Back to winning ways against Aston Villa at the weekend, our resident Chelsea supporters in the Football Transfer Tavern are feeling a little better about life than they have done previously this season.
Just their third victory of the Premier League campaign so far, Jose Mourinho’s side are now up in eleventh place although everybody connected with the Blues will still feel incredibly uncomfortable being in the bottom half ot the table at present.
Refusing to be drawn on whether the club could get back into the title race in his post-match interviews after the Villa encounter at the weekend, Mourinho claimed the club will take each game at a time starting with Dynamo Kiev in the Champions League this week.
While the 2-0 victory over Villa was much needed, Chelsea still only managed three goals on target and with the Blues far from firing on all cylinders at the moment, naturally talk has turned to who Mourinho could target in the January transfer window.
With the Portuguese boss also papped away during the international break at the Ukraine versus Spain game to boot, this has done nothing to calm the speculation over prospective Blues targets for the New Year.
One player playing in that game was Sevilla’s Yevhen Konoplyanka who despite only signing for Sevilla in the summer is currently at the middle of a media storm brewing around being a potential signing for Chelsea in January.
With that being the case, we’ve identified five players who could end up following the Ukrainian star to Stamford Bridge in three months’ time.
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Click on the image below to reveal the five players who could follow Yevhen Konoplyanka to Chelsea in January.
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Javier Pastore
One of Paris Saint-Germain’s first marquee purchases following the huge cash injection from Nasser Al-Khelaifi, Javier Pastore is no longer seen as the main man at Paris Saint-Germain with the French champions quickly going on to land the likes of Angel Di Maria and Edinson Cavani after him.
Previously a star attacker at Palermo, Pastore has dropped even deeper in recent times and has played much more in a central midfielders’ position of late.
With Chelsea’s midfield receiving a lot of flak this season and in particularly Cesc Fabregas, The Express are amongst those who are claiming he is a January target for the Blues while Metro claim it is a loan move that could be in the pipeline.
Nishan Burkart
While Chelsea desperately need a few reinforcements for the here and now or alternatively recalling some of their younger hungry players out on loan, one player who is being lined up for the long, long-term future is reportedly FC Zurich’s 15-year-old wonderkid Nishan Burkart.
As everybody knows, Chelsea boast an incredibly talented youth squad at present despite many of them infiltrating the first team and it seems the Blues are intent on keeping things this way with the pacey forward player Burkart causing a stir over in his native Switzerland.
Being just 15, Burkart can only sign a contract at Zurich when he’s 16 but Chelsea are looking to pounce by getting in on his signature early although Chelsea’s London rivals Arsenal and Arsene Wenger have also been credited with an interest.
Alex Teixeira
As alluded to at the outset, Jose Mourinho was snapped as an onlooker at the recent Ukraine versus Spain fixture in the European Qualifiers and numerous transfer targets such as Yevhen Konoplyanka and Andriy Yarmolenko have been credited with interest by the Blues ever since.
But ANOTHER player linked with the Blues since that game in Kiev has been Ukraine-based midfielder Alex Teixeira of Shakhtar Donetsk although he didn’t even play in the fixture.
Playing in Ukraine though, the Blues rumours have strangely been sparked by Teixeira’s boss at Shakhtar, Mircea Lucescu.
The Romanian boss said: “Mourinho is interested in Yevhen Konoplyanka,”
One of our punters takes this moment to note that while agents like to drive up interest in their clients, it’s incredibly rare for a player’s own manager to do so.
A veteran of 142 league appearances for Donetsk, Teixeira has already claimed he’s open to representing Ukraine over Brazil given his time spent in the country but he’s an attacking midfielder and quite honestly, Chelsea have more pressing matters to attend, most notably their defence.
Marquinhos
With rumours that Chelsea could look to resurrect a deal for John Stones in January dying by the day, it looks increasingly likely that the Blues will have to look elsewhere.
Another outstanding young centre back on their radar is of course Paris Saint-Germain’s Marquinhos who Chelsea have been described as being highly interested in by the International Business Times yesterday.
With John Terry having looked far more suspect this year than last, not to mention the fact Kurt Zouma is still learning, there’s definitely room for another top quality centre back at Stamford Bridge and the Blues could do a hell of a lot worse than landing Marquinhos.
Stepping up in the Brazilian international fold too following Thiago Silva’s axing from Dunga’s squad since the World Cup last year, the PSG man’s star is on the rise despite not necessarily being an automatic pick at the Parc Des Princes and because of this, any potential Blues offer for the former Roma man will have to be for ridiculous money.
Jose Luis Gaya
Despite signing a new high-profile five-year deal with Valencia back in May, The Express were among those last month that maintained Jose Luis Gaya was still on the radar of Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea.
The latest top quality left back on Los Che’s production line following Jordi Alba and Juan Bernat before him, Gaya is most certainly hot property at the Mestalla but given the fact he signed his new deal this year, his buy-out clause now stands at £36 million.
With the 20-year-old’s clause previously standing at just £13 million, the likes of Chelsea could and perhaps should’ve moved sooner, especially considering the fact that Branislav Ivanovic’s performances have dropped dramatically this season.
With many Chelsea fans calling for Cesar Azpilicueta to be reinstalled at right back long-term, this would open up a spot for Gaya’s signing at left back although we can’t imagine Baba Rahman would be pleased about any potential January bid.
