Chelsea Set to Secure Joao Pedro's Long-Term Future as No 9

Chelsea are preparing to lock Joao Pedro into the heart of their project for the next decade after his explosive first year at Stamford Bridge.

The club are set to renew the Brazilian’s contract through to 2034 before the Premier League season kicks off. Inside Chelsea, the expectation is clear: the deal gets done. Those close to the 24-year-old go further, insisting a full agreement is already in place on a contract running to 2032, with Chelsea holding an option to stretch it by another two years.

Either way, the message is the same. Joao Pedro is now one of the pillars of the rebuild.

Chelsea paid an initial £55m, plus £5m in add-ons, to prise him from Brighton last summer. That fee already looks shrewd. Internally, he is viewed as one of the club’s major recent successes, a rare attacking signing who has both hit the ground running and kept accelerating.

The numbers back it up. Last season Joao Pedro became the first Chelsea striker since Diego Costa to hit 20 goals in a campaign without the help of penalties. He carried that form onto the global stage too, scoring three times in Chelsea’s Club World Cup-winning run last summer.

And he has not eased off. Pre-season has been a continuation of the same story: eight goals in seven matches, a centre-forward playing with the swagger of someone who knows the team has been bent around his strengths.

No surprise, then, that he is expected to lead the line in Chelsea’s Premier League opener away at Fulham on Monday. New arrivals Danny Welbeck and Emmanuel Emegha are set to provide depth and competition, but the shirt at Craven Cottage will belong to Joao Pedro.

Quite literally now. His rise has convinced Chelsea to hand him the club’s most scrutinised number: nine. Liam Delap has given it up and been made available for transfer at around £50m, with Nottingham Forest and Leeds United both monitoring the situation.

The symbolism is hard to miss. For years the No 9 at Chelsea has felt like a burden. Joao Pedro has turned it into a reward.