£24m Chelsea star could have ended up at Barcelona on Monday
Barcelona were readying a move for Chelsea defender Marcos Alonso has Junior Firpo completed a transfer away from the club on deadline day.
That’s according to Spanish outlet Mundo Deportivo, who say that Blaugrana were unable to secure a loan deal for the full-back.
The newspaper explains that there was a chance that Junior could leave the Camp Nou in the January transfer market, having found himself out of the picture under manager Ronald Koeman this campaign.
AC Milan were interested in a deal and negotiated with the Catalans over a loan move, with the parties said to be ‘close to reaching an agreement’.
Had Firpo left it’d have meant the La Liga outfit were short of cover at left-back and their recruitment team had planned a replacement had it gone through.
That man was the Blues’ Marcos Alonso, who had been excluded at the club by former head coach Frank Lampard this season.
However, in the end, the Rossoneri failed to convince Junior to swap Spain for Italy, which was fortunate as the La Liga heavyweights were similarly unable to negotiate a loan deal with the west Londoners for Alonso.
Thus, Firpo ended up staying in Catalonia and Alonso in London, which may have worked out well for the former Fiorentina ace, who is now enjoying a revival under Frank’s replacement Thomas Tuchel.
In other news, West Bromwich Albion have added the highly-rated Chelsea defender to their U23s squad.
The 20-year-old English star Jack Wakely comes from High Wycombe and has been with the west Londoners since Under-9s.