EXPOSED! How Chelsea ridiculously offer Osimhen ‘insulting’ wages

For a hot minute, it looked like Chelsea just might pull of a major signing at striker on Transfer Deadline Day, but after waiting around all summer to see if Victor Osimhen would fall into our lap, when he did, we were unable to agree personal terms.

So that’s unfortunate, but it would appear that we were not able to come anywhere near to what Osimhen wanted.

According to Sky Italia, Chelsea offered less than half of what he currently makes at Napoli, and even with potential performance-based incentives, the 25-year-old found the offer “insulting”.

Osimhen’s said to make €10m annually right now; we were offering €4m base, plus €2m for Champions League qualification, and €2m based on goals scored.

We certainly could’ve used a striker of Osimhen’s caliber, but perhaps not at the expense of breaking out new wage structure — for better or worse.

Osimhen’s future now might depend entirely on whether Napoli and Al-Ahli can figure out a deal. Napoli rejected an offer yesterday, with the Saudi Pro League side instead moving to sign Ivan Toney (not yet official), but their transfer window is open for a couple more days, so there’s some wiggle room (though they will be full-up on their foreign player limits if Toney does sign).

As was in the case of Raheem Sterling or Trevoh Chalobah at Chelsea, there seems to be no way back with Napoli for Osimhen who’s training away from the first-team.

But that’s none of our concern. Depth at striker is our concern, so hopefully Marc Guiu or Christopher Nkunku or João Félix or whoever can step up to support and spell Nicolas Jackson.