Chelsea return to €60m target with Champions League experience | OneFootball

Chelsea’s attempts to sign a central defender this summer are not going quite to plan.

Top options already off the board for Chelsea

Top target Dean Huijsen has gone to Real Madrid. His teammate at Bournemouth, Ilya Zabarnyi looks close to joining PSG. That’s two young, Premier League experienced defenders available at a reasonable price off the market.

Now former Blue and long time target Marc Guehi is being really closely followed by Liverpool, and looks set to join them.

That means the transfer team at Stamford Bridge are working their way further and further down their list, and coming across names that haven’t been mentioned in a while – like Ronald Araujo of Barcelona.

Araujo back to the top of Chelsea’s list as others make moves

Ronald Araujo in action for Barcelona. He has been linked with a €60m move to Stamford Bridge this summer.

The Uruguay star is a player who was mentioned a lot in the last couple of years, but has since fallen off the radar a little. He’d be a really interesting prospect – he’s already 26, but balances that with having bags of experience.

He’s not perfect, but he’s got great physical ability and is good playing out from the back. It’s no surprise he’s on the list, especially as Barca are somewhat open to a sale.

The emergence of Pau Cubarsi as an excellent cheap youth option has made Araujo more available, and the Spanish side would love to make some money selling him on. CaughtOffside quote reports in Spain that he’s available for around €60m.

That’s a fair chunk of change, but nothing crazy considering what you’ll get for your money. If younger, cheaper targets continue to get hoovered up, we could very well see our interest in Araujo getting serious.

Keep an eye on this one.