Tiemoue Bakayoko is edging closer to his move from Monaco to Chelsea.
According to the Daily Mail, his £40m switch will be finalised after he takes a medical on Friday.
After weeks of speculation about the transfer, news that the 22-year-old is Stamford Bridge-bound hardly comes as a surprise – especially not to many of the Manchester United supporters that saw the Mail’s tweet about it on Thursday.
Earlier this week, United finalised a deal for Romelu Lukaku, a player that had been widely expected to return to Chelsea. Clearly, the news didn’t go down too well with the Premier League champions, with Antonio Conte reportedly frustrated that the player had chosen to go to United.
According to some of the press, United had ‘hijacked’ Chelsea’s Lukaku move, even though it was also claimed that United had been quietly working on the deal for weeks.
As soon as it emerged that Lukaku was heading to Old Trafford, reports also started doing the rounds that United were also set to hijack the Bakayoko deal.
Many United fans, however, weren’t having any of it. In their eyes, Jose Mourinho was never in for the French international in the first place. Instead, they suggested rumours of a United approach for Bakayoko were being leaked by Chelsea in a bid to make it look like they’d got the better of them, saving face in light of Lukaku’s move to Manchester.
As the Mail tweeted their story detailing Bakayoko’s Chelsea medical, they again mentioned how Conte’s side had beaten United to the player.
The response from United fans was a predictable one…
https://twitter.com/tune_jose/status/885454490379440130
https://twitter.com/Himoise7/status/885455008761872386
In typical fashion, the only links to Utd were invented by the media.
— 𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙠 𝙎𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙤𝙧 (@SpectorMark) July 13, 2017
It's only a ploy by Chelsea PR to make it seem like they beat Man Utd to his signature. Mourinho or management never had
wanted him.— OmoSonic (@omosonic) July 13, 2017
Chelsea beats Manunited? I guess you must have been paid by Chelsea PR team for this tweet!
— Adebiyi Raphael (@RBenitez85) July 13, 2017
And heres what chelsea planned. Make it look like united wants bakayoko so they can say "beat"
— Maki 🍬 (@kimavision) July 13, 2017
https://twitter.com/BeingRedDevil/status/885456340117852161