Chelsea are on the verge of signing a deal to sign striker Romelu Lukaku for a record club fee of £ 97.5m from Inter Milan.
Although the 28-year-old Belgian said earlier this summer that he was happy to stay with the Italian champions, he changed his stance this week, telling Inter that if the right offer comes in, he will move to Chelsea.
The deal would be close £ 100 million British record that Manchester City paid Aston Villa for English midfielder Jack Grealish on Thursday.
Some details remain to be cleared up but unless there are unexpected issues, Lukaku will return to the club where he spent three seasons from 2011, despite two of those seasons being on loan to West Brom and Everton.
A return to Stamford Bridge this summer comes seven years after leaving West London Club for Everton on a permanent contract in 2014.
He almost returned to them in 2017 but instead chose to sign with Manchester United for an initial £ 75million.
If Chelsea are now paying £ 97.5m to get him back, it means that two of the six highest fees paid for a player in British football were for Lukaku.
Lukaku scored 47 goals in 72 Serie A games in two seasons at the San Siro, helping Inter to win their first league title since 2010 last season.
He moved from Anderlecht to Chelsea at the age of 18 a decade ago, but scored just one goal in 15 games in three seasons before he did sold to Everton for £ 28 million.
He then scored 53 goals in 110 Premier League games for the Toffees, with United then making him the second most expensive player in British football history when they signed him in July 2017.
Two years later, after scoring 42 goals in 96 games for United, he joined Inter for a club record of £ 74m.
Belgium’s top scorer of all time with 64 goals, Lukaku became the third most expensive purchase in Italian history and is now poised to be the most expensive player ever sold by a Serie A club.
Chelsea had strong ties with Borussia Dortmund striker Erling Braut Haaland earlier this summer, but the German club Sale of the 21-year-old Norwegian excluded this summer.
