Chelsea made a surprise Deadline Day attempt to seal the transfer of Southampton wonderkid Romeo Lavia.
Fabrizio Romano, writing in his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, says that the Blues tried really hard to bring in the talented Belgian teenager, offering as much as £50million for him.
Lavia has only played a few games for the Saints, but has impressed a great deal since joining from Manchester City earlier in the summer.
Romano says City have a buy-back option with Lavia, but Chelsea were also very keen on snapping up the 18-year-old.
However, Southampton turned down the bid, even though it gave them the chance to make a huge profit on the player after a very short period at the St Mary’s Stadium.
“One of the surprise stories of Deadline Day was that Chelsea made a £50m bid to Southampton for Romeo Lavia,” Romano said.
“The answer from Southampton was “no”, but Chelsea really tried.
“Man City were not involved, but they have a £40m buy-back clause. Still, Southampton will not sell Lavia until June, despite Chelsea’s strong interest.
“He’s started well with Southampton and looks like a big prospect for the future, but this was certainly a surprising Deadline Day story.
“If Lavia carries on performing as he has, then it surely won’t be the last we’ve heard about him in terms of big clubs pursuing him in the transfer market.”
Chelsea ended up signing Denis Zakaria on loan from Juventus, but also explored other midfield targets.