Would you pay £53.3million for Edinson Cavani?

I posted the other day that it was important to ignore all the press and media speculation on potential new signings until Jose Mourinho has had time to work with his players. As he said himself, he wanted to work with the group to see what he already has here and then if he needed to add to the squad and was able to, it would be fantastic.

However, one name keeps appearing on virtually a daily basis in the press in England at the moment that it is Edinson Cavani. It you want to believe reports in the press, Cavani is happy to stay at Napoli but with a rumoured release fee in his contract of £53.3m, it seems that Chelsea are one of three clubs interested in the 26-year-old striker.

There is reported interest from Manchester City this summer and it looks as though they are willing to offer the reported Chelsea target Edin Dzeko as a makeweight in addition to cash to try and tempt Napoli into selling.

Real Madrid are also interested in the player as they look to rebuild their team to challenge Barcelona next season and would have no problem with paying what Napoli are asking for. Once again, the lure of one of the biggest teams in Europe and playing in Madrid could be something that the player himself wants and would find difficult to turn down.

Then there is Chelsea, Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea.

If you want to believe the differing reports this morning, you would have read that Jose has made a bid of around £49.3m already and has been turned down. Chelsea have also offered a fee of £25.5m and Fernando Torres which has also been rejected. For me, the Torres link is just the press putting two and two together based on the fact Rafa Benitez is now the man in charge there.

At times the rumour and speculation is comical, it really is as you can see exactly what is happening. In this particular instance, Napoli’s owner Aurelio de Laurentiis is playing a blinder!

He has been heavily quoted in almost every single news source as saying:

“Chelsea are interested in Cavani and they will call me soon. If he did decide to go to Chelsea we would take time out to think and replace him with people worthy of replacing him.”

He knows of reported interest. He is aware that Cavani has had three good seasons in Italy scoring 104 goals and finished top scorer in Serie A last term. He also knows that the player is now one of Europe’s hottest properties and most sought after players and intends to cash in on it if Cavani decides to move on.

It’s almost as if he intends to encourage an auction between the three of us for the player. How anyone can turn down a reported bid of £49.3m for a player for the sake of £4m is beyond me, but it seems that he is holding out for the official release fee clause inserted in his contract to be met.

Of course being a Chelsea fan we are wary of paying around £50m for a striker because we have seen what could happen with a huge investment like that. Granted, Fernando Torres has now come into form of late and just finished last season with over 20 goals for the first time.

It’s my view that no player on this earth is worth the ridiculous amount of money that Napoli are after but in saying that, Napoli are quite within their rights to hold out for the amount that the player himself agreed to when he put pen to paper on the deal.

It’s no secret that Chelsea MUST bolster attacking options at the club and you would imagine that Mourinho would have been more than encouraged with our playing style last season. The three players in behind the striker is something he adopted at Madrid and Cavani would offer us an option either up top or in one of those positions.

You cannot argue with his goal scoring record in Italy and the fact that he still has the best years ahead of him is an additional bonus if Chelsea were seriously looking at signing him.

So it leads me to the whole point of this post and for you guys to watch the video below and answer the question I have asked you in title: