It felt like Chelsea were just days away from completing the sale of Ruben Loftus-Cheek to AC Milan.
The midfielder had played his last game at the Bridge and saluted the crowd when he was taken off with an obvious farewell. The Italian club were already in talks with him behind the scenes, and it all felt like things were progressing rapidly for him to be the first outgoing player of this summer.
Then everything changed on the Italian end of the deal. Over the weekend they sacked their technical director Paolo Maldini and their director of football Ricky Massara, on the very day that they were due to meet Loftus-Cheek’s entourage to progress the deal further.
That meeting was postponed, and now we read on Sempre Milan that is has in fact been cancelled entirely now. It makes sense that no business can be conducted while they try to find a new sporting director, and also that if they were unhappy enough with their old one to fire him that they are unlikely to want to continue signing the players he targeted.
This will now be a very nervy period for Ruben, but the good news is that there seems to be no shortage of interest in him from other teams anyway. It is suggested here that further meetings with Milan are possible – but neither Chelsea nor Ruben can afford to wait around.
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