Lucas Piazon joined Chelsea in January 2012, a couple of weeks before the London club signed Kevin De Bruyne. Piazon is still a Chelsea player, whereas De Bruyne didn’t really make the grade at Stamford Bridge and is now believed to be pursuing a career in beekeeping or something.
Piazon, meanwhile, continues to show how shrewd Chelsea were to pick him up as a teenager. They even renewed his contract again last summer. Granted, Piazon has made only one appearance for the club since joining them, but what a belter it was! (Nope, the Mill can’t remember it either). And on top of that, he has earned a fair sum in loan fees, having been farmed out no fewer than seven times since his arrival in London, including to clubs in Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and deepest Reading. But now Piazon, currently on loan in Portugal, says the time has come for him to cut his ties with Chelsea and start thinking about a permanent transfer.
“I’m tired of playing here and there, I need a place I can feel at home,” he sniffed. Given all that, doesn’t it just make you weep that Chelsea aren’t allowed to buy any players at the moment? Mind you, the London club are already making plans for when they are allowed to go shopping again next year. Their first port of call, apparently, will be Nice, where the £35m-rated defender Youcef Atal has taken their fancy.
Manchester City, meanwhile, are preparing to get busy again in January by making another bid for Internazionale’s Slovakia defender Milan Skriniar. Pep Guardiola and chums will also attempt to persuade Leroy Sané to sign a new deal to keep him out of the clutches of Bayern Munich.
Manchester United, meanwhile, will be attempting to get their hands on the Benfica midfielder Florentino Luís. United carry a flame for Sporting’s Bruno Fernandes, too, but Real Madrid also have an eye on the slinky midfielder.
Finally, Barcelona’s have also drawn up a January wish list and at the top of it is the Napoli midfielder Fabián Ruiz.