Fabrizio Romano: Chelsea star Andreas Christensen close to joining Barcelona as a free agent
According to Italian journalist Fabrizio Romano, Chelsea centre-back Andreas Christensen is very close to joining Spanish giants Barcelona. The Danish defender’s contract at Stamford Bridge expires in the coming summer and Christensen is eligible to talk to other clubs over a pre-contract agreement.
Fabrizio Romano goes on to claim that the 25-year-old had many offers from English clubs which he turned down, out of respect for the Blues. The two major clubs that are in the race are Barcelona and Bayern Munich, but Christensen is apparently leaning towards heading to Spain rather than Germany.
The ex-Borussia Monchengladbach star is one of the key players in Tuchel’s system at Chelsea and has been instrumental in making the Blues the second-best defensive unit in the PL, marginally behind Manchester City. The German manager has been very vocal about his desire to keep Christensen at the Stamford Bridge, but the Dane’s future seems to be outside England.
Romano previously claimed that Barcelona had improved their offer for Christensen to include a five-year contract. Their offer is supposedly better than Bayern’s and Xavi has been pushing to get the deal done for the Catalan club. The Spanish legend has been trying to build a new competitive project at Barcelona and he wants to make the Danish defender a cornerstone of that.
A defensive exodus on the cards?
The Blues find themselves in a very precarious position going into the summer, with the contracts of 3 of their first choice defenders expiring this summer. Apart from Christensen, Antonio Rudiger and Cesar Azpilicueta are also yet to renew their deals at the club.
The exit of Christensen may hurt Chelsea the most as he is just 25 and could have been leading the Chelsea backline in the future. He has only just reached his peak and it would be a shame to see him play out his prime years at another team.
This exodus could leave Chelsea very understaffed in the centre back department. Thiago Silva, as brilliant as he has been for Chelsea, is 37 and cannot be expected to play all the games. Trevoh Chalobah has had a very impressive season under Tuchel but is still young and could do with some more experience before being a pinned starter in our line-up.
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The club would, hence, need to be shrewd with their acquisitions as replacing players of this calibre can never be easy- if that’s what the Blues decide to do in the summer, to begin with. It remains to see how the board will handle this situation but a very interesting summer lies ahead for Chelsea.