China came calling for Oscar during last season, but the timing was not right. Now, former Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas is ready to set Chelsea’s record transfer fee for the Brazilian.
Rumours swirled last season that Chelsea rejected a £50-75 million bid (depending on who you read) from a Chinese club for Oscar. People were aghast. All aspects were equally unbelievable. That a club could have that sort of money. That they would offer it for Oscar. Or that Chelsea would reject it.
Oscar has had a mixed bag during his time at the Blues. He showed immense potential with stunning strikes against Juventus and Shakhtar Donetsk. Unfortunately, he was also consistently inconsistent with an inability to show up in the big games.
In yesterday’s report first broken by he Telegraph, Shanghai SIPG supposedly entered a huge £60 million bid for the Brazilian.
"Chelsea have accepted a stunning £60million bid to take midfielder Oscar to China in January from the club’s former manager Andre Villas-Boas."
Within hours of the post first being published, Telegraph updated the bid from being ‘received’ to being ‘accepted’.
"Jiangsu Suning, who made an offer to sign Oscar last summer, and Guangzhou Evergrande, managed by Luiz Felipe Scolari, also showed an interest but Shanghai are now completing the formalities to land the 25-year-old."
Oscar signed for the Blues on a £25 million transfer from Brazilian club Internacional. At 25 years old he is entering the prime of his career. Despite Antonio Conte recently claiming he does not want to sell the midfielder, game-time will be hard to come by.
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Oscar started the first five games of the season. Since then, nearly every other midfielder leap-frogged the Brazilian. Even previously out-of-favour Cesc Fabregas and youngster Nathaniel Chalobah are seeing more minutes.
Oscar could still provide an important dynamic for Chelsea, whether from the start or off the bench. But £60 million is a huge amount of money. That’s almost enough to sign one (1) Kalidou Koulibaly, a Virgil Van Dijk or nearly two more N’Golo Kante’s (if there were any more out there).
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Do you think this is an offer Chelsea cannot refuse? Who should Chelsea sign with the money? Let us know in the comments below.