7 May 2026 13:54 BST |<\/span> Cameron Smith Accredited sports journalist covering football since 2020 <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Arsenal are reportedly interested in rivalling Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid for the signing of Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez this summer.<\/p>\n The Argentina international is one of several stars who could leave Stamford Bridge during the upcoming transfer window as the Blues look to oversee another squad overhaul following a bitterly disappointing 2025-26 campaign.<\/p>\n Chelsea, who are now onto their third manager of the season, are currently languishing down in ninth place in the Premier League table after six consecutive losses in the competition, and they are in serious danger of missing out on European football entirely.<\/p>\n Fernandez hinted that he would like to move to Madrid during the recent March international break and rumours of an exit have persisted ever since, with Man City emerging as new contenders for his signature following confirmation that Bernardo Silva will leave the club this summer.<\/p>\n PSG remain interested too, while TEAMtalk<\/b> claim that Arsenal are also monitoring his situation at Stamford Bridge amid their pursuit of a new central midfielder ahead of next season.<\/p>\n FootballTransfers<\/i> understands that Newcastle United star Sandro Tonali is currently Mikel Arteta\u2019s preferred midfield signing this summer<\/b>although it\u2019s reported that Fernandez has also been earmarked as a potential option.<\/p>\n However, data analytics experts SciSports<\/b> believe that Fernandez could struggle for game time at Arsenal and with a likely price tag in excess of \u20ac120 million, a move to the Emirates Stadium may therefore be a bad move for all parties.<\/p>\n Although Fernandez has been one of Chelsea\u2019s most important players since his arrival at the club, SciSports believe he would only be the 20th best player in Arsenal\u2019s squad, as per his SciSkill rating.<\/p>\n Martin Zubimendi, Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard are all regarded as better players than the Chelsea star, suggesting that he would struggle to break into Arsenal\u2019s best midfield were he to join the club.<\/p>\n Furthermore, his best role in a midfield three is as a left-sided number eight and this is the position that Rice currently occupies at the Emirates Stadium. The England international is one of the best midfielders in world football and given his importance to Arteta\u2019s system, there is next to no chance that Fernandez would usurp him in the pecking order.<\/p>\n As a result, if a transfer is formalised, which remains highly unlikely, Arsenal would spend a huge sum of money on a player who isn\u2019t guaranteed to start, Chelsea would be strengthening a direct rival and Fernandez would forfeit regular football.<\/p>\n Nicolas Jackson update changes everything for Liam Delap at Chelsea<\/b><\/p>\n Man Utd, beware! The idea of Cole Palmer is now better than the reality<\/b><\/p>\n Transfer Rumours: Darwin Nunez agreement as Chelsea talks confirmed<\/b><\/p>\n Check out FootballTransfers’ new app for all of football’s big storylines, transfer rumours and exclusive news in one convenient place directly on your mobile device.<\/p>\n The FootballTransfers app is available on Google Play and in the Apple App Store. Download here:<\/p>\n \u2022Google Play<\/b><\/p>\n \u2022App Store<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 7 May 2026 13:54 BST | 4 min read \u00a9 IMAGO Cameron Smith | Digital…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5869","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\/5869","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=5869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n 4 min read <\/p>\n<\/source><\/source><\/picture>
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\n Digital Content Producer<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/source><\/source><\/picture>
Enzo Fernandez receives Arsenal transfer verdict<\/h2>\n
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