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Scouting expert stunned by Chelsea reported transfer move for Romeo Lavia
We’re delighted to welcome Football Manager’s Wolves researcher Dave Azzopardi as our exclusive columnist. Each week the scouting expert will be giving his views on the biggest talking points on Wonderkids across the UK…
Chelsea’s reported £50m transfer bid for Southampton midfielder Romeo Lavia was “very strange”, according to Dave Azzopardi.
Lavia signed for Southampton in a £14m deal at the start of the summer, but according to Fabrizio Romano Chelsea made a verbal £50m offer on deadline day as they tried to strengthen their midfield before the window closed.
But Southampton rejected the bid after seeing him as “untouchable”, and Azzopardi was stunned to hear that a bid was even made considering his limited experience despite his good start to the season.
“That is a really weird piece of transfer news,” he told The Football Wonderkids.
“He’s a player that has started off really well at Southampton. It looks like he is and will be a very good footballer but it’s very, very strange for them to bid that much so early.
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“Fair play to Southampton for rejecting it because they could have made a healthy profit on him there.
“I know Man City have got a buyback clause on him as well so I think Southampton probably out of respect to Manchester City, because of that agreement there, but he’s their player and they know he’s a quality player who could probably be worth even more than that in the future.
“Fair play to them but it’s just another bit of strange transfer news coming out of Chelsea. I thought some of their deals across the summer was very, very weird.”
Lavia scored his first goal for Southampton against Chelsea with a fine strike from the edge of the box and has shown great quality as a defensive midfielder so far.
Chelsea ended up strengthening their midfield by signing Denis Zakaria on loan from Juventus on deadline day.
In other Chelsea news, Erling Haaland will “definitely” be the difference for Man City in Europe this season