The Blues striker is closing in on a move back to his hometown as he looks to escape his Stamford Bridge nightmare
Chelsea have reached an agreement with Atletico Madrid to allow Alvaro Morata to leave on loan, with the Liga club having a £48.5 million ($62m) option to sign the striker on a permanent basis, Goal understands.
Morata had already reached an agreement with Atletico Madrid over his personal terms last week and he is willing to accept a lower contract than his current £120,000 per week Chelsea deal upon the activation of an option to buy.
Offloading the 26-year-old striker is also a major step in Chelsea's bid to take over AC Milan's loan deal for Gonzalo Higuain, with the Blues having already reached an agreement with the Argentine forward's parent club Juventus.
Like Morata, Higuain has been left out of his team's latest match, with Milan due to play Genoa on Monday, after Chelsea agreed a six-month loan deal with an option to extend it or sign the striker outright for £32.5 million ($42m).
They will also pay Juventus on the basis of appearances, goals and season's achievements over the six-month period that they are loaning Higuain for.
Genoa's Krzysztof Piatek is set to replace Higuain at the San Siro and a £35m ($45m) deal is expected to be reached in the next 48 hours, according to the selling club's sporting director Giorgio Perinetti.
"After today's match against Milan, we will meet them and reach an agreement in the next 48 hours, whether he leaves or not," said Perinetti. "We spoke with Gazidis and Leonardo for two hours and we still need to evaluate the counterparts in the deal.
"This is why the deal has not been finalised yet as we need to analyse whether it will be functional for our transfer market session."
The movement of strikers across Europe is part of a bigger picture as major clubs look to ensure they are not left without a reliable forward option for the rest of the season.
This is what has led to Michy Batshuayi's proposed loan move being held up, as Chelsea look to explore opportunities to cash in, with a £40m ($51m) valuation being placed on the Belgium international, who endured a disappointing first half of the season on loan at Valencia.
virginK
88
I really wish he was around to play yesterday. He's been solid for us as striker in his last few games, unfortunately interrupted by injury. He contributes well to gameplay and gives us a target in the middle. Even if he hasn't been as prolific as we all hoped, he still has 1 goal every 2 games in the PL this season on average, which is commendable in my opinion. For Morata personally, this is great for him. I'm sad to see him go but I know he's going to thrive in Spain and if I was him I would happily leave as well - he never got the respect he deserves for the performances he actually gave for us from the very vocal fans who were against him.
unware
76
He will do well there. Any striker would struggle with the “service” provided by Willian, Pedro and the midfield. There is none. Yet if you provide him with early quality crosses (like Hudson-Odoi did)...
Everettee
66
Let's be honest. He was better than Torres. He scored more goals than Torres during his short spell and at least scored against Premier League teams. A good chunk of Torres goals came in Europa games and League Cup and FA cup low tier oppositions and he didn't even score many. Morata has been much better than Torres despite not actually being good enough for us.
Vikram95
58
smart from Atletico to not directly purchase him on a permanent but I feel he is more suited to their system as it involves 2 strikes which were mainly Costa and griezmann and lot of long balls into the box and morata is an excellent header of them so it suits him really well as he prefers being a target man to a guy who has to be involved in the build up play
neviemmeno
57
i hope that morata will be revived in madrid and also that he will prove me wrong, because almost 50 milions isn't low number, good luck morata
VanishPrasad
47
How Higuain will go through medical records with Chelsea