18-year-old academy star ‘set to join Leicester’ in ‘separate deal’ – divides fans

Chelsea’s deal to sign Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall from Leicester is almost complete.

Fabrizio Romano just gave his famous “here I am! move treatment, which he says was verbally agreed, with the midfielder coming to Chelsea for £30m.

But as we’re seeing more and more this summer, there may be more to it than the price. Romano continued by noting that Michael Golding, Chelsea’s talented youth player, could go the other way:

“Chelsea talent Michael Golding is set to join Leicester City in a separate deal after Dewsbury-Hall move to #CFC for £30m,” Romano wrote.

“Discussions ongoing between clubs.”

Top Chelsea writer Matt Law of the Daily Telegraph repeated the same story, clearly informed by the same source.

It’s a separate deal, at least officially, but one would imagine that discussions of both moves took place at the same time and that everything is arranged to maximize PSR compliance for both parties.

It is gut-wrenching to lose Golding, who is one of the most promising academy players in the older age groups. He trained extensively with the first team last season and even made his debut as a substitute in the FA Cup in January. He is a midfielder in similar form to KDH and has even been promised his place in midfield, tempting him to leave Chelsea for game time. We’d imagine he’d be a prime candidate for an in-house loan should he stay with the Blues.

As always, it creates another culture war online about the future of the club. The responses to Law’s Tweets are a battleground between those who say it’s a disaster and those who say they don’t care about Cobham’s youth products.