Chelsea star Marc Cucurella is keen on leaving the Premier League side in the summer. <\/strong><\/p>\n Last month, Sport Witness covered a front page report from Spain of Barcelona\u2019s interest in their former player.<\/p>\n The same source stated he wants exit after turmoil at Chelsea following Enzo Maresca\u2019s departure in January.\u00a0Atl\u00e9tico Madrid are also in the running to sign the 27-year-old.<\/p>\n On Thursday, we relayed news\u00a0that Los Rojiblancos identified the left-back as the top defensive target.<\/p>\n They failed to sign him before he moved to Brighton & Hove Albion in 2021 and turned down an opportunity to sign him on loan a year later.<\/p>\n Friday\u2019s edition of Mundo Deportivo also report Atl\u00e9tico Madrid are keen on signing Marc Cucurella and made him their main target.<\/p>\n Chelsea invested \u00a356m (\u20ac65m) plus bonuses to sign the fullback from Brighton & Hove Albion in 2022.<\/p>\n The Blues are likely to request around \u20ac50m, but the Madrid club aren\u2019t giving up.\u00a0 There are factors why the Spain international is the \u2018absolute priority\u2019 for Diego Simeone\u2019s side.<\/p>\n The first reason is that Atl\u00e9tico have the finances to carry out this deal. The second is the former Barcelona man wants to return to Spain in the summer.<\/p>\n These \u2018two important factors\u2019 could convince the La Liga side to seriously make a move.<\/p>\n A move to Madrid appeals Cucurella, but it won\u2019t be easy for him to change clubs. Chelsea have appointed Xabi Alonso as their new permanent manager for next season.<\/p>\n Mundo state the incoming Blues boss wants to count on his compatriot. While the price and competition can be a concern, Alonso is the \u2018biggest obstacle\u2019 for Atl\u00e9tico.<\/p>\n Although Xabi Alonso wants to retain Marc Cucurella, the Blues have already worked on a potential replacement.<\/p>\n On March 22nd, Sport Witness exclusively revealed Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur made contact for Maxi Ara\u00fajo. He\u2019s likely to leave Sporting in the summer for around \u20ac45-50m.<\/p>\n If the Spaniard were to leave, Ara\u00fajo can be an option to replace him.<\/p>\n \n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chelsea star Marc Cucurella is keen on leaving the Premier League side in the summer….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Interest in Chelsea player backed up<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.sportwitness.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Capture-26-124x300.png\")
After overcoming initial difficulties, he\u2019s been a regular at Stamford Bridge and also for the national team.<\/p>\nChelsea already took action<\/strong><\/h2>\n