London: Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has given Nemanja Matic permission to pursue a 50 million pounds transfer to Manchester United. The Old Trafford club are closing in on a deal after their initial 35 million pounds bid was turned down.
Another player moving closer to leaving the club is Diego Costa after manager Antonio Conte revealed on Friday that he had decided to sell the Spain forward in January. It has emerged Costa will not even be allowed to train with Chelsea’s first team if he returns to their Cobham base, and that he asked to leave on three separate occasions last season, infuriating his manager.
Atletico Madrid are keen to resign Costa and failed with an initial offer of 26 million pounds. However, it is believed that progress has been made over the fee. The hurdle will be who pays the player’s weekly wages of 150,000 pounds until Atletico’s transfer ban runs out in January.
Conte has insisted he decided to cut his losses on the 28-year-old midway through last season, after Costa pushed for a move to the Chinese Super League. He said: “I don’t like to talk about players who are not here but the only thing I can tell you [is that], in January, the Costa situation was very clear, for the club, for him and his agent. The situation is closed.”
Costa has been on holiday in Brazil during Chelsea’s pre-season tour of the Far East and gave another clear hint over his plans this week when he posted a video of himself in an Atletico jersey.
Matic could follow Costa out of Stamford Bridge and is keen to join his former manager, Jose Mourinho, at United. He has also not joined Chelsea’s tour, and Juventus are poised to open talks over a potential deal next week. However, United are determined to make another bid and secure his signing.
Chelsea are happy to do business with United if they agree on a price and Abramovich has given Matic his blessing to move, as reward for the 28-year-old’s part in helping the club lift the title twice in the last three seasons.
Conte has already replaced Costa by signing Alvaro Morata.
Manchester City, meanwhile, are expected to take their summer spending to almost 220 million pounds in the next 48 hours as they prepare to wrap up deals for full-backs Danilo and Benjamin Mendy. And manager Pep Guardiola — who remains hot on the heels of Arsenal forward Alexis Sanchez — also wants to sign a centre-half, with Alexandar Kolarov on the verge of a 5.8 million pounds move to Roma after asking to leave.
City are confident of completing the 26.8 million pounds signing of Danilo in the next 24 hours, with the Brazil right-back expected to depart Real Madrid’s UCLA training base in Los Angeles to make the short journey across the city to join up with City and undergo a medical.
Guardiola’s men arrived in LA yesterday after a 2-0 defeat by Manchester United in Houston. City are also close to finally completing a protracted deal for Monaco and France left-back Mendy for a fee in excess of 50 million pounds. They have already signed up Portugal playmaker Bernardo Silva from Monaco for 43.6 million pounds, goalkeeper Ederson Moraes from Benfica for 34.7 million pounds, as well as England right-back Kyle Walker from Spurs for 50 million pounds and Brazilian teenager Douglas Luiz for 12 million pounds.
