Real take Chelsea to brink after going back on Robinho

Chelsea, having yesterday advertised replica Robinho shirts for sale on the club's website, hours after their chief executive, Peter Kenyon, had dinner with the Brazilian and his agent in full public view, had to endure another game of late brinkmanship involving Real Madrid.

The Spanish club's sporting director, Pedrag Mijatovic, was interviewed on the television channel Antena 3 and said: "Robinho still has two years left on his contract. That being the case, he is our player for the next two seasons so you can draw your own conclusions from that."

That followed the failure to sign Santi Carzola, who had been lined up as Robinho's replacement, after Madrid met the buy-out clause in his contract, but who has now surprisingly agreed a new deal at Villarreal. Madrid also failed in their attempts to sign David Villa from Valenci,a although it was the deal to sign Santi Carzola which would trigger Robinho's release.

Chelsea remain confident that they will sign the 24-year-old, having agreed a fee of £25.5m with Madrid – who do not have an outstanding history in reliable on-the-record comments – while personal terms have already been finalised. They had hoped to unveil Robinho to the media today but have always remained philosophical that the transfer may go down the deadline day of 1 September.

If the deal collapses, however, it will be a severe embarrassment for Kenyon, who dined with Robinho and his agent Wagner Ribeiro on Wednesday at the restaurant De Maria, which is close to the Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid and is a popular haunt for journalists and agents. Kenyon, who has spoken openly about the deal, had flown to Spain hoping to return with Robinho.

Yesterday Chelsea even went as far as to advertise shirts for sale, although they did not include the player's proposed number, thought to be seven, but the online offer was later withdrawn. At the same time the midfielder Frank Lampard spoke on the club's website about how he believed Robinho could "light up the league.

"He is a fantastic player, I saw a lot of him last season watching the Spanish games. He had a very good season until he got injured and it broke his season up a bit," Lampard said. "He has great flair, and something that would be nice to bring into our team. We have flair players already but he is another option and he could light up the league. He will have to get used to it because it is different to Spain, but he showed he is a world-class player both at Madrid and for Brazil, and world-class players adapt."

Chelsea would like to part with Juliano Belletti, but there are no firm offers on the table for the Brazilian right-back.

The club yesterday sold Shaun Wright-Phillips back to Manchester City for £9m. Astonishingly, the 25-year-old has been given a pay rise on the contract he had at Stamford Bridge, which helped to persuade him to move back to the club he left in 2005 for £24m ahead of other offers including a loan move to Everton which he had, initially, favoured.

His stepfather Ian Wright, who also acts as his adviser, claimed that Wright-Phillips' career at Chelsea had suffered because he had not been wanted by the then manager Jose Mourinho. "It was [Roman] Abramovich who bought Shaun and Mourinho did not rate him," said Wright, who added that another that problem was Chelsea had vastly overpaid, probably around £10m too much, for the winger.

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