Chelsea are winning the race to sign Willian

The club looked into the possibility of signing the attacking midfielder last month, only for the £29million fee to put them off. But it appears an agreement has been put in place for the Brazil international to move to Stamford Bridge before next season.

Brazilian club Santos have also enquired about signing the 23-year-old but their president, Luis Alvaro de Oliveira Ribeiro, has conceded defeat.

Ribeiro admits Santos are unable to compete financially with Chelsea for the player and claims Willian's transfer to the Blues has already been arranged.

He said: "We gave up because of a proposal that they [Shakhtar] received from Chelsea. It was an offer of tens of millions of euros. It seems that he will go there in the middle of the year."

Chelsea had an offer of £16.7m rejected during the January transfer window but it was believed Shakhtar would be willing to sell him if they received an offer in the region of £20m-25m.

Willian, who helped the Ukrainians win the Double last season and the UEFA Cup in 2009, has already said he wants to move to Chelsea and manager Andre Villas-Boas admitted he was one of the club's targets last month, saying he was "an interesting player".

There has been a lot of concern at the club about Chelsea's struggle to break teams down this season with an over-reliance on Juan Mata, who joined from Valencia last summer, to create goals.

While Mata has been a success, there is a strong feeling that the team need more players like him in the squad to turn them back into Premier League title challengers, which is why they have made a move for Willian.

Chelsea currently trail leaders Manchester City by 14 points and face a real fight just to finish in the top four.

Villas-Boas is under pressure and, significantly, owner Roman Abramovich went to watch a training session at the club for the first time this season on Saturday. While Chelsea have struggled more than expected under Villas-Boas this term, the club's first priority is still to give the former Porto coach the time to turn things around rather than sack him.

However, failing to qualify for next season's Champions League would put Villas-Boas at real risk.

Captain John Terry has already told his team-mates that the club can't afford to miss out on playing in European football's premier club competition next season.

Chelsea have played in the tournament every year since 2003 but their stuttering Premier League form has put their place at risk. They currently sit in fourth but Newcastle, Arsenal and Liverpool are all within just four points of them.

Terry, who has already been ruled out of Saturday's game at Everton with a knee injury, admits he is genuinely concerned about Chelsea failing to qualify for the Champions League via a top-four finish and is desperate to avoid the ignominy of dropping into the Europa League.

The 31-year-old said: "We have not been getting the results we need of late and the reality is, at the moment, we are not fighting for the title; we are in fourth place.

"So first of all it's a must for us to cement our place in the top four by winning games, pulling away from the teams in fifth and sixth and looking at catching Spurs.

"If we don't set that target, we could end up playing Europa League next season, which we don't want and the supporters don't want.

"That is no disrespect to the competition but we have been fortunate enough to experience the Champions League every season for some time now and we owe it to our supporters, to ourselves and everyone involved at the club to make qualification a must - that is our minimum target."

Chelsea have won just two of their last nine League games - against Wolves and Sunderland - and Terry feels their recent form has shown why they haven't been good enough to challenge at the top this term.

He added: "We have drawn two consecutive away games in the League against Norwich and Swansea.

"We realise they are tough matches because both teams have come up and done well, as they showed when they came to Stamford Bridge earlier in the season. But for us to be title contenders, they are the kind of games that we must win."

Frank Lampard (calf) and John Obi Mikel (leg) could be back in time for the match at Goodison Park but Ramires (knee) will still be missing.