Barcelona midfielder opens up on summer interest from Chelsea | OneFootball

Fermin Lopez has said he always wanted to remain at Barcelona despite a summer transfer bid from Chelsea.

Chelsea made an approach to sign the midfielder in the summer transfer window, offering a fee of around €40m (£34.5m).

The West Londoners had hoped to strike an agreement for Lopez, who started just 12 times in La Liga last season.

However, Barcelona turned down the bid and Lopez has started the new season in good form. He netted twice in Sunday’s 6-0 thrashing of Valencia and said post-match that he’s delighted to still be a Barcelona player.

“I have always wanted to be here and I will fight to be here for many years,” Lopez said in quotes published by Sky Sports.

“I never doubted being here. There was always speculation over my future at Barcelona. All of that is part of football. I was very calm about it all and I’m very happy to be here.”

Barcelona manager Hansi Flick also opened up on the summer speculation and said he is ‘happy’ the market has closed with Lopez still in Catalonia.

“I’m happy that the transfer market is closed! So we can focus on playing football. You can see that Fermín delivered an outstanding performance.”

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