Chelsea have held 'talks' with rivals over swapping players worth £130m

Chelsea could yet pull off a deal for Manchester United winger Alejandro Garnacho as they continue their search for attacking reinforcements. The Blues have largely been focused on exits this month, but Enzo Maresca is still searching for possible signings as we move towards the final week of the January transfer window.

The Blues already have competition out wide between Noni Madueke, Jadon Sancho, Pedro Neto and Christopher Nkunku, but the latter is being tipped to leave, unsatisfied with the amount of game time he is getting.

The suspension of Mykhailo Mudryk hasn’t helped Chelsea, either, and Maresca is now said to be keen to land a new winger to add further competition, but the Blues could also do with another striker to compete with Nicolas Jackson.

Meanwhile, the Nkunku situation is far from resolved despite talk of a bid from Bayern Munich. One option Chelsea may have is to swap Nkunku for a new winger, albeit in a separate deal. Amid interest in Manchester United’s Alejandro Garnacho, there is said to be a chance of selling Nkunku to the Old Trafford side while picking up Garnacho on a separate deal.

Fabrizio Romano has tweeted: “Manchester United and Chelsea had initial talks about potential separate deals for Nkunku and Garnacho at the end of December. As @RobDawsonESPN reported today, it could be still an idea for the two clubs… …but NOT concrete, close or advanced at this stage.”

Nkunku’s reported asking price is said to be £70million, while Garnacho is likely to cost £60million. Napoli were also said to be interested in signing Garnacho, engaging in talks with United, although the Italian club are now focusing their efforts on signing Borussia Dortmund attacker Karim Adeyemi, potentially taking them out of the picture as far as Chelsea are concerned.