City accept SWP Chelsea bid.

If a week is a long time in politics, then a weekend in football is an eternity if the SWP saga over the last 48 hours is anything to go by.
On Friday, City turned down a bid believed to be £20 million down from Chelsea and stated that SWP was happy to remain with the club. He had also featured for 45 minutes in the pre-season 1-0 defeat at Tranmere where he (and Chairman) enjoyed a good reception from the travelling Blues fans. The odds of 3/1 for SWP to be in the City line-up on opening day was suddenly looking even better.
However, on Saturday SWP pulled out of the pre-season game at Macclesfield with a 'stomach-bug' and was driven from the ground. It was on this journey that he rang John Wardle to tell him that he wanted permission to speak to Chelsea and from this point it was inevitable that he would be joining them.
Lo and behold, with both clubs due to fly out on pre-season tours this week, City announced that the club had accepted a £21 million bid from Chelsea.
It has been a strange situation this weekend as it appeared as though he was happy at the club, before requesting permission to speak to Chelsea. This in itself is a perculiar one, as (as far as I'm aware) no player has ever formally requested permission to speak to another club without a transfer fee being agreed first.
There will probably now be the inevitable conspiracy theories that the board wanted him sold all along and SWP wanting to leave is the 'cover story' to divert criticism of the board, as they know full well the fans would not turn against SWP over any transfer.
It is now inconceivable that any wage demands will not be met, and the only stumbling block will surely be if Chelsea cannot re-assure him regarding the number and type of games that he will feature in. Of course, City will welcome him back with open arms should he decide the move is not in his best interests but the odds on him not moving are now way higher than 3/1.