Edinson Cavani’s future is again under the spotlight in the media, with his Italian club Napoli’s chairman revealing initial talks between him and Chelsea’s representatives have begun, and also conceded that if the striker left, the club would replace him adequately with the sale funds.
Chelsea are undergoing an evolution under owner Roman Abramovich, who is leaving no stone unturned to make sure the club reaches the highest level of football and wins trophies on the way. With the return of Jose Mourinho, Abramovich has already begun talks with potential summer targets including Cavani and Bayer Leverkusen star, Andre Schurrle who should already be at the club given the time his transfer has been talked about.
The 26-year old Cavani started his career in his home town in Uruguay, where he played for the Danubio FC youth setup, before joining the club on a professional contract in 2005. The Uruguayan then joined Italian side Palermo for nearly £3.5 million. The striker played 109 times for the club, scoring a meagre 34 goals. Once he started making a name for himself, he was approached by Napoli, who snatched him up in the summer transfer window of 2010.
Napoli was where Cavani discovered exquisite form, scoring 78 goals from just 104 appearances, proving an excellent scoring ratio for a European league. After this feat, Cavani was linked with various clubs including Chelsea and Real Madrid.
Mourinho is reportedly a fan of the 6-feet tall striker, and wants Abramovich to assure a firm bid for the player. Demba Ba and Victor Moses have not performed well enough for the big European competitions, and Cavani’s arrival will only motivate strikers like Ba and Moses to step up a level, and be counted on in the star studded lineup.
This comes as good news for Chelsea fans, who will already start making combinations of strike partnerships. Abramovich is a master at negotiations and hardly loses a player he wants at the club, which has been proven by Eden Hazard’s much publicized transfer saga, which saw the Belgian choose Chelsea over rivals Manchester United and Manchester City.
According to the Metro, Napoli chairman Aurelio De Laurentiis has spoken of his interaction with Chelsea officials.
The chairman said, “On Cavani there is big interest in him from Chelsea.”
“Chelsea have called me and I expect they will again in the next few hours.”
“If he ends up staying in Napoli, I will be happy. If he goes, we’ll replace him with the money we get for his sale.”