As Chelsea prepare to get back on track after suffering a demoralising league loss to London rivals Tottenham Hotspur last weekend at Wembley, the Blues are also having to fend off interest from none-other than Barcelona for one of their players.
Chelsea welcome Fulham to Stamford Bridge this Sunday and it will be extremely interesting for those perpetually interested in the transfer rumour mill as to whether a certain defender features at all on the pitch in West London.
Barcelona are experiencing a defensive crisis at the moment, with a severely disheartened backline that has not only led to a sparsity of clean sheets but also to speculative interest in Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany as a potential centre-back reinforcement.
The La Liga champions and manager Ernesto Valverde have been plunged into a scramble to bring in a defender in January following news that Samuel Umtiti is set for a longer spell on the sidelines after undergoing surgery in Qatar.
Chelsea’s Danish centre-half Andreas Christensen is now on the Blaugrana radar but have so far been rebuffed for the five-time EPL champions in their efforts to bring him to the Nou Camp, reports The Mirror.
Christensen has been frequently excluded from the Chelsea set-up under Maurizio Sarri, failing to appear in the Premier League this season and relegated to roles in their Europa League campaign which is usually regarded as a second-string side being fielded.
The 22-year-old has fallen down the pecking order, with David Luiz and Antonio Rudiger being preferred.
Christensen has been at Chelsea since 2015, is contracted at the club until the end of the 2021/22 season, and has so far made exactly 50 appearances for the first-team, collecting the Young Player of the Year award last season under favour of Sarri’s predecessor Antonio Conte.