Chelsea linked with Lautaro Martinez who wants only Barcelona — reports

Chelsea’s big push to sign a goal-scoring forward this January failed not unexpectedly, but that just means that we’ll be central to even more rumors in the summer ... or right now already because Silly Season doesn’t hibernate either during the winter break.

The Evening Standard, taking “reports in Italy”, have added Lautaro Martinez to Chelsea’s shortlist, where he joins the familiar names of Moussa Dembele, Timo Werner, Jadon Sancho, Wilfried Zaha, and probably many others I don’t really feel like listing. While these “reports in Italy” turn out to be from CalcioMercato (via Football Italia), which isn’t ideal, Martinez certainly is an intriguing name to join the rumor mill.

The 22-year-old Argentina international, now in his second season at Inter Milan, has struck up a wonderful partnership with Romelu Lukaku at the top of Antonio Conte’s 3-5-2, contributing 16 goals in all competitions. And while he does have more than three years left on his contract, he also has a €111m release clause supposedly valid only for teams outside of Italy.

Hey, you know who’s outside of Italy? Chelsea!

Do you know who are also outside of Italy? Barcelona!

The one thing the Standard’s re-reporting leaves out is that Martinez is apparently “holding out for a move to Barcelona, to play alongside Lionel Messi”.

Oops.

Well, I guess we’re just going to have to buy Messi, too. Some might say he’s not too happy at Barca these days...