(Football news) After captaining Brazil to the CONMEBOL U20 Championship, and even becoming the tournament leader in goals scored, young Andrey Santos declared to the media that he was now fully focused on his Chelsea career as he was supposed to be getting integrated into the first-team straight away. Unfortunately, he has to wait a bit longer before he can make his debut for Chelsea.

The highly promising 18-year-old midfielder apparently doesn’t automatically qualify for a UK work permit. Chelsea were going to apply for a “special talent” exemption, but that appeal has been either rejected according to the report. Regardless of the reason, there’s been a possible change of plans, with Graham Potter admitting in the press conference that “we’re looking at what the options are for him”.

He is set to be loaned back to Brazil as they are looking at a club who is ideally a top flight team and is also involved in the Copa Libertadores, to ensure that he can collect as many points as he can towards a future work permit. Palmeiras looks like the most likely team that he will as they were one of the teams linked with him already, and the defending Série A champions AC Milan have also inquired about him but he needs to play now and moving back to Brazil will only make sense for him now

A deal may already be in the works in fact, and agreed as reported by Fabrizio Romano. The Brazilian season is about to start but they would have the option to break the loan spell at the midway point. Chelsea would be hoping that the youngster would live up to all the hype that has been created around. In Brazil he has drawn comparisons to Neymar and if he’s anything like the Brazilian captain then Chelsea have serious player on their hands.

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