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Chelsea have agreed a deal for defender Ian Maatsen to join Burnley on loan, with a £31.5m obligation to buy included in the deal.

Matt Law’s exclusive in the Telegraph says that the young Dutchman will rejoin the team where he had so much success on loan last season in the Championship. The fact that the Clarets are willing to spend so much money on the 21 year old is testament to how good they think he is.

The vast cash spent on Marc Cucurella a year ago was not just a total waste of resources, it’s quite clearly having a brutal knock on effect here. Our inability to shift a useless player now means we’re forced to sell a good (and home grown) one.

Our spending has consequences, and while we can certainly hope for better results in the future, so far we’ve seen more depressing departures than we have seen good performances to compensate for them.

There could be further twists today however – Jacob Steinberg is reporting that Maatsen is “reluctant to leave”, despite Chelsea clearly wanting him out. We have no idea how this plays out in the next 8 hours, but it could get very spicy.

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