Atlético Madrid reject Chelsea’s £25-30m offer for Samu Omorodion

In recent years, including the latter years of the Abramovich era, I have often criticized the club for making seemingly random decisions and never prescribing a coherent long-term strategy. To the credit of the current braintrusts, the overall plan now seems pretty clear, although it still tends to result in a widely dispersed transfer strategy and, subsequently, leave us with a fairly unbalanced squad.

But in that sense, going after a random 20-year-old who supposedly has high potential is perfectly fine.

Samu Omorodion only scored 8 goals in 34 La Liga appearances while on loan at Alavés from Atlético Madrid last season, but he appears to have a similar profile to Jhon Durán, who was (and may be -be still) the highest name remaining on our striker wishlist (having crossed off Victor Osimhen and Benjamin Šeško).

Unfortunately for us, Atlético Madrid appear to value him above the £25-30 million we are prepared to invest and as a result, according to various reports published on Thursday, including those in the Telegraph and The Athletic, they have rejected our opening offers.

It’s unclear whether we’ve completely turned our attention away from Durán (the Telegraph claims we “remain in negotiations”), but the Aston Villa man’s wage demands and the Aston Villa man’s own (ridiculous) transfer demands Villa obviously prove to be an obstacle.

The Athletic adds that Omorodion and Durán are among a “handful” of candidates we are looking at, which could also include Dominic Solanke – although the former Chelsea youngster’s £65m release clause makes these reunions even less likely. (Plus, he will be 27 in September, so he no longer fits the transfer strategy discussed at the summit.)