8 May 2026 12:59 BST |<\/span> Cameron Smith Accredited sports journalist covering football since 2020 <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Former Chelsea winger Shaun Wright-Phillips has urged Joao Pedro to complete a move to Barcelona this summer amid rumoured interest from Hansi Flick\u2019s side.<\/p>\n The Brazil international has been a rare bright spark in a dismal campaign for Chelsea, scoring 23 goals in 50 games since arriving from Brighton & Hove Albion last July, and he has emerged as an alternative target to Julian Alvarez for the Blaugrana.<\/p>\n Barcelona are actively searching for a new centre forward due to the uncertain future of Robert Lewandowski and they have been heavily linked with a move for Pedro in recent weeks after being informed that Alvarez will cost in excess of \u20ac120 million.<\/p>\n Football transfer news expert Fabrizio Romano has confirmed that Chelsea have no intention of selling Pedro this summer<\/b> and the 24-year-old is yet to display any interest in leaving Stamford Bridge after just one season.<\/p>\n However, the Blues are expected to miss out on Champions League qualification this season after six consecutive defeats in the Premier League and they are on course for a second bottom-half finish of the BlueCo era unless they are able to improve their current form significantly.<\/p>\n Pedro still has seven years remaining on his current contract with the west London giants and although his Estimated Transfer Value (ETV) stands at \u20ac76m, it would likely take a far larger fee to even tempt Chelsea into transfer negotiations this summer.<\/p>\n Despite this, Wright-Phillips, who made 125 appearances for Chelsea across a three-year spell at the club from 2005 to 2008, believes Pedro should push to complete a move to Barcelona when the 2026 summer transfer window opens.<\/p>\n Speaking to Brazilian outlet Somos Fanaticos (via The Evening Standard<\/b>), Wright-Phillips admitted: \u201cI believe it would be fantastic for Joao if he were to go. Personally, given the way Chelsea has been run, if I were him, I would do everything to complete this transfer.<\/p>\n \u201cPlaying at Camp Nou, alongside Raphinha and (Lamine) Yamal, would be great for him. He would score many goals, since we have already seen what he did in a team that wasn\u2019t as good as this Chelsea team.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I were Joao Pedro, I would want to play in the Champions League, and I can\u2019t see Chelsea qualifying for any European competition. Joao has the level and deserves to be playing in the Champions League.\u201d<\/p>\n Andoni Iraola to save \u20ac65m star’s Chelsea career<\/b><\/p>\n Man Utd, beware! The idea of Cole Palmer is now better than the reality<\/b><\/p>\n Chelsea Transfer News Today: \u20ac90m striker wanted as Joao Pedro to Barcelona heats up<\/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":" 8 May 2026 12:59 BST | 4 min read \u00a9 IMAGO Cameron Smith | Digital…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6234","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\/6234","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=6234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n 4 min read <\/p>\n<\/source><\/source><\/picture>
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Joao Pedro receives official Barcelona transfer verdict<\/h2>\n
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