Chelsea confuse supporters with €50m bid for winger now backed by Ornstein | OneFootball

Today has already had its fair share of transfer news at Chelsea – Carney Chukwuemeka’s move to Dortmund was confirmed, for one thing, and there have been positive noises about Alejandro Garnacho’s move to Stamford Bridge from Fabrizio Romano too.

With so many sales already concluded, it finally felt like we were down to the final moves in this summer’s transfer puzzle: find a home for Nicolas Jackson and Christopher Nkunku; then spend that money on Xavi Simons and Garnacho.

Chelsea confuse supporters with late bid for 22 year old

Fermin Lopez playing for Barcelona. (Photo by Judit Cartiel/Getty Images)

But this Chelsea sporting structure have shown us time and again that they don’t do things the conventional way, and they are still catching us out with some of their actions.

This afternoon, out of the blue, we’ve had word from David Ornstein at the Athletic that the Blues are “evaluating the possibility of a move for Barcelona midfielder Fermin Lopez.”

This isn’t the first time that the winger’s name has been mentioned in connection with Chelsea this summer, but it’s certainly the first time it’s been mentioned by a reliable source like Ornstein. The links have thrown Chelsea fans online into some confusion.

The speculation there is that Lopez is being sounded out as an alternative to Garnacho and Simons – but with these sporting directors in charge we couldn’t rule out him coming in addition to those two.

Ornstein insists there is not yet any “club to club contact,” but he doesn’t tend to report on things which aren’t already pretty concrete. Catalan paper Sport, for their part, say there has been an “official offer” of €50m made.

Chelsea could face uphill task persuading Lope

22 year old Lopez looks a quality player, but having begun to make his Barcelona breakthrough last season, one wonders if he would be so keen to leave and battle for a place in the Chelsea team rather than continue developing and winning titles with his boyhood club.