Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez remains at the centre of transfer talk after comments from his agent, Javier Pastore, produced conflicting signals over the Argentine’s immediate plans. The agent initially suggested Fern\u00e1ndez \u201cwould consider his options at the end of the season,\u201d a remark that was followed by a partial retraction and an apology from the player to his Chelsea teammates.<\/p>\n
Pastore sought to play down the incident in comments carried by Top Mercato: \u201cThese are statements he made without any intention of causing problems at\u00a0Chelsea . \u201cWe\u2019re on the same page with Chelsea. We made peace yesterday and the day before between Chelsea and the player. There were never really any problems. We cleared the air. \u201cHe\u2019s only 25. He\u2019s still young, he still has things to learn. We explained to the club that he said it without malice, that he made a mistake. He naturally apologized to the club, his teammates, the coach, the sporting director, everyone. \u201cWe\u2019re all on the same page. We simply had to clear up the misunderstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Pastore also left the door ajar on longer term possibilities at a promotional event for FedEx at the Parc des Princes. A former Paris Saint-Germain player, he added to Onze Mondial: \u201cIt\u2019s normal that there are rumors because of my connection to PSG. \u201cHe\u2019ll play in the World Cup this summer and finish the season with Chelsea. Now, we\u2019re waiting for Chelsea to qualify for the Champions League because he wants to play in the best competitions and he\u2019s a winner, and then we\u2019ll see. Honestly, we\u2019re not thinking about that right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those lines of communication arrive while Chelsea’s hopes of reaching next season\u2019s Champions League rest on their Premier League form. With Chelsea already out of this season\u2019s Champions League, qualification for the next edition depends on a top-five finish. After 31 games, the Blues sit sixth, one point behind Liverpool in fifth, and have lost three of their last four league matches. Aston Villa sit six points clear in fourth with seven games remaining, leaving what the draft describes as a likely straight shootout between Chelsea and Liverpool for the final Champions League spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pastore’s mixed signals over Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez’s future leave Chelsea’s Champions League hopes in focus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11349,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,987,1163],"tags":[983,1047],"class_list":["post-11350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-real-madrid","category-transfers","tag-agents","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}