Ferguson, a player for Brighton and the Republic of Ireland, has been pursued by the Blues for a while.
They also have a good relationship with Brighton, having paid well for Marc Cucurella and Moises Caicedo from the Seagulls as well as manager Graham Potter and several backroom staff.
Nevertheless, Brighton feels Ferguson is worth more than the British record fee of £115 million they received for Caicedo, even though he only signed a new contract in November.
Ferguson is reportedly not in a rush to go.
Last summer, Ferguson’s outstanding performances piqued the interest of Tottenham and Manchester United, who were searching for Harry Kane’s replacement.
In their pursuit of a striker, Chelsea has linked up with Ivan Toney of Brentford and Victor Osimhen of Napoli.
Both new recruits would demand salaries exceeding £200,000 per week in addition to a sizable transfer fee.
Ferguson would, however, allow Chelsea to maintain their current wage structure while adding a player who has years of improvement ahead of him.
Chelsea will probably hold off on addressing their striker shortage until the summer, even in spite of another unimpressive league season.
Nicolas Jackson, an eight-goal scorer, has had to shoulder the majority of the Blues’ goal-scoring expectations and is anticipated to continue in the second half of the season.
Chelsea’s summer transfer window may suffer financially if they miss out on qualifying for Europe for the second time in a row.
In order to balance the books, the team might also be forced to let go of several of its own players, like Trevoh Chalobah and Conor Gallagher.
Both players have been linked to departures from the team, so Chelsea may be forced to make a change after yet another disappointing campaign.
However, that puts pressure on Chelsea, currently ranked tenth in the Premier League, to move up the standings and make a run at European qualification.
