Barcelona waiting on green light from Chelsea for Marcos Alonso, César Azpilicueta — reports

Barcelona are hoping to sign a trio of Chelsea players this summer, and without spending a dime. Andreas Christensen is already on his way, but Barca are hoping he will be joined by both César Azpilicueta and Marcos Alsono. Of course, unlike Christensen, those two are still under contract at Chelsea for another year and, also unlike Christensen, are still set for talks with the Chelsea hierarchy to determine their futures.

Both veteran fullbacks are currently with the Spanish national team for Nations League matches, and thus unlikely to be able to hold talks with either club — though reports about personal terms for multi-year contracts with Barcelona make it sound like those are mostly a formality.

Still, they would need to be essentially released by Chelsea, and that seems a lot less likely. As with Olivier Giroud’s transfer to AC Milan last summer, we would surely demand at least a token transfer fee, and that’s assuming we would be okay with Azpi and Alonso joining this summer’s exodus among the defensive ranks in the team — and we might, if we fully buy into the rebuilding mentality, but obviously we would not want to leave ourselves shorthanded.

Time to pay up, Barca!