Ronaldo did not turn up for United’s training session on Monday due to “family reasons”, which the club and management accepted as the real reason.
A desire to play in the Champions League is believed to be behind Ronaldo’s intention to leave Old Trafford and, as well as Chelsea, Bayern Munich and Napoli have also been linked with the player. United are likely to be more open to selling to an overseas club.
With Ronaldo’s future unlikely to be clarified quickly, Chelsea will continue to prioritize their confirmed targets, such as Sterling, who the club hope to make significant progress this week.
After positive talks at the end of last week, Chelsea hope to agree a fee, likely to exceed £45m, and personal terms with Sterling in time for him to join Tuchel’s squad on the club’s pre-season tour of America, which are leaving for this weekend.
Chelsea would ideally like to sign two new players before the tour, with the club still trying to find a centre-back alongside Sterling until the end of this week.
Talks have been held with Matthijs de Ligt, Nathan Ake, Jules Kunde, Presnel Kimpembe and Kalidou Koulibaly, with Chelsea set to sign at least two new defenders this summer. Reports from Germany claim Bayern Munich have made their own approach to Juventus for De Ligt.
Chelsea still have a bid of £55m plus add-ons for Rafinha, who is believed to prefer a move to Barcelona. Sources in Spain have indicated that if they cannot afford to match Chelsea’s bid this summer, then Barca could encourage the Brazilian to stay at Leeds United until January with the promise that they will bid then.
Having offered personal terms that are generally acceptable to Rafinha, it remains to be seen how long Chelsea will keep their offer on the table if there continues to be no response from the player.
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