Chelsea Ready To Hijack Tottenham’s Move For £50m-Rated Midfielder

Managers are now pressing ahead with their plans for the summer transfer window so we’ll bring you all the latest news and gossip from around the globe. Today, Chelsea are eyeing Ross Barkley….

Chelsea are ready to hijack Tottenham’s attempts to sign £50m-rated Everton midfielder Ross Barkley this summer, according to the Liverpool Echo.

Barkley has been with the Toffees his entire career having come through the clubs youth system to emerge as one of England’s brightest young talents in recent years.

However, the 23-year-old’s future at Goodison Park is in serious doubt as he’s in the final year of his contract and boss Ronald Koeman has confirmed he’ll be sold after refusing to sign an extension.

There has been plenty of interest being shown in the England international with Tottenham widely reported to be the front-runners to secure a deal as Mauricio Pochettino looks to wrap-up his first signing of the summer.

The Spurs boss knows he needs to further strengthen his squad ahead of the north Londoners return to the Champions League and Barkley would be an excellent addition to their young group of players.

But they’ve struggled to agree a deal as the Liverpool Echo claim Tottenham are refusing to meet Everton’s £50m asking price with Pochettino hoping to agree a deal closer to £20m.

It seems Tottenham’s failure to get a deal agree could cost them as the newspaper says that Chelsea have now emerged as serious contenders to sign Barkley this summer.

Antonio Conte is on the look-out for another midfielder after Nemanja Matic joined Manchester United last week and the Blues boss wants to add more home-grown players to his squad with Barkley now on his radar.

Chelsea obviously have the finances to trump Tottenham to any deal and they also have a wage structure in place that would be more accommodating to Barkley’s reported demands.

The Premier League champions could therefore be regarded as possible favourites to complete a deal but the one thing that may prevent Barkley from heading to Stamford Bridge is the competition he’ll face for a starting spot.

Conte already has a wealth of midfield and attacking talent at his disposal so the youngster may have reservations about joining Chelsea if he’s not given guarantees over playing time.

READ MORE –> Chelsea transfer news | Spurs transfer news

We’ll have to wait and see how things develop but I think Barkley would be an excellent signing for either Chelsea or Spurs if they could get a deal agreed with Everton in the region of £25m-£30m.