{"id":341,"date":"2026-04-24T09:54:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T09:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=341"},"modified":"2026-04-24T09:54:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T09:54:19","slug":"chelsea-plot-surprise-move-for-free-agent-bernardo-silva","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=341","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea plot surprise move for free agent Bernardo Silva"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_79\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<p><strong>Chelsea have entered the race to sign Bernardo Silva from Manchester City this summer.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Silva will leave Manchester City when his contract expires in the summer with the club captain having confirmed his exit from the Etihad.<\/p>\n<p>The Portugal international has been linked with clubs in Europe, MLS and Saudi Arabia, with Barcelona and former side Benfica among those targeting a deal.<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea have now emerged as a shock rival to Silva\u2019s suitors. According to TEAMtalk transfer correspondent Graeme Bailey, the West Londoners view the 31-year-old as an ideal option to \u2018inject experience and proven leadership\u2019 into their squad.<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea have endured a difficult campaign with an inexperienced squad struggling for consistent results. A recent run of five consecutive Premier League defeats has all but ended their Champions League hopes and saw head coach Liam Rosenior fired on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Despite interest from Chelsea, a move to a rival Premier League club appears unlikely. The midfielder has previously expressed interest in a transfer to a club closer to his family.<\/p>\n<p>However, he remained at Manchester City, where he has won six Premier League titles among 18 honours. Silva has made 453 appearances for the Citizens, second only to Bert Trautmann among non-English players.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Read \u2013\u00a0Eddie Howe has Chelsea admirers as Blues step up manager search<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>See more \u2013\u00a0The five favourites to become the next Chelsea manager<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>Follow the Football Faithful on Social Media:<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Facebook\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram\u00a0| <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FootyFaithful_\">Twitter<\/a> | YouTube | TikTok<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea have entered the race to sign Bernardo Silva from Manchester City this summer. Silva&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341","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\/341","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=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}