Chelsea handed immediate edge over Arsenal in £38m race to sign ‘next Lionel Messi’
Chelsea have been told that the arrival of Liam Rosenior as manager has handed them a huge boost in the race for Genk’s new wonderkid.
The Blues are no strangers to plucking talent from the Belgian club, having landed both Kevin De Bruyne and Thibaut Courtois as teens.
Goalkeeper Mike Penders, who is currently on loan at Strasbourg, became the latest starlet to swap Genk for Stamford Bridge last year.
His former teammate, Konstantinos Karetsas, who has been likened to Lionel Messi, has now caught the eye of Chelsea and Arsenal.
Who is Karetsas?
The 18-year-old, who made 39 appearances as Thorsten Fink’s side won the Belgian Pro League last year, has impressed again this term.
Karetsas has registered six assists in 18 league games, while he also has a goal and laid on two more in only six Europa League matches.
The midfielder, who was born in Belgium to Greek parents, earned the first of nine caps with Greece last March.
He scored two of his three international goals against Scotland in 2025, but was unable to help his country qualify for the World Cup.
Arsenal were said to have been close to reaching a £37.8million deal to sign him in the summer, but a transfer failed to come to fruition.
The Gunners remain keen on Karetsas, but European football expert Andy Brassell believes a switch to Chelsea would serve him better.
Chelsea over Arsenal for Karetsas
The Blues do boast an abundance of young attacking midfielders, but new manager Liam Rosenior is an excellent developer of players.
It is for that reason, and Arsenal‘s depth of established senior talent, that Brassell believes makes Chelsea a better next step for Karetsas.
“With Karetsas, he’s been given such agency at such a young age by Genk and by Greece,” he explained exclusively to talkSPORT.com.
“But as someone who plays regularly for Genk and takes responsibility on the pitch, both for Genk and for Greece, I think Arsenal is actually quite a difficult sell at the moment, unless they’re buying him and loaning him out somewhere else.
“If you think about, say, Ethan Nwaneri, who occupies a not entirely dissimilar zone on the pitch to the one that Karetsas does, even though he can come from deeper positions, he’s a left-footed player who drifts out right and then comes back inside onto that left foot.”
‘Being developed by Rosenior is quite a compelling pitch’
“He loves to dribble players, go past players. He’s become better and better at delivering the final pass,” Brassell continued on Karetsas.
“I think there are more goals to come in his game, that’s for sure. To go to Arsenal, how is he going to get a game at the moment?
“I just don’t see it. He’s such a good player, and he’s going to become a really good player, I think. But he’s only going to become a really good player if he plays.
“If all of a sudden there’s a block on that, I don’t know. Obviously, I can’t know what’s going through his head, but I would say Arsenal is an Everest at the moment, even though he’s a player with real quality.
“I think with Chelsea, even though there are other competing players in those areas in which he could play, if I were him, I would fancy my chances more of getting a game at Chelsea.
“Being developed by Liam Rosenior, I think, is quite a compelling pitch if you’re looking for someone to go top level.
“So, could I see Karetsas signing for Chelsea and maybe getting loaned out elsewhere? Yeah, maybe that would be a possibility.
“I think the talent is so big, it would make sense for a Premier League club to sign him at the moment.
“But I’m just not completely sold on whether he immediately gets decent game time at a Premier League side.
“If a big Premier League club picks him up, it’s all about picking the right one to make sure he’s developed correctly. And I think actually, I would fancy Chelsea to do that better than Arsenal.”
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