Atletico Madrid president, Enrique Cerezo, has revealed that Joao Felix will not remain at Chelsea next season.
Chelsea are not admiring the possibility of turning Joao Felix’s loan deal to a permanent one and as such he will return to his base in Madrid.
The former Benfica attacker joined Chelsea in January for a reported loan fee of £9.7 million and he went on to score 4 goals in 20 appearances for the Blues.
It is understood that officials of the English side had been in talks with Atletico Madrid to ascertain the cost of a permanent deal.
Those discussions started when Graham Potter was still manager of the side, but with Mauricio Pochettino, it appears that the Argentine has decided not to include Joao Felix in his plans.
Enrique Cerezo, the president of Atletico Madrid while speaking at an event at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid on Tuesday said:
“The truth is that I can’t tell you the plan with Joao, it’s the news we had yesterday, that the new coach doesn’t count on him for Chelsea.
“We don’t have anything planned yet, Joao is an Atletico player now.”
Joao Felix has expressed publicly his desire to stay at Stamford Bridge after the expiration of his loan deal but all is now set for him to return to Spain.
The Portuguese is still contracted with Atletico Madrid until at least 2027 and Chelsea also had second thoughts over acquiring him.
It looks like Pochettino has made the job easier for the hierarchy of the Blues as he made the decision over the future of Felix in quick time.
Not much is known why he isn’t in the project or plans of the former PSG boss but we can only draw assumptions based on preset grounds.
What could be the reason why Mauricio Pochettino didn’t include Joao Felix in his Chelsea project?
Factors such as style, cost of funding the transfer on the path of Chelsea, Joao Felix’s below par performances while on-loan amongst others could be what led to it.
The 23-year-old loan deal at Chelsea didn’t include an option to buy and as such the West London side were not under any mandatory responsibility to acquire him.
The Blues are making preparations to unveil and announce Christopher Nkuku who should be catching the next flight to Stamford Bridge after his DFB-POKAL final engagements for RB Leipzig.
It is believed that Mauricio Pochettino is ready to make use of either Nkunku, Havertz or Romelu Lukaku as his top forward.
Sporting Lisbon’s Manuel Ugarte is the man Chelsea have penned down as top priority as the Blues see him as the perfect fit to partner Enzo Fernandez in the midfield.
They have still not removed their sights from the possible acquisition of a striker in the summer but it’s now merely second choice.
The entire Chelsea attack for the 2022/23 season comprising Mudryk, Sterling, Joao Felix, Pulisic, Broja, Madueke, Ziyech, Fofana and Aubameyang could only score a meager 19 goals and that definitely had affected the side last season.
Only time would tell if this move pioneered by Mauricio Pochettino would yield the right results but the Blues would want positive fortunes in the coming season.
