Chelsea “were offered” Paris Saint-Germain forward Neymar before he agreed a move to Saudi Arabia, according to Fabrizio Romano.

Writing in his Caught Offside Substack column, the journalist said the Blues turned down the chance to sign the Brazilian international as they wanted to protect their investment in Mykhailo Mudryk:

“Chelsea were offered this chance by PSG in June and they decided to go for different, young players. It was never something concrete. They preferred to protect their young investments like Mykhailo Mudryk.”

Other clubs in the Premier League, including Manchester United and Manchester City, were mentioned as possible suitors for the 31-year-old but Romano claims neither team seriously considered buying him.

Neymar is now set to join Al Hilal for a fee of around €90m (£77.4m), which will be a transfer record for a Saudi Arabian club.

Bringing in Neymar would have blocked the path of young players

While co-owner Todd Boehly is believed to have pushed to sign Neymar in the past, the club’s recruitment department have been focused on building a squad full of promising young talent.

Neymar generally prefers to play off the left wing and, if he did make the move to Stamford Bridge, Mudryk would have been the player to miss out in terms of game time. Having spent an initial £62m on the winger in January, it wouldn’t have been the greatest idea to block his development within six months of him joining.

Mudryk needs to pay back Chelsea’s faith in him

The Ukrainian international has, though, flattered to deceive since making the switch to London and the fact that he was on the bench for the first game of the season against Liverpool shows he still needs to convince his new manager Mauricio Pochettino as well.

At 22 years of age, he does have time on his side, but the club will be hoping to see a return on their investment sooner rather than later.