Blues facing ‘disrespect’ claim from Benfica over pursuit of Fernandez

CHELSEA have been accused of being disrespectful in their pursuit of Argentinian midfielder Enzo Fernandez. Benfica manager Roger Schmidt hit out at the Londoners, who have been frustrated in their attempts to land the World Cup-winning midfielder after talks between the clubs.

The Portuguese side do not want to sell the 21-year-old, who was named the best young player in Qatar, and underlined their stance by demanding that only full payment of his £106million buyout clause will seal a deal.

Now Schmidt has suggested Chelsea have gone back on their word, saying: ‘We do not want to sell Enzo. Not me, not the president, nobody.

‘We know, everyone knows, he has a clause in his contract and if the player wants to leave and someone comes and pays the clause, of course we cannot work against that.

Then maybe we will lose the player. There is a club who wants our player. ‘They know we don’t want to sell the player. They tried to get the player on their side and they know that they can only get this player when they pay the clause.

‘So it is a very clear situation. What the club who wants to buy Enzo is doing is disrespectful against all of us, against Benfica, and I cannot accept it.

‘To make the player crazy, pretend they can pay the clause and then want to negotiate, this is not what I understand about a good relationship between clubs who maybe want to discuss a player. So that’s what I can say about the whole topic of Enzo.’ Fernandez (left) has told Benfica, who have tried to convince him to stay, he wants to join Chelsea. He asked to be left out of their game against Braga last week amid Chelsea’s interest, but ended up being persuaded to play and managed 89 minutes of a 3-0 defeat. However, he defied club orders by returning to Argentina to celebrate New Year and missed training before returning on Tuesday.

Benfica are back in action tonight against Portimonense with Fernandez’s involvement unclear, amid concerns about the potential negative reaction there may be to him from the club’s supporters. Chelsea have had success in the January transfer window already, yesterday confirming the £35m capture of defender Benoit Badiashile from Monaco on an eye-watering seven-anda-half year deal.

Striker David Datro Fofana has also joined from Molde and the club have finalised a deal for midfielder Andrey Santos from Vasco da Gama.

They have also held talks with Shakhtar Donetsk over winger Mykhailo Mudryk as they try to hijack Arsenal’s bid to sign the Ukrainian, who is the Gunners’ No 1 transfer target.