\n<\/p>\n
Atherton is a Republic of Ireland youth international who had already made 32 senior appearances for Northern Irish Premiership side Glenavon before moving to Stamford Bridge last summer. <\/span><\/p>\n Atherton made his senior debut at just 13 years old, providing an assist in a 6-0 win in the Irish League Cup, and arrives at Portman Road with a reputation as one of the more precocious talents to emerge from Irish League football in recent years.<\/span><\/p>\n “I’m delighted to be here and can’t wait to get started,” Atherton said. <\/span><\/p>\n “I hope to offer a lot of creativity and attacking threat going forward and obviously working as hard as possible to get better every day.” <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ipswich Town academy manager Ben Chenery welcomed the signing, adding: “We are extremely pleased to announce the signing of Chris Atherton from Chelsea. Chris is an exciting attacking player we believe possesses big potential which we look forward to continuing to develop through the next stage of his career.”<\/span><\/p>\n Elsewhere, Ipswich have seen a \u00a32.5m bid rejected by FC Volendam for goalkeeper Kayne van Oevelen, with the Dutch club valuing the 22-year-old at closer to \u00a33.4m. The 6ft 6in keeper has also received an offer from Valencia but is understood to be keen to make the move to Suffolk, leaving Ipswich needing to improve their proposal to get a deal over the line. <\/span><\/p>\n Van Oevelen’s height and shot-stopping reputation have made him a target for several clubs across Europe this summer, and Ipswich are keen to secure his signature before losing ground to their Spanish rivals.<\/span><\/p>\n Ipswich are working to finalise a deal and complete a medical for Van Oevelen before the squad flies to Spain for next week’s pre-season training camp in La Manga, with the club hopeful that an improved offer can bridge the gap between the two valuations. The dual movement in midfield and goalkeeping reflects a busy summer at Portman Road as the club continues to reshape its squad across multiple positions, blending promising academy prospects like Atherton with senior additions such as Van Oevelen as it looks to build depth ahead of the new season. <\/span><\/p>\n Both pieces of business underline Ipswich’s determination to strengthen at both ends of the pitch, with the club continuing to work through its priority list in the closing weeks of the transfer window.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Atherton is a Republic of Ireland youth international who had already made 32 senior appearances…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}