The 22-year old Benteke recently submitted a transfer request as he wants out from Villa Park. This resulted in a flurry of clubs sitting up and taking notice of the situation and hastily assembling a strategy for the highly-rated striker. However, two clubs which are leading from the rest which had included Arsenal and are fighting in a battle on their own are London duo Chelsea and Tottenham.
Both have previously been linked to the front man and have made their interest known publicly, and Benteke’s transfer request has seen the two being seriously linked to him of late. Though, there is a very strange situation brewing in this story. Villa have made it clear that they will only sell him to Tottenham if they meet their valuation of £25 million. For Chelsea though, they are willing to make some adjustments to their proposal, as Villa are expecting a player plus cash offer from Chelsea, with Romelu Lukaku in the mix. Villa are therefore leaning towards accepting Chelsea’s bid over Tottenham’s. Surely Chelsea would be crazy to swap Lukaku for Benteke but crazier things have happened.
DailyMail does indeed report that Benteke has his own personal wishes. He prefers to move to White Hart Lane over Stamford Bridge, as he wants to be the first-choice leading attacker in his new club. He feels that his demands will be better met at Tottenham where he will be the club’s number one attacker. He wants to be playing regularly this season, with the World Cup coming up next summer. At Chelsea, he might be used as a second choice forward under Jose Mourinho. Benteke, thus, personally prefers a move to Tottenham over Chelsea.
With this interesting situation reached, one would be foolish to predict the outcome of this story. Will Villa stick to their demands and sell him to Chelsea against his wishes assuming either their €25million valuation or a cash plus Lukaku package is enough to satisfy Villa and the Blues? Or will they give in to his demands and accept probably a fee lower than their valuation of £25 million and let him move to Spurs? This story is set to make headlines in the coming days now!