You still get the impression that Frank Lampard isn’t truly happy with his central midfield options, but it was clear that Tiemoue Bakayoko didn’t have a future at Stamford Bridge this summer.
All of the talk was based around a potential exit rather than him getting a chance to prove himself, but his loan move to Napoli came about fairly late in the window.
It did look like a good move because he’s impressed in Serie A with AC Milan in the past, and a report from Football-Italia has indicated that Napoli are very pleased with his start.
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They are so happy with him that they’ve already opened talks with Chelsea over a transfer, but the loan move was a bit rushed so there was no option to buy included.
It’s confirmed that they paid €2m as a loan fee and the final transfer could cost an extra €18m, so Chelsea would still be around €10m down on the €30m they were asking for this summer.
It’s believed that Napoli and Bakayoko are waiting on the manager Rino Gattuso extending his contract first before committing to the final deal, but that also looks close so this could be wrapped up in the coming weeks.