Chelsea are increasingly confident of winning the £30 million race to sign Liam Delap, the Ipswich Town forward.
Delap is leaning towards a reunion with Enzo Maresca after talks with a number of Premier League clubs, with Chelsea's guarantee of Champions League football understood to be another key factor.
Maresca worked with Delap at Manchester City, with the forward scoring 35 goals in 36 games for the under-21s, and is now hopeful of securing a deal next week.
Delap is available for a set price following Ipswich's relegation to the Championship and has spoken to other clubs including Manchester United, Newcastle, Everton and Nottingham Forest.
United's defeat by Tottenham in last week's Europa League final deprived them of Champions League football next season and boosted Chelsea's hopes of signing the 22-year-old.
Chelsea lifted the Conference League trophy on Wednesday night, after a comfortable win over Real Betis, and are prioritising strikers ahead of next season's campaign in Europe's elite competition.
Delap impressed in a struggling Ipswich team, scoring 12 goals in 37 matches, after joining from Manchester City in a deal worth up to £20 million last summer.
Kieran McKenna, the Ipswich manager, admitted it was inevitable that the England under-21 international would leave at the end of the season.
He said: "It's a very important decision for his future. Of course there is a lot of interest - and rightly so.
"It looks more likely than not that he will move on this summer and he has interest from pretty much every club in the league, and I don't think there are many clubs in the world who wouldn't want to have him.
"Nothing is sorted, nothing is done or completed or even very, very, very close, so that process will take its course."