Chelsea confident over Angel Gomes

Chelsea are confident of signing Manchester United’s 19-year-old playmaker Angel Gomes when the transfer window opens.

Gomes has played for England’s international youth teams and had started to break into first-team contention this season under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

The youngster has played at least one game per season for the first team since the 2016/17 campaign, but has six first team appearances so far this season, the most he has ever managed. Despite being able to play on either wing and through the middle, he has yet to score a senior goal.

His current contract ends at what was meant to be the finish of the originally scheduled current season, but he may end up leaving the club in June while the Premier League continues to play out.

The Mirror reports that he has rejected Manchester United’s latest offer of £30,000 a week plus bonuses, and he is keen instead of joining Chelsea.

The London club want to sign the player on the cheap - and would have to pay no transfer fee when his contract expires - and that would aid them at a time when all clubs’ financial situations are uncertain due to the potentially extensive and long-term damage done by the coronavirus pandemic, and suspension of the current season.

United want to keep Gomes as he has shown the occasional flicker of promise in his appearances for the club this year, and had hoped he would follow fellow young forward Tahith Chong in signing an extension with his club. The 20-year-old Dutch winger had also been due to leave on a free contract at the start of the next transfer window and had been linked with a move to Italy with Inter Milan, but instead signed a deal to keep him at Old Trafford until at least 2022.