Chelsea can dump Enzo Fernandez on Real Madrid with £78m swap amid ‘genuine interest’

Enzo Fernandez is a good footballer. But he’s also a bit of a d*ck who doesn’t want to play for Chelsea. A Real Madrid swap is in the offing.

He got 15 goals in all competitions last season and there’s a reasonable claim to be made that there’s no better midfielder in the Premier League at timing runs into the box. Anyone watching Chelsea last season will have noted that there was an inextricable link between a good team performance and a good Fernandez performance. He makes them tick.

The 25-year-old essentially won the FA Cup semi-final on his own and there were several other examples of him puffing out his chest and bossing a game of football.

Fernandez seemingly deciding if and when he will take a game by the scruff of the neck is just one of the reasons why Chelsea should be biting Real Madrid’s hand off if they meet their £120m valuation, his evident quality and experience notwithstanding.

The Daily Mail reported on Monday that on the back of Florentino Perez fighting off competition from Enrique Riquelme to extend his tenure as Real Madrid president, the La Liga side have signalled their ‘genuine interest’ in Fernandez – who’s under contract at Chelsea until 2032 – with Jose Mourinho about to return to the Bernabeu helm.

Chelsea paid a British-record £105m to sign Fernandez from Benfica in January 2023, stuck by him when he failed spectacularly to live up to that price tag for at least his first year at the club and then showed him grim “unwavering support” after teammate Wesley Fofana called out the “uninhibited racism” he displayed while away with Argentina.

He’s repaid the Chelsea faith by using the March international break like a relationship amnesty, twirling his hair amid interest from Real Madrid in his services.

When asked if he would be at Chelsea next season, Fernandez said: “I don’t know, there are eight games left and then the FA Cup. Then there’s the World Cup, and then we’ll see.”

Fernandez also said he “didn’t understand” why Enzo Maresca was sacked (we’re with him there) before insisting he fancies living in Madrid.

“I’d like to experience, I don’t know, live there,” he said. “I really like Madrid, it reminds me a lot of Buenos Aires.”

Fair enough. Very few can withstand the draw of Real Madrid at the best of times and Fernandez faces a season without European football at a club that he we will feel has not delivered anything close to what he expected and what was presumably promised when he signed three-and-a-half years ago.

There is hope for Chelsea fans after the appointment of Xabi Alonso and a reported change of transfer tack from BlueCo to supplement a squad of children with two or three more experienced players. But that was never going to be enough to change Fernandez’s mind amid interest from Madrid.

The only thing standing in his way of a move to Los Blancos is Chelsea’s £120m valuation.

Perez has already pledged to make a €150m bid for a “Galactico”, thought to be Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise. And while we don’t yet know how big a transfer kitty Mourinho will be given this summer, the La Liga giants have never spent over £100m on two players in the same season and have been relatively thrifty in the transfer market of late, making use of their undeniable magnetism to tempt players into running down contracts rather than paying big fees for new additions.

So unless Fernandez is the Galactico, and he just isn’t, it’s hard to see a world in which Madrid are stumping up that sort of fee for the Argentina international along with the promised marquee signing and other additions to bolster what suddenly looks like quite a thin, ageing squad at the Bernabeu.

Chelsea can either stick to their valuation and keep a player who wants out or alter their demands to open the door for Fernandez to make the move. And in search of leaders in the transfer market, the Blues should ask for Federico Valverde in exchange.

The events of last season would suggest that either he or Aurelien Tchouameni will be leaving the club this summer as everyone harbours doubts over Mourinho’s desire and ability to play peacemaker rather than throwing petrol on that particular fire.

And while Tchouameni is a fine footballer, Chelsea would benefit more from the energy of Valverde alongside Moises Caicedo in midfield and Alonso would be delighted to have the £78m-rated star at Stamford Bridge after revealing that he “reminds me of Steven Gerrard” last season.

“I haven’t seen many players with his physical performance,” he added. “I’m very happy to be coaching him. Every manager would like a Valverde on the team.”

More we suspect that they would want an Enzo Fernandez on the team. But in essence that decision has been made for Chelsea by the fact that Fernandez evidently doesn’t want to be there.

And while this fanciful swap deal hinges on Valverde’s unlikely desire to leave the biggest club in the world for a Chelsea side in free fall, or the slightly more likely scenario of him being pushed out by Mourinho to reunite with Alonso, it’s a furrow worth ploughing for BlueCo as they seek a solution to a Fernandez conundrum.