Chelsea, Spurs interested in signing Valencia right wing-back overlooked by Barcelona — report

As real football draws ever closer (this weekend!), Chelsea’s pursuit of new signings gets ever more desperate. Amidst links to players such as Inter Milan’s Antonio Candreva (I guess), Leicester City’s Danny Drinkwater (if we must) and Arsenal’s Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (yes please!), a relatively unknown name has re-entered the fold.

According to Sky Sports reporter Bryan Swanson, Chelsea remain interested in Valencia right back João Cancelo.

The first mention of Chelsea’s interest in the Portuguese international comes from José Mourinho’s no.1 fan, Duncan Castles, writing for Yahoo! Sports back in February and listing several names who were supposedly on the Blues’ transfer radar for the summer transfer window. Two of the names mentioned by Castles, Victor Lindelof and Romelu Lukaku, have gone to Manchester United instead, while Virgil van Dijk has just entered open war with his current team, Southampton. Moussa Dembélé remains set to stay at Celtic for another season under Brendan Rodgers while Cancelo, who was overlooked by Barcelona in favor of Benfica’s Nelson Semedo, stands still in Valencia.

As one of the very few bright spots in a Valencia team that almost got themselves into a relegation battle last season, the 23-year-old right wing-back would be a good option for the Blues to provide depth and competition for Victor Moses — not to mention that Tottenham are also interested and we could thus block them from a much-needed signing (but only after they pay for his flight to London).