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Chelsea have already registered their interest in left-back Pep Chavarr\u00eda, 28, and are reportedly prepared to pay around \u20ac25 million for the Catalan, according to Matteo Moretto. <\/span><\/p>\n Now Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest have joined the race for his full-back partner, right-back Andrei Ra\u021biu, with the Romania international identified as a top target for both clubs as they look to strengthen their options at right-back this summer.<\/span><\/p>\n Ra\u021biu has been the subject of Premier League interest before. Aston Villa attempted to sign him last year but were unable to meet Rayo’s valuation, and the deal collapsed. Rayo have since made clear that any club hoping to sign the 28-year-old will have to match his release clause of \u20ac25 million, with club president Mart\u00edn Presa said to be unwilling to negotiate a fee below that figure regardless of which side comes calling.<\/span><\/p>\n Both full-backs have been central to Rayo’s rise under P\u00e9rez, with Ra\u021biu making 50 appearances last season and contributing five goal involvements from right-back, while Chavarr\u00eda made 44 appearances across competitions. <\/span><\/p>\n Losing either would be a significant blow to a Rayo side that reached a European final for the first time in the club’s history last season, though their release clauses mean Rayo have little scope to resist if either fee is met in full.<\/span><\/p>\n For now, Ra\u021biu remains focused on pre-season under new head coach Be\u00f1at San Jos\u00e9, with no advanced negotiations yet reported between Rayo and either English club. Chavarr\u00eda’s situation with Chelsea is similarly unresolved, with reports suggesting the London club could walk away from the deal if Rayo do not lower their valuation.<\/span><\/p>\n Chelsea’s interest follows the departure of Marc Cucurella to Real Madrid, leaving a gap on the left of Xabi Alonso’s defence, while Newcastle’s pursuit of Ra\u021biu comes as Eddie Howe looks to address a shortage of full-back options after the exits of Kieran Trippier, Emil Krafth and Matt Targett.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chelsea have already registered their interest in left-back Pep Chavarr\u00eda, 28, and are reportedly prepared…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21586","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\/21586","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=21586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}