Alvaro Pereira extends his Porto contract

According to Sky Sports, Alvaro Pereira has signed a contract extension with Porto that will see him stay with the club until 2016.   Chelsea were pushing hard to add the talented Periera at the transfer deadline, but no deal was reached with Porto over his services.  His new contract still includes a 30 million Euro buyout clause, so that has gone unchanged from the old one.  Porto acted in a very similar fashion with Falcao, whom they extended shortly before he was sold to Atletico.  Since deadline day, Pereira has featured for Porto in the Champions League meaning he'd now be cup tied if we bought the player in January.

While I'm a fan of Pereira, I hope Chelsea stay away from him this winter.  Ashley Cole has certainly started to show his age to some extent, but with Pereira being cup tied I just don't see the need to add him at anything close to his buyout.  Depth on the left may become an issue this summer if Anelka and Malouda both depart, but with the youngsters we have out on loan I'd much rather see us wait until the summer to address that.