Chelsea are lining up a £25million bid to make Mario Gomez the spearhead of a new-look attack under Jose Mourinho.
Despite also competing with Manchester City and Monaco for Radamel Falcao, Chelsea-bound Mourinho wants a strong physical presence up front and has identified Bayern Munich frontrunner Gomez as the prime candidate.
Gomez has been a prolific scorer for Bayern since a Bundesliga record near-£30million move from Stuttgart four years ago and is generally regarded as one of German football’s most effective target men.
But he can no longer count on an automatic starting place and fears slipping further down the pecking order, if Bayern succeed in trying to persuade Borussia Dortmund to let them have Robert Lewandowski this summer, rather than when his contract runs out in another 12 months.
His agent Uli Ferber admitted he was ‘not happy’ at being on the fringes, and it is understood he would welcome a fresh start at Stamford Bridge.
Mourinho’s ideal scenario would be to have Gomez leading the line, with prolific finisher Falcao profiting from his aerial strength and ability to hold the ball up.
Bayern would demand around £25million for the Germany striker, but Mourinho can count on transfer backing from Roman Abramovich, should he make the expected return to Stamford Bridge for a second spell in charge.
Real Madrid president Florentino Perez waived the £12million compensation clause in Mourinho's contract on Monday night, paving the way for him to re-join Chelsea.
Perez announced that Mourinho’s troubled and chaotic three-year stint at the Bernabeu will end next month after holding talks with the Portuguese coach over the weekend.
Main man: Gomez helped Bayern reach the Champions League final by seeing off Barcelona in the last fourMourinho had four years left on his contract. He will take charge of Sunday’s clash at Real Sociedad and then bow out at home against Osasuna on June 1.
Perez, who hopes to appoint Paris Saint-Germain’s title-winning coach Carlo Ancelotti, said: ‘The club and manager agree the timing is right to bring our relationship to an end. We would like to thank Jose for all his hard work. The team have improved in his three years and we wish him all the best.’
The self-styled Special One will officially leave his position at the Bernabeu on June 3 and Chelsea are hoping to unveil him at a Stamford Bridge press conference the following week.
The parting was billed, diplomatically, as ‘mutual consent’, but anyone with more than a passing interest in Mourinho’s career in Spain will know he has exhausted the patience of this famous club — particularly with his failure to win the Champions League.
Perez added: ‘We have made a big jump in terms of competitiveness. Now we are back where we belong. Before we were being knocked out of the Champions League at the last-16 stage and now we are always group seeds.
Return: Jose Mourinho is expected to be unveiled as the new Chelsea manager after agreeing to leave Madrid‘We played some spectacular football last season. In the world of mere mortals reaching the semi-finals of the Champions League and the final of the Copa del Rey would be enough but for us it is not enough.
‘Overall, the balance is positive. It has just not been sufficiently good; neither for us nor for Mourinho. But it has not been a bad season.
‘Mourinho is the longest-serving coach in the first division. It is not easy to last three seasons — and even more so at this club.
‘If we had won a European Cup then we would not be talking about this. In England a match lasts the two hours before a game, the two hours of the game, and then the two hours afterwards. Here it is seven days a week and the pressure tells. We would have liked him to continue but the pressure was just not sustainable and went beyond the limits of normality, with insults unbecoming civilised people.’
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