Chelsea hold an interest in Fermin Lopez of Barcelona.
Standard Sport understands the Blues have made contact with the midfielder’s representatives to discover the feasibility of a move.
Chelsea are yet to open talks with Barcelona over Lopez and are considering whether to make an official bid, after their recruitment team were tracking him for a number of months.
In the background, they have already worked hard on deals for Manchester United’s Alejandro Garnacho and RB Leipzig’s Xavi Simons but have put both moves on hold as they first prioritise sales before finalising another expensive signing.
Nicolas Jackson, Christopher Nkunku and Raheem Sterling are three players they are intending to sell permanently before the September 1 deadline.
Lopez is a Euro 2024 winner with Spain and has a contract with Barcelona that runs until 2029 so the 22-year-old would not come cheap if he did make the move to Stamford Bridge.
Barcelona have a good level of depth in Lopez’s position, and that is one factor that alerted Chelsea’s attention to the Spaniard.
A product of Barca’s La Masia academy, Lopez played 45 minutes of the club’s La Liga opener against Mallorca on August 16 but was an unused substitute in their 3-2 win at Levante this weekend.
