Despite best endeavours, it proved impossible for Chelsea to complete the deal for the Argentine striker, Gonzalo Higuain, before the required deadline, to enable the striker to be available for selection against Tottenham this evening.
In order for Higuain to be available for selection, the loan deal had to be wrapped up by 12:00 hours, on Wednesday. By our reckoning that deadline was missed by a couple of hours with his former club, AC Milan, taking their time to bring in a replacement.
Thirty-one-year-old Higuain has joined Chelsea on loan until the end of the season, with the support hoping he can provide the focal point for an attack that has struggled this season.
Once the end of the season comes, Chelsea have two options.
The first would allow them to make the deal a permanent one with the fee, reportedly, set at €36 million, or the second would allow them to keep Higuain for another season which would cost Chelsea around €18 million in loan fees.
Naturally, as reported by the BBC Higuain is delighted to be reunited with his former boss, Maurizio Sarri, and is looking to get down to business, hopefully against Sheffield Wednesday, in the FA Cup, this Sunday, with the Argentine remarking:
“When the opportunity to join Chelsea presented itself I had to take it.
“It’s a team I’ve always liked that has a lot of history, a wonderful stadium and they play in the Premier League, a league I’ve always wanted to play in.”
Higuain has, worryingly, been handed the #9 shirt, a shirt number that has something of a jinx attached to it with previous incumbents struggling to make the expected impact. Let’s hope that Higuain can buck that trend and that Sarri’s faith in the striker, now approaching the veteran stage, is repaid.
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