Southampton are in superior talks with Chelsea to signal Lesley Ugochukwu on a season-long mortgage.
The deal is not going to embrace an possibility for newly-promoted Southampton to purchase Ugochukwu — a sale is being dominated out regardless of a number of enquiries.
Chelsea see the 20-year-old midfielder, who joined from Rennes 12 months in the past, as a serious a part of their long-term plans and with comparable attributes to Actual Madrid’s Aurelien Tchouameni.
They fee Southampton and head coach Russell Martin very extremely, believing this transfer to be superb for the following step of Ugochukwu’s growth. The view in west London is that the south coast facet and Martin possess a system and soccer philosophy properly suited to that which they and Enzo Maresca plan to undertake at Stamford Bridge.
The Athletic reported final month that Chelsea had been reviewing mortgage choices for Ugochukwu and prioritising a short lived change to a different Premier League membership. They then recalled him from participation with the France Below-23s on the Olympic Video games and he continued to function recurrently of their pre-season thereafter, scoring in opposition to Inter Milan at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
Ugochukwu joined Chelsea for round €27.5million (£23.5m) final summer season and signed a seven-year take care of the choice of an additional 12 months. He had featured recurrently in Mauricio Pochettino’s squads within the first half of the season and made 13 first-team appearances earlier than a hamstring damage sustained in December dominated him out till Could.
Southampton start their Premier League marketing campaign at Newcastle United on Saturday, whereas Chelsea host Manchester Metropolis a day later.
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