it was just never going to happen for Kova here – he had plenty of chances, and while it will be frustrating to see him lifting the title in a year’s time, we will hopefully have replaced him with a really tenacious and motivated young tackler who will complement Enzo Fernandez in the middle of the pitch.

If the €30m or so we get for him from City help us in the long term, we can handle the pain of him thriving there.

Chelsea News