Arsenal now serious threat in Chelsea’s chase for South American attacker with €30m clause | OneFootball

Chelsea’s insatiable hunger for South American youngsters continues, but the Blues face some hot competition in one particular deal.

Back in February, some pretty solid sources in Argentina claimed that the latest man on our radar was Ian Subiabre, the rising star at River Plate.

We’ve not heard much on that front since, with a lot of the subsequent focus on our deals to sign Geovany Quenda and Dario Essugo from Sporting CP. But as the summer draws closer, there’s now more focus on this potential deal.

Subiabre is only taking his first steps with the River Plate senior team, and has more experience at youth level for both club and country. In February, journalist Gustavo Yarroch wrote:

“The [Chelsea] interest is there, but speaking of a possible transfer, this is absolutely in its infancy… There remains a very long stretch for the operation to be completed. River today are not interested in selling him and, if necessary, the leaders [have] set the termination clause of €30m.”

That kind of price certainly wouldn’t put Chelsea’s sporting directors off – let’s not forget they spent €20m on Deivid Washington not long ago.

Chelsea face tough new competition in Subiabre pursuit

Enzo Maresca with Ian Subiabre.

Since then things seemed to have developed a little, and not necessarily in Chelsea’s favour. CaughtOffside today report that Arsenal are now keen on the 18 year old and are making moves towards jumping the queue ahead of Chelsea to sign him.

They can offer a more developed project which is closer to winning titles, and given the sheer number of youngsters we have on the books, they can probably offer a more direct route to the first team too. He looks a real talent, but given we have Estevao Willian coming in this summer, an even more highly rated South American prospect, we can’t be too upset.