With the pursuit of Jude Bellingham seemingly over for Liverpool, attention has turned to other targets for the Reds’ planned summer rebuild.
With a sum of around £130m or above mooted to land Bellingham, the Reds reportedly baulked at such an outlay when considering the amount of surgery that the team needed in the coming months on the back of what has been a bitterly disappointing season.
A number of names have been repeatedly linked, from Nico Barella to Moises Caicedo, while the need for the Reds to add to their home-grown quota means that Chelsea duo Mason Mount and Conor Gallagher have also been a constant source of speculation.
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Chelsea, taken over in May of last year by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital after a fierce auction process following the forced sale of the London club due to the sanctions placed upon Roman Abramovich, have been making major waves in the transfer market over the last two windows.
The Boehly/Clearlake era has seen more than £500m outlayed on transfer fees, the club having engaged in the tactic of offering contracts of seven, eight and nine years to some players so as to drive down the cost of amortisation (how transfers are accounted for on the balance sheet by dividing the transfer fee by the length of contract). That loophole has now been closed by UEFA, or at least will be this summer, with European football’s governing body limited deals to five years.
But with so much spent and with a squad creaking with the sheer volume of first team players within it, there is a need for Chelsea to offload.
When selling a player, a club can book the guaranteed fee straight onto their accounts. For Chelsea there is the date of June 30 that has taken on extra significance this year, with that being the final day of the club’s financial year, a cut off point for them to rake in what they can for some of their squad in order to offset the heavy spend that has occurred and not run the risk of another seasons of losses that could impact them with regards to UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules and the Premier League’s profit and sustainability regulations.
Mount and Gallagher are two of those who have been viewed as potentially seeing their Chelsea careers come to an end this summer. Mount has a year left on his deal at Stamford Bridge, with Gallagher having two. It is Mount who has been seen as one of the more likely midfield moves to be made by the Reds this summer.
A report in The Athletic suggests that Chelsea would be looking to recoup as much as £100m for both Mount and Gallagher, although that would seem somewhat ambitious given the contractual situation, particularly of the former. The same report suggests that Chelsea would seek as much as £70m for Mount. That, for a player with one year left on his deal, seems again to be ambitious.
Liverpool likes to have leverage when conducting their transfer business. That has been evidenced with the cut-price deal they were able to engineer with Porto in January of 2022 to acquire Luis Diaz for a deal that could be worth up to £49m, some £18m less than the release clause that the Portuguese side had on the winger.
The reason for that was that Liverpool knew that Porto needed cash in the short term to meet some pressing debt obligations. They offered a sum up front that would allow them to meet them, as well as some realistic performance bonuses that Porto could rely on with more certainty in the future.
Analysts at the Swiss-based CIES Football Observatory peg Mount’s value at around £62m, not a million miles away from what Chelsea may seek for the 24-year-old England international. But there is risk for Chelsea attached to not getting deals done this summer and realising some cash before the end of the financial year, and Mount will have willing suitors.
Chelsea and Mount are reported to have held discussions over a new deal, but the midfielder is unlikely to ink a new deal if the plan is for him to be on the fringes. His salary demands have been reportedly not yet met either.
Chelsea will, however, be emboldened to hold their position given the scarcity value that exists for Premier League teams for someone like Mount; he is English.
A Premier League club requires eight homegrown players to register a full 25-man squad, with a maximum of 17 non-homegrown players can be registered. For players aged 21 or under, they can be homegrown but do not need to be registered.
Liverpool could find themselves with an issue next season. The Reds have seven registered homegrown players in the Premier League squad, with Harvey Elliott and Curtis Jones both falling into the 21 and under bracket.
But with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain set to leave on a free this summer and question marks over the likes of James Milner and Nat Phillips, Liverpool will need to bring in some English talent to raise their quota.
That is where Chelsea’s own leverage comes in as they will know that Liverpool have a need that they can address, and there will be an attempt to add such a tax onto any fee for that.
But Chelsea’s hand has been weakened by their heavy spend and need to bring in funds to alleviate the pressure on the balance sheet before year end. That need will likely outweigh the desire for them to play hardball over Mount, especially if Liverpool have other options that they can move on. There are only a limited number of clubs who will be in the market for someone like Mount and who will be able to meet both fee and salary. It would be a risky game to play for a player that could wind down his contract and leave for free next season, gaining himself a big signing-on fee in the process.
Chelsea will likely know that Liverpool won't overpay for someone in Mount's contractual position and have form for moving on from targets owing to cost.
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