Blow for Chelsea as they look set to lose out on prolific Bundesliga frontman

Transfer News: Barcelona prepare fresh bid for Chelsea target Robert Lewandowski

Bayern Munich’s wantaway striker Robert Lewandowski is understood to prefer a move to Barcelona, despite approaches from both Chelsea and Ligue 1 champions Paris St-Germain. 

The Blues reportedly view Lewandowski as the man to solve their striker crisis, with the impending departure of Romelu Lukaku looming large. 

Thomas Tuchel has seemingly encouraged the Chelsea hierarchy to strike a deal for the Polish striker, should it be possible at this stage. 

The ship seems to have sailed though, partly due to Lewandowski’s desire to don the Blaugrana colours and the rest due to his agent Pini Zahavi’s close relationship with Barcelona president Joan Laporta. 

According to Fabrizio Romano, Barcelona are preparing a fresh, official bid for Lewandowski and hence are in the driving seat for these negotiations. 

This development certainly arrives as a blow to Chelsea and particularly Thomas Tuchel, who rates the Bayern superstar to the moon.  His numbers for the Bavarian club are astonishing, mind-boggling and borderline unreal. In 374 appearances, he has scored 344 goals and provided 72 assists. 

Huge disappointment for Chelsea

The Blues were offered the chance to sign Gabriel Jesus, but Raheem Sterling seems to be the Manchester City player that Chelsea are more interested in. 

With the club currently negotiating an exit for Lukaku, Lewandowski would have been an instantaneous solution to Chelsea’s “striker curse”.  

However it seems like those at SW6 will need to shift their focus to other targets very soon, because it seems highly unlikely at this point that Chelsea can hijack the deal given Barcelona’s head start in negotiations. 

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• Transfer News: Chelsea and Inter Milan continue to plot Romelu Lukaku exit plan

Academy striker Armando Broja impressed on loan at Southampton last term, so there remains the possibility that if Broja convinces Tuchel during pre-season, then maybe Chelsea won’t need to splash big money on any striker – at least for now.