Inter Milan will make a new bid for Romelu Lukaku this week, with the Chelsea striker willing to sacrifice almost £1million a year in wages to make a permanent move back to Italy.
Chelsea have rejected one bid from Inter for Lukaku, demanding £40m, and have attempted to engineer a three-club auction between the Champions League finalists, Saudi Arabian club Al Hilal and Juventus.
Lukaku has reassured Inter that he has no intention of moving to Juventus, however, and has not accepted an offer from Al Hilal, as he focuses on returning to Inter, where he spent last season on loan.
Inter are working on trying to sign Lukaku permanently and the 30-year-old is willing to take a drop in salary in order to try to help push the move through.
Lukaku earns nearly £140,000 a week after tax and has offered to drop to closer to £120,000 a week to return to Inter.
Inter are structuring a bid that will be worth about £35 million inclusive of bonuses and hope that will be enough to convince Chelsea to bring an end to his unhappy second spell at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea’s new head coach, Mauricio Pochettino, said that he would expect Lukaku to return to the club for pre-season training on Wednesday or Thursday if no deal for his exit has been agreed.
But there is a strong chance Lukaku would not return and is hoping that Chelsea will agree to sell him before facing a potentially difficult situation.
Christian Pulisic will not have to return to Chelsea after the club agreed a deal with AC Milan for his sale, but the futures of Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang and Hakim Ziyech remain undecided.
Ziyech could still move to Al Nassr, despite a deal to take him to Saudi Arabia originally stalling, while Aubameyang has interest from Al Ettifaq, where Steven Gerrard has taken over as manager.
