Chelsea's board are planning for life with Joao Felix as a permanent member of their squad ahead of the 2023/24 campaign.
How much did Chelsea pay for Joao Felix?
The Blues have not held back in their spending since Todd Boehly took the reins at Stamford Bridge and the loan signing of Felix from Atletico Madrid was no different.
Since Boehly's arrival, Chelsea have spent in the region of £600m on transfers this season alone with a stunning number of new faces coming through the doors in west London.
As they looked for attacking reinforcements in the January window, Chelsea brought in Felix from Atletico on a short-term loan deal until the end of the season.
And some may argue the Blues paid through the nose for the Portuguese star with the loan deal believed to be worth in the region of £9.7m.
But it seems as if this is a loan deal that the Blues may be looking to make permanent ahead of the new campaign, despite their struggles in attack this season.
Indeed, speaking on his YouTube channel, Fabrizio Romano has claimed the Chelsea board will look to seal the 23-year-old's future in London:
(1:10) "What I can tell you right now is that, from my understanding, Chelsea board, and I underline board because we still don't know who's going to be the coach for next season. And that's going to be an important factor.
"But discussing about the board, what I heard is something really positive for Joao Felix because Chelsea are thinking of next season as planning for potential team next season with Joao Felix included."
"So the idea of Chelsea is to continue with Joao Felix in the squad. The idea on player's side is the same because Joao Felix will be happy to stay a Chelsea, from what I understand. He's happy with the squad. He's happy with the city."
Should Chelsea sign Joao Felix permanently?
Chelsea's season has been one large to forget, but it does seem as if the board are taking some positives out of it with the Portuguese star being one.
Since landing in London, Felix has had a turbulent time himself with his first appearance for the Blues seeing him awarded a straight red card.
However, having served his three-game suspension, the 23-year-old has gone on to find the back of the net on two occasions for Chelsea in the league (via Transfermarkt).
Perhaps an issue may have arisen in the expectations over him in front of goal with Chelsea currently not playing with an out-and-out striker.
But Felix has shown over his time in Spain that he is not a player who will provide a side with 15+ league goals in a season (via Transfermarkt).
With this in mind, it will be interesting to see what the potential signing of Felix could mean for the future of someone like Mason Mount.
Amid speculation surrounding the future of the Englishman, Felix could be seen as the creative spark for years to come at Stamford Bridge instead of their academy product.
Caveated by the fact Felix played half of the season in Spain, the Portuguese forward has offered a number (3.58) higher shot-creating actions per 90 minutes in comparison to Mount (3.09) this term (via FBref).
Journalist Brian Fonseca hailed Felix for having "magic feet" and that seems to have been the case this season with the £110k-per-week ace offering more than double the number (1.67) of successful take ons that Mount (0.83) has provided.
Although Chelsea are believed to be keen to keep Felix, it will be intriguing to see at what cost it could come at.
