\n<\/p>\n
Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United have held \u2018exploratory talks with Sporting Club de Portugal star Maxi Ara\u00fajo\u2019s agents about a move.<\/strong><\/p>\n A Bola report that the 26-year-old\u2019s brilliance in the Champions League this season has led to high-level interest.<\/p>\n The newspaper explains that Maxi Ara\u00fajo\u2019s impressive performances in the Champions League this season, where he has shown \u2018quality in transition and defensive solidity\u2019, has elevated the winger\u2019s status.<\/p>\n Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid are leading the chase for him. He\u2019s been elevated to the status of a \u2018priority alternative\u2019 for Diego Simeone\u2019s side. But the Spaniard\u2019s are aware there\u2019s strong interest in him.<\/p>\n Chelsea, Tottenham and Manchester United are keen from the Premier League. Juventus have also been in touch. All of the relevant parties have held \u2018exploratory talks\u2019 with the player\u2019s agents.<\/p>\n All of the interested parties want to secure a priority status with Sporting president Frederico Varandas and \u2018avoid a price inflation\u2019. The growing concern is that there will be an auction and it will be \u2018frenetic\u2019 during the summer.<\/p>\n Sporting will start the summer by asking for Maxi Ara\u00fajo\u2019s release clause to be met. That is currently set at \u20ac80m. That is to warn the interested parties they won\u2019t sell on the cheap.<\/p>\n The Portuguese side want to keep the left-back but know that the interest will be \u2018intense\u2019. They\u2019re almost accepting that they\u2019ll have to sell. \u00a0Whatever the price, they will secure a huge profit on a player that cost them \u20ac13.7m in 2024.<\/p>\n Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid are currently leading the race for his signature. He\u2019s an express desire for Diego Simeone. But the competition from the Premier League is there. Chelsea, Tottenham and Manchester United have already been in contact with his agents.<\/p>\n Whether any of those three would pay want Sporting wants, remains to be seen. But the talks with his agents are being seen in Portugal as a sign of their growing interest.<\/p>\n \n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United have held \u2018exploratory talks with Sporting Club de Portugal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6760","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\/6760","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=6760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Chelsea, Tottenham and Manchester United call<\/h2>\n
\u20ac80m asking price<\/h2>\n