Chelsea may be determined to hang on to Diego Costa in this window, but they are prepared to let another striker leave in the form of Patrick Bamford.
Multiple reports on Monday morning have stated that the 23-year-old former England under-21 international is on his way to Middlesbrough for a medical, in a deal that could be worth up to £10m to the selling club.
Chelsea recently recalled Bamford from a loan spell at Burnley, as they did with Nathan Aké from Bournemouth, but rather than bring him back with the intention of integrating him into the first team as they did with the Dutch defender, it was to move him out of Stamford Bridge on a permanent basis.
Despite signing for the Premier League side from Nottingham Forest in 2012, Bamford failed to make a single competitive appearance at the club, instead going on six different loan spells in the space of four-and-a-half seasons.
Far and away his most successful loan spell was at Middlesbrough, wherein he scored 17 goals in 38 Championship appearances and was named Championship Player of the Season as Aitor Karanka’s side missed out on promotion to the Premier League by four points.
Subsequent spells in the Premier League with Norwich and Burnley failed to yield a single goal for him, playing for less than forty minutes in total in six substitute appearances at Turf Moor in the first half of this season.
Karanka will undoubtedly feel that he can get the best once again out of a player he has worked with before.
Bamford will be the second striker signed by Karanka in this window, with Aston Villa’s Rudy Gestede arriving at the Riverside in a £6m deal in early January. The arrivals are likely to cast further doubt on the future of Jordan Rhodes, who has been linked with filling the void left by Gestede at Villa Park.
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