Insider shoots down Chelsea links to another Brazilian wonderkid

“The name is completely ruled out. Chelsea never thought about, nor intends to think about, signing Vitor Roque, Nicola said in quotes picked up by CaughtOffside.

“Any noise around the forward comes from people close to Vitor trying to give him visibility abroad. Palmeiras are very confident that the £21m invested will keep Vitor Roque here for a long time.”

Well, to be honest, we could have told you that. The 20 year old is on the fast train to flop town, and even Chelsea’s spending happy sporting directors aren’t going to be keen to jump on that train.

We’ve got Joao Pedro and Liam Delap as our main strikers, Marc Guiu as a backup and Tyrique George as an emergency option. Shim Mheuka is ready to come off the academy production line. We’re not sure we’d take Roque over any of them, and if we do buy a striker next summer, we expect it will be someone with a lot more upside than the former Barca man.

In other news…

Enzo Maresca’s reign has seen a gradual improvement in Chelsea’s set pieces, both attacking and defensive, and that’s discussed here after we opened our scoring from a routine last night.

Chelsea have been linked with a bid for Dayot Upamecano when he becomes a free agent next summer – but we have our doubts about whether it will come to anything.