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Never managing to sign Mario Balotelli from Nice over the summer, Marseille have been stuck with Kostas Mitroglou and Valère Germain up top, which hasn’t worked out too well so far this season.

Relying, perhaps too much, on Florian Thauvin for goals, the French club are aware of their difficulties, meaning January could be a time where we see them try and recruit a new forward for their team.

Among those targets, according to Le Phocéen in France, is Chelsea’s Michy Batshuayi, whom Marseille’s president appreciates a lot.

Currently loaned out to Valencia, where things aren’t exactly going great, the Belgian forward allegedly received a phone call from Jacques-Henri Eyraud, who wanted to find out what his situation was.

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However, after talks with everyone involved, it became very clear a deal would be difficult to pull off since none of the parties were particularly thrilled about putting an end to everything currently in place.

Valencia weren’t ready to give up on the 25-year-old, Chelsea didn’t want their striker jumping from club to club too much and the player, while he didn’t shut the door definitively on a return, wasn’t keen on ‘cutting back on his expensive habits’, knowing a return to Marseille would see his wage drop.

Since the La Liga side had paid up front to bring the forward to Mestalla, any deal would be ‘very costly’ to make everyone happy.

So, as things, stand, Batshuayi is staying in Spain for the foreseeable future.