Chelsea are reportedly prepared to double the wages of Napoli striker Victor Osimhen in order to bring him to Stamford Bridge for the 2023-24 campaign.
Having spearheaded the Partenopei's title charge with 19 goals and four assists from 21 Serie A matches this season, Osimhen is unsurprisingly being linked with a big-money Premier League move.
Amid their continued search for solutions to their number nine crisis, Chelsea have long been linked with a swoop for the Nigeria international, who is under contract at Napoli until 2025.
Napoli president Aurelio de Laurentiis has publicly stated that Osimhen is not for sale, but an extortionate fee in the region of £115m could tempt the Serie A champions-elect into letting him leave.
According to Calciomercato, Osimhen currently pockets a yearly wage of €4.5m (£4m) at Napoli, but Chelsea are willing to bump up his income to as much as €9m (£8m) per annum.
© Reuters
Todd Boehly is said to have personally approved of the initiative, but Chelsea are still facing a fierce battle to win the race for the former Lille man.
Manchester United are believed to have identified Osimhen as a successor to Cristiano Ronaldo, while a separate report claimed that Arsenal are leading the race for his signature.
All three Premier League clubs have been put on red alert by Osimhen's recent comments, though, as the 24-year-old recently told the media that playing in the Premier League would be a "dream" for him.
"I think playing in one of the top five leagues in the world is an amazing feeling for me. A lot of people worldwide consider the Premier League as the best and the strongest league but now I'm in one of the best leagues in the world which is the Italian Serie A," the striker said.
"I'm working so hard to make sure that I achieve my dream of playing in the Premier League some day but like I said, it's a process and I just want to keep on this momentum and continue to do well."
© Reuters
Napoli shelled out €75m (£66.7m) to bring Osimhen to Serie A from Lille in the summer of 2020, and the Nigeria international has since racked up 49 goals and 13 assists in 88 games for the club in all tournaments.
Osimhen's 19 Serie A goals this season puts him five clear of closest challenger Lautaro Martinez in the race for the Capocannoniere, as Napoli sit 15 points clear of Inter Milan in first place.
The striker has also struck two Champions League goals from four games this season, and his arrival at Chelsea could trigger permanent departures for Romelu Lukaku and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Lukaku will return to Chelsea when his loan deal at Inter Milan runs out at the end of the season, but the Belgian is seemingly not in the Blues' plans for the 2023-24 campaign and is supposedly a target for Real Madrid.
Meanwhile, Aubameyang has largely been frozen out of the squad under Graham Potter, and the ex-Arsenal man has less than 18 months left to run on his contract at Stamford Bridge.
Ben Knapton
