Chelsea have confirmed the sale of Angelo Gabriel to Saudi Arabian side Al-Nassr.
The teenage Brazilian winger has left Stamford Bridge after only one year to link up with the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Sadio Mane at the Saudi Pro League club.
The deal to take Gabriel to the Middle East is said to be worth £19.1million, with Chelsea banking a surprise profit of just over £6m on the £13m they initially paid to sign the player from Santos last July.
That is despite the Brazil Under-20 international not making a single senior competitive appearance for the Blues, having been quickly loaned out to sister club Strasbourg - also owned by Chelsea’s parent company BlueCo as part of their multi-club network.
Gabriel made a total of 25 appearances across all competitions in France, failing to register a goal but providing four assists for a side then managed by Patrick Vieira.
He has been able to make the move beyond the closure of the European summer transfer window on Friday night, with the market for Saudi clubs having remained open until Monday evening.
Gabriel featured for Chelsea during pre-season and went on their summer tour of the United States, but clearly did not feature in new manager Enzo Maresca’s plans for the future. He had also been strongly linked with Turkish side Besiktas.
His exit completed another busy window of huge player turnover at Stamford Bridge, where nine players arrived - including Manchester United winger Jadon Sancho on deadline day - with two more to come in future in the form of Boca Juniors defender Aaron Anselmino and Genk goalkeeper Mike Penders.
Gabriel was part of the large contingent of Chelsea players that trained separately away from the first team at Cobham as part of a so-called ‘Bomb Squad’ that needed to find new clubs to help trim a bloated squad that had risen to above 40 players following the latest raft of signings.
Raheem Sterling, Trevoh Chalobah, Romelu Lukaku, Kepa Arrizabalaga, Djordje Petrovic, Armando Broja and Tino Anjorin were among the players to secure moves away from Chelsea before the European deadline, though the likes of Ben Chilwell, Carney Chukwuemeka, David Datro Fofana, Deivid Washington, Alex Matos, Lucas Bergstrom and Harvey Vale all remain for now, the latter having seen a reported move to Steven Gerrard’s Saudi side Al-Ettifaq break down.
Conor Gallagher, Ian Maatsen, Lewis Hall, Omari Hutchinson, Lesley Ugochukwu, Hakim Ziyech, Diego Moreira, Caleb Wiley, Alfie Gilchrist, Gabriel Slonina, Bashir Humphreys and Eddie Beach were among the other players to leave Chelsea this summer either on loans or permanent transfers, with the likes of Thiago Silva, Malang Sarr, Josh Brooking and Noah Hay all released.
