Chelsea duo Trevoh Chalobah and Marc Cucurella could be on their way out of Stamford Bridge in the January transfer window, according to Fabrizio Romano.
Writing exclusively for CaughtOffside in today’s Substack column, Romano explained that, while it is not yet clear if these players will be frozen out of the first-team by manager Mauricio Pochettino, the feeling is that they could both be on the move in January after nearly leaving in the summer.
Romano went into more detail on Chalobah in particular, explaining that he had the chance to join Bayern Munich, only for the transfer deadline to pass in Germany before it could be finalised.
Nottingham Forest were also keen on Chalobah and Chelsea were ready to sell the 24-year-old, only for him to reject the move.
Still, it seems both Chalobah and Cucurella will be players to watch for the Blues this winter, and could be the next in a long list of players to leave the club in recent times, alongside Mason Mount, N’Golo Kante, Kai Havertz, Christian Pulisic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Hakim Ziyech this summer.
“For Chalobah there was an opportunity to join Bayern on Deadline Day, there was a negotiation with Chelsea and the two clubs were close to reaching an agreement, but then due to the different timing of the transfer windows in Germany and England, they were not able to reach an agreement on the salary and other details of the deal, so it collapsed,” Romano said.
“Chalobah wanted to go to Bayern, and this is why he rejected an offer from Nottingham Forest. They presented a very important proposal to Chelsea – £25m plus add-ons up to £30m, and Chelsea accepted that proposal, but Chalobah said no, he said he would prefer to stay at Chelsea. Tottenham were another possibility in the final hours of Deadline Day but never something concrete because they didn’t sell Eric Dier as they wanted to do in order to make room for Chalobah.
“So now in the last 24 hours we’re also hearing reports that Chalobah is out of the picture at Chelsea. From what I’m hearing, although it’s true that Chelsea accepted that proposal and wanted Chalobah to go to Forest, there is no formal communication from the club that Chalobah is not going to play for them again.
“Sources on the player side feel that the player expects to leave Chelsea in January – the feeling is that something will happen for them to part ways. Chalobah still wants to leave if there’s good opportunity like Bayern. But, to reiterate, there is no guarantee that Chalobah will not play for Chelsea.
“There was also something similar being reported about Marc Cucurella, but Chelsea deny players being frozen out. Again, the feeling is that both Chalobah and Cucurella are set to look for new clubs in January if they can’t play in the next months.”