Chelsea’s hopes of completing the transfer of Alvaro Pereira from Porto have been given a boost depsite seeing their opening offer rejected.
The Blues lodged a formal bid of £16.6m for the wing back but the Portuguese champions are looking for closer to the £25m release clause stipulated in his contract. But, according to newspaper A Bola, Porto have betrayed their willingness to negotiate by withdrawing the Uruguay international form the squad to face Barcelona in the UEFA Super Cup in Monaco on Friday that pits the winners of the Champions League and Europa League against each other.
Despite already having a wealth of left-sided players already at the club in Ashley Cole, Florent Malouda, Ryan Bertrand and Paytrick van Aanholt, manager Andre Villas-Boas is keen to add another to their ranks. Malouda looks likely to be moved on while one of either Bertrand or van Aanholt are expected to go out on loan to further their development meaning an extra option is needed especially with Russia international Yuri Zhirkov having returned to his homeland.
Chelsea are believed to be ready to go up to £20m to capture the 25-year-old Pereira and that should be enough to persuade his current employers to sell up evn though Villas-Boas has attempted to downplay the possibility of signing his fomer charge in his pre-match press conference.
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