Chelsea have made a late move for forward Dries Mertens, but face an uphill battle to complete a deal before the transfer window shuts on Friday night.

And Chelsea fear their hopes of landing Edinson Cavani are fading, as the club desperately try to sign a striker to help Frank Lampard’s team hang on to Champions League qualification for next season.

Mertens only has six months remaining on his Napoli contract and Chelsea have enquired over whether or not they could sign him in the final days of this month’s transfer window.

Napoli do not want to sell Mertens so late in this window and would demand a fee of at least £7million for the 32-year-old, who is happy to see out his deal before potentially moving to Inter Milan on a free transfer in the summer.

Mertens is only four goals short of becoming Napoli’s all-time leading scorer, having already taken over Diego Maradona, and would like to leave with that record.

But Chelsea are nonetheless trying to find out whether there is any way of convincing Mertens to move to the Premier League before the 11pm Friday night deadline.