Following yesterday’s reports in the English media about Chelsea’s renewed strong interest in Fernando Llorente and Swansea City’s willingness to do business around £15m — pending a potential replacement signing in Wilfried Bony — Spanish journalist Eduardo Fernandez-Abascal, writing for Diario AS, has claimed that the deal is “very close” and the two sides are hoping to wrap up negotiations today.

Abascal puts the price around €15m, which thanks to the sterling’s weakness against the Euro is basically the same thing in pounds (£14m if you want to get technical about it).

As before, that sounds a bit steep for a 32-year-old in his final contract year, especially given Chelsea’s own policy of not signing players over 30 to multi-year contracts, but apparently our need of a third striker and Conte’s desire to work with Llorente again are strong enough for this to make some sense in this beyond inflated and unrecognizable transfer market these days.

The two teams have a little over 36 hours to get this (and the Bony deal) done, so better get moving!