Chelsea enquired about signing “one of the best players for Arsenal last season”

Chelsea reportedly made an enquiry to Arsenal about a potential transfer move for Martin Zubimendi to replace Enzo Fernandez.

As has now been widely reported by BBC Sport and others, Fernandez is poised to leave Chelsea in a £125m move to Manchester City.

There’s not a lot of time left for Chelsea to find a replacement for the Argentina international, but it seems they looked into a few options.

One of those was Zubimendi, as Xabi Alonso is a big fan of his fellow Spaniard, but Arsenal insisted he was not available, according to the Sun.

The report notes that Gunners boss Mikel Arteta also previously heaped praise onto Zubimendi, making it clear how important he views him as.

Mikel Arteta on Martin Zubimendi’s contribution to Arsenal’s title win

Zubimendi joined Arsenal from Real Sociedad last summer, and the 27-year-old immediately become an automatic starter and one of the north Londoners’ top performers.

It seems clear from Arteta’s words that this was never a player who’d be likely to be made available, especially to a rival like Chelsea.

“Zubi without a doubt was one of the best players for Arsenal last season,” Arteta said, as quoted by the Sun.

“Without him we would never get into the position that we got in the last few weeks and he deserves massive credit.

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“He deserves some credit from all of us, all the coaches, myself and especially his team-mates.

“We know that without him we would never reach the level and the way that we competed throughout ten months.”

He added: “No one can neglect the importance of what we did and how important he is for us.”

Do Chelsea have enough in midfield?

It seems clear now that Chelsea won’t be replacing Fernandez, which seems like a surprising and risky decision to make.

The west London giants have had another busy summer, but they haven’t actually done much to their midfield aside from this Fernandez sale.

Valentin Barco has joined from Strasbourg and can play there, but he’s also an option at left-back and it’s not yet clear what his best position is, or what his role will be.

Andrey Santos also left CFC to join Manchester United, so it looks a bit risky to be selling Fernandez without having someone else lined up.

The Sun previously reported on Chelsea eyeing Bournemouth’s Alex Scott for that role, but that hasn’t materialised and probably won’t be possible until next summer, according to the Daily Mirror.