Chelsea to make a huge swap deal with Atletico Madrid

This may prove to be the most talked-about transfer swap of the next summer transfer window. There are rumours that Chelsea is pushing for a swap deal with Atletico Madrid involving Diego Costa and Antoine Griezmann. The Blues are the long term admirers of the Atletico winger and have been trying to sign the player for quite some time now. Simultaneously, Diego Costa has fallen out of favour with Jose Mourinho at Stamford Bridge this season after his poor run of form and his attitude problems.

He was involved with Mourinho in a spat in the Champions League game against Maccabi Tel Aviv and was subsequently dropped from the squad. Diego Simeone would love to have Costa back at Atletico and this swap deal will most definitely interests both parties. Sky Sports’ Spanish football expert Terry Gibson thinks the same and believes that a swap deal will happen in the summer transfer window.

“No I do not think it [a move] does (depend on Chelsea finishing in the top four),” Gibson told this week’s La Liga weekly podcast. “If you were Griezmann and in any way interested in going to the Premier League, then you would still look upon a club like Chelsea as an attractive proposition. Similar to when a lot of people made that assumption when Manchester United did not qualify for the Champions League whether they could attract the players. But if a club is willing to pay the transfer fee and the wages, then the reputation of a big club like Manchester United or Chelsea does mean that players will go to those sort of clubs and risk not being in the Champions League hoping it is just for the one season.”

Both players are currently valued at £35 mil according to Transfermarkt.

He adds a deal is more likely to happen in the summer than the upcoming January transfer window. “It is being talked about a lot and from the outside there is surely a swap there with Griezmann and Diego Costa somewhere along the line,” he added.

“But I do not expect that to happen in January as that does not suit either club, because if they are both in the Champions League then they will have a player they cannot use. So Griezmann will stay put until the summer. “