Chelsea have completed the signing of João Pedro from Brighton for a fee of over £50 million. This came only days after they agreed to the signing of Jamie Bynoe-Gittens for over £40 million.
The news was broken by David Ornstein, who also revealed that the 23-year-old Brazilian forward will join the Blues on a seven-year contract.
Pedro joined Brighton for a fee of roughly £30 million from Watford in 2023, who he had joined in 2020, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The forwards’ exit from the Amex has been rumoured since early in the summer and he had also been a target of other Premier League sides like Newcastle.
This season, he played a total of 30 games for Brighton, 27 of which came in the Premier League, and he scored 10 goals and provided six assists.
Chelsea Transfer History with Brighton
João Pedro will become the fifth high-profile signing for Chelsea coming from Brighton over the last few seasons. The first move came for Marc Cucurella, who has been a stalwart on the left of Chelsea’s defence. He has played 81 times in the Premier League in three seasons since joining, and all five of his Premier League goals came this season.
Cucurella was shortly after joined by the Brighton manager at the time at Stamford Bridge, but he only lasted for 31 Chelsea games, where he won 12 and drew eight games. Since then, he has moved on to become the West Ham manager.
The following summer Robert Sanchez and Moises Caicedo made the short journey to London to play for Chelsea. After a tough start to the 23/24 season, Caicedo has found his feet at the top level and is starting to live up to his £100m+ price tag.
Sanchez has found things tough at Chelsea, and despite being number one this season, has seen Chelsea constantly linked with other goalkeepers.
João Pedro’s place in the Chelsea squad
Chelsea are well known for their squad depth, and Pedro will come into the side competing with Nicolas Jackson, Liam Delap, Cole Palmer, Enzo Fernandez and Pedro Neto for a place in the squad. A tough group to break into and claim a starting shirt.
He has impressed within the Brighton squad but has had some discipline issues, with a red card coming late in the season and Hurzeler leaving him out from the final game due to issues in training.
The forward has undoubted talent and ability with his impressive goalscoring this year but it will be difficult to break into a team which is already so deep.