Barcelona ‘will attack Chelsea today’ in an attempt to speed up the signing of defender Cesar Azpilicueta.
That’s according to Mundo Deportivo, who say the Catalan giants want to close deals they have in the pipeline, and Azpilicueta is ‘one of the priorities’.
He is an ‘express request’ from manager Xavi, who wants to reinforce the right-hand side of is defence with the 32-year-old.
The Chelsea defender is also ‘pressing’ for a deal to happen, despite having travelled with the Blues for their training camp in the United States.
He wants to remain respectful towards Chelsea, given he’s been there for a decade but has made it clear to both the previous regime and the new one that he wants to leave and start a new chapter at Barcelona.
The defender’s deal was automatically renewed at the end of the season thanks to a clause that stated it would be if he hit 30 appearances last season.
But he had agreed with the previous management of the club that they would let him leave if Barcelona showed interest.
The new management are yet to honour that agreement, though and have instead met with Barcelona to discuss the defender, among other issues.
Their current position is that they want to tie down replacements for the players they’ve already lost and those that could follow them before allowing the likes of Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso to leave.
Barcelona do not want to wait around for that and instead believes the time has ‘come to attack’ Chelsea and get a deal over the line.
