Chelsea boss Frank Lampard was not willing to discus the club’s stance on Kai Havertz ahead of the Blues’ visit to Sheffield United tomorrow.
Chelsea are edging closer to completing a move for the Bayer Leverkusen star, who has told his club he wants to leave.
The Bundesliga side are holding out for a fee in the region of £90million but Lampard is not willing to part with more than £70m.
Talks have been ongoing for many weeks to take Havertz to Stamford Bridge and Chelsea defender Antonio Rudiger has also tried to help out by making contact with his Germany international team-mate.
But Lampard remained coy over what was happening behind the scenes when quizzed on the situation this afternoon.
“Unfortunately it’s another answer from me, that that is not something I want to broach at this moment in time,” Lampard said. “My focus is completely on the game.
“So I don’t want to give you any ifs buts or maybes for the summer, my focus has to be on the here and now.”
Chelsea have already completed the signings of Ajax ace Hakim Ziyech and RB Leipzig forward Timo Werner ahead of the 2020/21 campaign.
It is the first time Lampard has been able to splash the cash after the club came through a transfer ban earlier this year and then opted against spending in January.
Given the west Londoners were not allowed to strengthen ahead of the 2019/20 season, Lampard has won many plaudits for guiding the team into the top four.
The loss of Eden Hazard to Real Madrid was expected to be a particular blow but Chelsea have battled on without him.
“In brutal honesty, I didn’t even know exactly where my expectations will be because of the changing situation,” Lampard explained.
“It has not been as some have come in here in recent years and the club has moved forward, a player like Eden would generally be replaced in some way, so we have had to found ways around that.
“Now, the destiny is in our own hands and it is up to us and I am pretty happy with where we are. I think we could have done even better at times. But, I can’t even jump the gun now because we have seen in the last few weeks how the table can look very different, very quickly.
“So we mustn’t jump ahead of ourselves. It is where we end that’s important.”