Barcelona are ready to beat Chelsea to the signing of Russian youngster Arsen Zakharyan and have already made their move.
That’s according to journalist Nobel Arustamyan, who says the Spanish giants are pushing ahead to get the youngster ahead of Thomas Tuchel’s side.
The Blues were linked with a move for Zakharyan last month, with Sport Express stating that they and RB Leipzig were keeping an eye on the 18-year-old.
They reported that the youngster was available for as little as €12m, although that figure is set to rise to €15m next summer.
That was followed by comments from board member Sergey Stepashin, who warned against a move to Chelsea but stated confidently, “let Abramovich be interested in his fate.”
It seems Chelsea will have to move quickly if they are keen, though, as Barcelona are now pushing ahead.
Arustamyan reports, via Championat, that Zakharyan’s performances have not gone unnoticed, and Barcelona sent scouts to watch Dynamo games on several occasions.
They were ‘satisfied’ by what they saw and are now ready for negotiations with Dynamo and the player, with talks expected to take place in the coming weeks.
The idea would be to negotiate a transfer now but leave the player in Russia until summer 2022, but that would be dependant on how negotiations play out. Zakharyan would, however, prefer to play out the season where he is.
At the moment, there have no official offers, so Chelsea are not behind in that sense at least, nor have negotiations been started as of yet either.
It appears that could be set to change sooner rather than later, though, which means if they are interested in Arustamyan, Abramovich and Marina Granovskaia will have to get moving.
