Latest: Verbal agreement “almost done” for latest Chelsea signing says insider

With a deal for Jorrel Hato apparently now wrapped up and just awaiting its announcement, it’s all systems go for Chelsea in their chase of Xavi Simons.

That pursuit made great progress last week, but then ground to a halt a little. According to Matt Law, who spoke earlier today, the reality is that the Blues need to sell – or at least be close to selling – before they are prepared to sanction more spending.

Plettenberg says Simmons deal “almost done”

Xavi Simons in action for the Dutch national team.(Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)

That view has now been backed up by Florian Plettenberg. The German transfer insider has been well informed on this deal due to the involvement of RB Leipzig, and has brought a few positive details this afternoon.

Plettenberg says that a verbal agreement between the Saxon side and Chelsea is “almost done” and that there is a “strong feeling that the deal will go through.”

He reinforces the earlier message that “further player offloads are needed first.”

The most likely to leave is surely Christopher Nkunku, although there is a worrying lack of proper bids for him, despite interest from a few teams.

Chelsea want Simons and Garnacho both

Another interesting point Plettenberg raises is that the “Xavi Simons deal is currently independent of Chelsea’s interest in Alejandro Garnacho.”

That means signing Simons wouldn’t kill off our long term interest in the Man U winger. That really reinforces the view that the Garnacho interest is purely an opportunistic attempt to capture an asset at a very depressed value, rather than a genuine desire to bring him into the squad and use him.

As we predicted earlier today, that means that chase will likely go right down to the wire as we hope that Man U and the player start to get desperate.