Chelsea's Ramires and Luiz wont join Benitez at Napoli, but what about Barca?

03 June 2013 12:57

Although by the end of his stay at Stamford Bridge, Rafa Benitez had at least won grudging respect from the Chelsea faithful, one sure may for him to get back into the fans’ bad books would be to take some of the club’s top players away to Napoli with him. When rumours broke that there was link with Ramires and David Luiz decamping to Italy, it looked like that may just happen.

Now however, the lie has been given to that talk by the players’ agent Giuliano Bertolucci. During his time at Stamford Bridge, although his relationship with many of the squad was cordial at best, it was thought that the relationship with Ramires and Luiz was much warmer. Whether this was because, or a cause of, the fact they were regulars selections under the Spaniard is open to conjecture. Taking Bertolucci’s statement at face value however suggests that the relationship will not be rekindled in Italy. Putting a lid on the rumours, he confirmed that “It’s very unlikely that David Luiz and Ramires can go to Napoli because Chelsea don’t want to lose them, they are two key players.”

The agent also moved to quell rumours that Luiz is being tracked by Barcelona. It’s a thread that has been running for a while now. He revealed that although there had been links last summer, there had been no contact recently. This is not what the current ‘hot gossip’ is however. It’s been trailed that manager-in-waiting Jose Mourinho would not be against selling Luiz to Barcelona in order to generate extra funds for him to rebuild the squad. It would seem a strange move though as the Brazlian is now beginning to excel in English football. On top of this, he is rumoured to be one of Roman Abramovich’s favourite players.

As the summer moves on transfer drama at Chelsea will doubtless be on the agenda, and a few surprises will probably be the order of the day, so nothing should be ruled out. It promises to be an interesting couple of months.

Source: DSG