Chelsea are reportedly going to be forced to have to take a hit on their £50m valuation of Diego Costa, with Atletico Madrid only offering £30m.
The Spanish forward is desperately pushing for an exit from Stamford Bridge as he has yet to report back to the club after being informed by Antonio Conte earlier this summer that he didn’t figure in his plans.
In turn, the Premier League champions have been keen to offload him, and The Sun report that the 28-year-old is still in Brazil while he is set to fly out to Madrid next week to force through a return.
However, Chelsea won’t be entirely happy with the offer on the table, as while they value Costa at £50m, it’s claimed that Atleti are only willing to pay £30m as they look to take advantage of the current situation and drive down Costa’s price-tag the longer the wait goes on this summer, as per the report.
Nevertheless, a return to his former club is complicated given their transfer ban, and so he wouldn’t be able to feature until January which would of course put his World Cup hopes in doubt.
That doesn’t seem to be enough to put him off though, as he’s desperate to leave Chelsea and will continue to push for a return to Spain with the Blues perhaps having to take what they can to get him out the door.
Meanwhile, The Mirror report that Antonio Conte has suffered another setback as a £63m bid for Juventus left-back Alex Sandro has been rejected.
Chelsea need to add more quality and depth to their squad before the transfer deadline at the end of the month, but Conte is being frustrated in his pursuit of key targets which won’t help the general mood at the club after their opening-day defeat at home to Burnley.
Sandro has been a main target for them for weeks, but the report notes that the latest £63m offer has been turned down, and so it doesn’t appear as though the 26-year-old will be arriving in west London any time soon.