using the March international break like a relationship amnesty<\/a>, twirling his hair amid interest from Real Madrid in his services.<\/p>\nWhen asked if he would be at Chelsea next season, Fernandez said: \u201cI don\u2019t know, there are eight games left and then the FA Cup. Then there\u2019s the World Cup, and then we\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fernandez also said he \u201cdidn\u2019t understand\u201d why Enzo Maresca was sacked (we\u2019re with him there) before insisting he fancies living in Madrid.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to experience, I don\u2019t know, live there,\u201d he said. \u201cI really like Madrid, it reminds me a lot of Buenos Aires.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fair enough. Very few can withstand the draw of Real Madrid at the best of times and Fernandez faces a season without European football at a club that he we will feel has not delivered anything close to what he expected and what was presumably promised when he signed three-and-a-half years ago.<\/p>\n
There is hope for Chelsea fans after the appointment of Xabi Alonso and a reported change of transfer tack from BlueCo to supplement a squad of children with two or three more experienced players. But that was never going to be enough to change Fernandez\u2019s mind amid interest from Madrid.<\/p>\n
The only thing standing in his way of a move to Los Blancos is Chelsea\u2019s \u00a3120m valuation.<\/p>\n
Perez has already pledged to make a \u20ac150m bid for a \u201cGalactico\u201d, thought to be Bayern Munich\u2019s Michael Olise. And while we don\u2019t yet know how big a transfer kitty Mourinho will be given this summer, the La Liga giants have never spent over \u00a3100m on two players in the same season and have been relatively thrifty in the transfer market of late, making use of their undeniable magnetism to tempt players into running down contracts rather than paying big fees for new additions.<\/p>\n
So unless Fernandez\u00a0is\u00a0the Galactico, and he just isn\u2019t, it\u2019s hard to see a world in which Madrid are stumping up that sort of fee for the Argentina international along with the promised marquee signing and other additions to bolster what suddenly looks like quite a thin, ageing squad at the Bernabeu.<\/p>\n
Chelsea can either stick to their valuation and keep a player who wants out or alter their demands to open the door for Fernandez to make the move. And in search of leaders in the transfer market, the Blues should ask for Federico Valverde in exchange.<\/p>\n
The events of last season would suggest that either he or Aurelien Tchouameni will be leaving the club this summer as everyone harbours doubts over Mourinho\u2019s desire and ability to play peacemaker rather than throwing petrol on that particular fire.<\/p>\n
And while Tchouameni is a fine footballer, Chelsea would benefit more from the energy of Valverde alongside Moises Caicedo in midfield and Alonso would be delighted to have the \u00a378m-rated star at Stamford Bridge after revealing that he \u201creminds me of Steven Gerrard\u201d last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t seen many players with his physical performance,\u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019m very happy to be coaching him. Every manager would like a Valverde on the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
More we suspect that they would want an Enzo Fernandez on the team. But in essence that decision has been made for Chelsea by the fact that Fernandez evidently doesn\u2019t want to be there.<\/p>\n
And while this fanciful swap deal hinges on Valverde\u2019s unlikely desire to leave the biggest club in the world for a Chelsea side in free fall, or the slightly more likely scenario of him being pushed out by Mourinho to reunite with Alonso, it\u2019s a furrow worth ploughing for BlueCo as they seek a solution to a Fernandez conundrum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Enzo Fernandez is a good footballer. But he\u2019s also a bit of a d*ck who doesn\u2019t want to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[942,943,4066,10101,640,1707,82,273,83,8260],"class_list":["post-37334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-madrid","tag-chelsea","tag-enzo-fernandez","tag-f365-features","tag-f365-says","tag-federico-valverde","tag-front-page","tag-madrid","tag-news","tag-real-madrid","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}