Harry Kane celebrates after scoring for Bayern Munich (Image: Daniel Kopatsch/Getty Images)

Mauricio Pochettino has likened Armando Broja’s situation to Harry Kane, when he was younger, as the Chelsea striker continues to be linked with a move away from the club this month. Fulham and West Ham United have both expressed an interest in signing Broja, football.londonunderstands, and the Blues are understood to be open to letting him leave on a permanent deal.

Chelsea will allow the 22-year-old to leave the club should they receive an offer in the region of £50million. In a window that has been especially quiet because of Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR), that sort of price is expected to be too steep for potential buyers.

Broja has featured 18 times – for 682 minutes – in all competitions for the Blues this season after making his recovery from a long-term knee injury. In December 2022, Broja ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in a collision in Chelsea’s mid-season friendly defeat to Aston Villa in Abu Dhabi and missed almost 12 months of action.

The Albania international, who joined Chelsea at the end of his under-9 season, has scored just twice since returning from his lengthy period on the sidelines. At 22, he is still very young and developing, as Pochettino was keen to remind people – even likening his situation with Kane, who played under the Chelsea head coach during their time at Tottenham together.

“Of course, the potential is massive,” Pochettino replied when asked if Broja could go on to become a top striker with the club. “Of course, it is about a process. All the biggest strikers always need time.

“When they are young, they need to find their own balance. But I still believe that he has the potential to be an amazing striker.

“It’s about a matter of time. We cannot buy the time. He needs time to have good and not so good performances. The process takes time.

“I always compare it to Harry Kane. He went on loan to Leyton Orient, Norwich and spent time finding his real balance. In our first six months, he started to perform only in December and January and that’s when we started to see his real potential.

“He’s a player that suffered a big injury last season, he needs to put that big idea behind him, always that is difficult. And we are at Chelsea, he is trying to deliver while compared with the biggest strikers like [Didier] Drogba, [Jimmy Floyd] Hasselbaink or another. That’s always difficult for a young guy.”

As far as what the striker’s future holds, Pochettino was predictably coy on the matter. “Yes, but they are rumours,” the Chelsea head coach said.

“When we talk about rumours, I don’t want to say nothing bad, but there are too many rumours in football. To find your right balance, me as a coach, him as a player, is to accept all the rumours.

“Some are good rumours, some are not so good, sometimes you are disappointed, sometimes not but you have to live with these rumours. If not, you go to the other side. If you are a top player or manager, you need to manage this side of clubs. That’s another thing and why it is so important.”