Chelsea FC Transfer Rumours: Cesar Azpilicueta Talk Heating Up?

What kind of Sunday would it be without a nice Chelsea transfer rumour to get us through the remainder of our weekend? Oh. A pleasant, sane Sunday. Well, nevermind. They don't call the summer transfer window 'pleasant, sane season'. It's nowhere near catchy enough.

Anyway, this rumour's fairly low key. No Edinson Cavani talk today -- this is about addressing the right back situation, and it comes to us from Italy, where the press are for some reason taking an interest in Cesar Azpilicueta. Chelsea, if you recall, look like they've been pipped to Inter Milan's Maicon by Real Madrid, and Azpilicueta's the player most commonly cited as Branislav Ivanovic's future deputy (no matter how much we might want Mathieu Debuchy). We haven't had much confirmation that things are happening, and although I wouldn't take a report from Calcio Mercato as confirmation per se, it's a start:

Il Chelsea punta con forza su Cesar Azpilicueta, 22enne esterno dell'Olympique Marsiglia. Secondo la stampa inglese, il giocatore avrebbe il gradimento di Roberto Di Matteo. L'accordo però è ancora lontano: il Chelsea è fermo ad un'offerta di poco inferiore ai 9 milioni di euro, mentre il Marsiglia ne chiede almeno 10.

I'm not going to bother with the Google translate box -- what you need to know is that CM are claiming that Roberto di Matteo likes Azpilicueta but Chelsea and Marseille are currently €1M apart on their valuation. €10M seems fairly cheap for the 22-year-old (Marseille paid €7M for him plus appearance add-ons* in 2010), so I'm not sure how much I buy the figures, but I'd be pretty confident in saying that there's interest from our side as well as Marseille's for getting a deal done.

*I wonder if Marseille might be tempted to sell now to avoid meeting those add-ons. That's entirely speculation on my part, as I haven't seen the contract and am therefore wholly unfamiliar with the clauses in question, but it doesn't seem entirely crazy.

If you want a closer look at Azpilicueta, keep an eye on the Spanish team at this year's Olympics -- he's been named captain.