Chelsea have moved to close down any speculation over the future of academy graduate Josh Acheampong, firmly rejecting offers for the 20-year-old defender. The club and incoming boss Xabi Alonso have and will continue to reject any approaches for Acheampong this summer. The versatile defender, under contract until 2029, is described internally as \u201cuntouchable\u201d and is being positioned as a cornerstone of Chelsea\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
Acheampong has shown promise in limited opportunities and Chelsea\u2019s hierarchy view his retention as part of a longer-term plan. He joins three senior teammates who are similarly protected from departures at this stage: Mois\u00e9s Caicedo, Cole Palmer and Jo\u00e3o Pedro.<\/p>\n
Caicedo recently signed a contract extension tying him to Stamford Bridge until 2033. Palmer\u2019s deal carries the same expiration and, despite being linked with a move elsewhere for the majority of 2025\u201326, the midfielder confirmed his desire to stay in west London for the foreseeable future. Jo\u00e3o Pedro, who joined the club last summer and is contracted until 2033, enjoyed a standout debut season that drew interest from other clubs, namely Barcelona, but Chelsea have made their position clear: Pedro is not for sale.<\/p>\n
Beyond those four, captain Reece James and Brazilian wonderkid Est\u00eav\u00e3o are also understood to be players the club has no intention of parting with.<\/p>\n
That said, Chelsea are prepared to entertain exits for other names should suitable offers arrive. Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez and Marc Cucurella became disgruntled with the project and publicly criticised some decisions by the hierarchy in March, with Fern\u00e1ndez receiving an internal suspension after his flirtation with Real Madrid. Both players are reportedly willing to leave following the failure to secure Champions League qualification, and Chelsea would consider departures if they could profit. Fern\u00e1ndez has been assigned a $161.2 million (\u00a3120 million) valuation in that context.<\/p>\n
Fern\u00e1ndez and Cucurella remain among the longest tenured players and leaders in a young squad; their stated desire to move, though not a forced exit, has created an opening for potential transfers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea have named four \u201cuntouchable\u201d players under Xabi Alonso; Acheampong will remain until 2029. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[1446,1558],"class_list":["post-14174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-academy","tag-brazil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14174","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=14174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}