{"id":8761,"date":"2026-06-14T06:31:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T06:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/?p=8761"},"modified":"2026-06-14T06:31:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T06:31:01","slug":"chelsea-hit-major-stumbling-block-in-their-attempts-to-sign-arsenal-talent-who-joe-cole-has-likened-to-messi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/?p=8761","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea Hit Major Stumbling Block In Their Attempts To Sign Arsenal Talent Who Joe Cole Has Likened To Messi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p><strong>Chelsea would like to sign Arsenal attacking midfielder Ethan Nwaneri, but the Gunners are not interested in selling him to one of their rivals, according to reports.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The teenager is expected to be sold this summer, with the Premier League champions looking to balance the books, but writing on his Substack, journalist Simon Phillips said that a transfer to Stamford Bridge is \u201chighly unlikely\u201d to happen:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChelsea are one of the clubs who have some interest in the England U21 international. The issue Chelsea are facing, though, is a reluctance from Arsenal to sell any of their players to their London rivals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo again, this is another possible transfer move that looks highly unlikely at this point, and it\u2019s just some initial enquiries from Chelsea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have been interested in Nwaneri for some time, actually and have reached out to his agents previously regarding a possible move to Stamford Bridge.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"sra_unit\"><link rel=\"stylesheet\" id=\"block-sra\" href=\"https:\/\/chelseanews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/snack-related-articles\/dist\/css\/snack-related.min.css?230424-120159\" type=\"text\/css\" media=\"all\"\/>\n<aside class=\"sra-group sra-related-list\">\n<h2 class=\"sra-group-head\">Most Read on Chelsea News<\/h2>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<h2>A Chelsea icon has compared him to Messi<\/h2>\n<p><smartframe-embed customer-id=\"1ffbae35d432d0d71911ca2a0b209fbb\" v=\"f216f6d5d0b6ef819f6e02bf8357cefd\" image-id=\"prsip0W60dAO\" theme=\"iy-theme\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; aspect-ratio: 1.5003750937734435; max-width: 4000px;\"\/><!-- https:\/\/smartframe.io\/embedding-support --><br \/>Speaking in February last year about <strong>Nwaneri<\/strong> following a performance against Leicester, former Blues midfielder Joe Cole was fulsome in his praise of the England Under-21 international:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese touches he produces, in and around the box, tiny little touches I don\u2019t want to say it, but it\u2019s like Messi. I\u2019ve said it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While those remarks do seem a bit over the top, there is no doubt that Nwaneri is very technically gifted, and there is potential for him to thrive if given the right environment.<\/p>\n<h2>Nwaneri may end up moving abroad<\/h2>\n<p>The 19-year-old went out on loan to Marseille for the second half of last season, and while it proved to be a chastening experience for him due to limited game time, the chances are that he will make the switch to another country this summer.<\/p>\n<p>Borussia Dortmund are said to be among his suitors, although there are question marks over whether the Bundesliga side are willing to match Arsenal\u2019s valuation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read more about the Chelsea First Team Squad for 2025\/26 here<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea would like to sign Arsenal attacking midfielder Ethan Nwaneri, but the Gunners are not<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}