Chelsea have seen their opening offer for Rayo Vallecano left-back Pep Chavarria rejected.
Marc Cucurella’s move to Real Madrid has left a void to be filled at left-back with Xabi Alonso looking to La Liga to find a replacement.
28-year-old Chavarria has emerged as a surprise target for the Blues with Mundo Deportivo reporting he is a player Alonso himself has targeted as part of his summer rebuild at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea have made an opening bid of €9million (£7.75m) plus add-ons, an offer that Rayo have rejected.
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Chavarria has not been capped at any level for Spain but enjoyed a sensational campaign with Rayo last season, helping the club reach the Europa Conference League final where they were beaten by Crystal Palace.
An eighth place finish in the Spanish top flight was enough to secure their place in the competition again next season.
Chavarria is thought to be keen on the move with Alonso’s former club Bayer Leverkusen also interested.
Geovany Quenda, Dastan Satpaev and Emmanuel Emegha are all set to join the Chelsea squad in the coming weeks in deals that were struck last year.
Targeting players who can make an immediate impact in the first-team, the Blues launched a shock bid for Granit Xhaka last week, offering £8million for the Sunderland midfielder.
The offer was immediately rejected by the Black Cats who deemed the offer disrespectful, insisting the former Arsenal captain is not for sale.
‘Sunderland bought Granit Xhaka for £17m and he was one of the best players in this Premier League last season,’ Premier League legend Alan Shearer told Betfair this week.
‘He wasn’t just one of the best players at Sunderland, but in the Premier League. And Chelsea think they can come in and offer less than half of what they bought him for and think that’s acceptable?
‘I mean, that’s bizarre to me. I understand that he might want to go, but if he wants to go and clearly his agent has done some talking to Chelsea, then I mean it’s a pretty embarrassing bid when a year earlier he cost £17m and he’s been one of the best players in the league.