OFFICIAL: Chelsea sell £12.5m midfielder after changing their mind over loan deal | OneFootball

Mathis Amougou has officially been announced as a Strasbourg player, joining on a five year contract.

The midfielder only joined the Blues in January from St Etienne, and made played a handful of minutes for Enzo Maresca’s first team.

Amougou leaves without a first team chance at Chelsea

The news leaked out in the last couple of days that a move was happening, and was all but confirmed this morning when Amougou was photographed training with his new teammates in preseason.

He will hope to fill the hole in the Strasbourg midfield left by Andrey Santos – who has returned from his loan to Chelsea – and Habib Diarra, who has made a big money move to Sunderland.

Nobody has yet mentioned a fee, but we suspect it will be almost exactly the same as the £12.5m we paid for Amougou 6 months ago.

There’s also reporting that there’s a buy back clause in the deal for Chelsea to take advantage of in the future.

Chelsea’s loan move turns to transfer as Blues make harsh decisions

Mathis Amougou trains with Strasbourg for the first time.

Amougou had no place in Chelsea’s now crowded central midfield, while Strasbourg have been depleted in that area, so a move between the two sister clubs made total sense.

The coverage in local paper Alsa Spotrs confirms that the initial plan was a loan, before it was decided that it would be better to make it a permanent deal, which keeps one of Chelsea’s foreign loan slots open, as well as one of their three Strasbourg loan slots open.

The fact that they decided that Amougou would be the one permanently sold while (likely) Kendry Paez, Mike Penders and one other will be the loaned players does tell you that they likely consider him the least likely to break back into the first team at Chelsea.

But the buy back clause in the deal says they still think there’s a chance.