and another one

Etoo and Deco Agreed in 43M Move

SAMUEL ETOO By dixon9 June 13 2008

Barcelona and Chelsea have reached an agreement between clubs for the transfer of Etoó and Deco to Chelsea for a combined fee of 43M. Next we will see if the players themselves reach personal terms with Chelsea, and in the case of Deco, IF this means a Lampard exit to Inter or the Portuguese midfielder being used as a bargaining chip for another Chelsea/Inter shared target – such as Quaresma. My understanding was that Lampard´s intention was to stay at Stamford Bridge. For some time he has indicated that he and the Chelsea suits would sort out a deal when he came back from holiday in the summer, and later, after the sad death of his mother, he again announced he was sure he was going to stay.

However, IF Deco is coming, this can only surely mean the departure of Lampard – I mean…are we really going to have Ballack, Deco AND Lampard all in the squad?!!! No! It has to be that Lampard has decided to “get away from it all” after the effects of his recent bereavement (or something like that)…OR Mourinho has worked his powers of persuasion on our prized midfielder?

A Lampard/Deco changeover would almost be a “like for like” replacement – both are the same age and of very similar abilities. I prefer Lampard myself and would be very sad indeed to see him go.

How does the 43M split anyway? Something like 12M Deco/ 31M Etoó? No idea, but with the probable exit of Drogba I must admit that the Cameroon striker is one of the few replacement forwards that would placate Chelsea fans – even better if Drogba bottles the Milan move with no Champions League football and stays – we would then have 4 forwards, Drogba, Etoó, Anelka and Shevchenko. This scenario would probably result in Chelsea withdrawing the offer for Torres (wouldn´t it?!!!).

The next few days will be interesting ones…