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Chelsea are close to agreeing a new long-term contract with academy striker Shim Mheuka before allowing him to leave on loan.<\/strong><\/p>\n Mheuka has less than 12 months remaining on his existing deal, although Chelsea hold an option to extend it for another year.<\/p>\n However, football.london reports that a recent breakthrough has left the 18-year-old close to committing his future to the club.<\/p>\n Several teams from Europe\u2019s leading leagues and the EFL are interested in signing Mheuka for the 2026\/27 season. Chelsea could announce his contract and loan move together once an agreement is completed.<\/p>\n The club recently followed the same approach when Jesse Derry signed a new deal before joining Sporting Lisbon for the campaign.<\/p>\n Mheuka enters the summer after an outstanding campaign with Chelsea\u2019s Under-21s.<\/p>\n The striker scored 18 goals and provided one assist in 19 Premier League 2 appearances. He also captained the side during their title-winning campaign and was named Premier League 2 Player of the Season.<\/p>\n His performances have left Chelsea convinced that regular senior football is now the best stage of his development.<\/p>\n Mheuka faces considerable competition for attacking minutes at Stamford Bridge. Xabi Alonso already has several established forwards available, while Chelsea will not play European football next season.<\/p>\n Keeping the teenager at Cobham without a clear route into the side could slow his progress. A carefully chosen loan would allow him to experience senior football while remaining part of Chelsea\u2019s long-term plans.<\/p>\n The absence of a purchase option would be essential, particularly after Mheuka\u2019s goalscoring progress over the past year.<\/p>\n Chelsea are now moving to protect one of their leading academy talents before making a major decision over where he will spend the coming season.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chelsea are close to agreeing a new long-term contract with academy striker Shim Mheuka before…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18412","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\/18412","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=18412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Chelsea prepare Mheuka for senior breakthrough<\/h2>\n