I was half expecting to wake up to news this morning that Taison had signed for Chelsea, and would be joining the club ahead of this weekend's fixture with Stoke City. I haven't seen that news yet, but we do have some quotes from Metalist Kharkiv manager Miron Markevich that fill us in a bit on the hold up. Via Sky Sports:

"If he does not play with the soul and heart of Kharkiv, he is not with Metalist and it is better to let him go."

"Prior to the change of ownership of the club, there was an option for parting with Taison. At the same time, the new owner does not share this position and does not think that we must part with Taison."

"He has a clause in the contract, according to which, if any club will offer £12.4million or more, we will be forced to sell him."

"If this happens, I would urge the owner to part with Taison. I am sure that I can, for that money, buy two players to replace Taison and it will only strengthen the team."

It doesn't look like we're particularly far apart on the numbers, but I'd be a bit upset if Chelsea decided to up thier bid out of principle. If we really do want to add Taison to the squad though, it would seem to be a fairly simple deal to finalize.

What people think of the potential signing is another matter entirely, but I'm going to leave my thoughts on that until we actually hear one way or the other on this. For now, we'll just wait and see where this goes.