Mikel confident Chelsea can sign Osimhen in January

Former Chelsea player John Obi Mikel maintains that the club were “very, very close” to signing Victor Osimhen from Napoli, and can try again in January, despite his Galatasaray move.

It was known all summer that the Nigerian international was on the market and could leave for €130m under his release clause, but it wasn’t until the final few days that Chelsea really stepped up negotiations.

According to football-italia.net, Mikel said: “I could see the ambition of where they want to take this club now, and also on Victor’s side, I think if we have to pick this back up again in January or next summer, we know where we are,” he said on the Obi One Podcast.

“We know where we’ve stopped and it’s just the little details that need to be finalised and the deal will be done.”
It is not quite clear whether there is a break clause in his contract at Galatasaray, or more likely a gentleman’s agreement to release him early with a penalty paid to the Turkish side.

Mikel maintains if Chelsea had started the talks earlier, they could’ve secured the striker in the summer.

“We were very, very close – I’ll put it that way. We were hours away from getting this deal done, but it was just slight issues, slight little problems, that we just couldn’t get over the line.

“And then, we didn’t have much time. The one time you want the seconds and minutes and hours to slow down a bit, it just didn’t work. I think both sides played their part in terms of getting a deal done.”

On deadline day, the Partenopei had agreed on a sale to Al-Ittihad for €80m including bonuses, only for the deal to fall apart hours later reportedly over an extra Napoli request of €5m.

Then Chelsea jumped in, but could not agree on personal terms with Osimhen, as Sky Sport Italia claimed they were only prepared to offer €4m per season wages, with another €4m made up of performance-related bonuses, including Champions League qualification.

So, with the deadline passed in most European leagues, Osimhen joined Galatasaray on loan for the 2024-25 season.

Nonetheless, Mikel is confident that he can join Chelsea as early as the January transfer window.