Serie A giants consider late push for Barcelona defender

Barcelona continue to battle against their salary limit to try and register players, as Europe’s giant look to strike a bargain for certain members of their squad. With Chelsea pursuing Fermin Lopez, defender Andreas Christensen could be the next subject of an approach.

The Danish defender has just a year left on his deal at Barcelona, and has thus far rejected any suggestion of an exit from the club. The Blaugrana also allowed Inigo Martinez to leave the club on a free earlier in the transfer window to ease their salary limit concerns.

According to Pietro Balzano, via Sport, AC Milan are considering a late approach for Christensen. Despite his injury issues, Christensen has performed at a high level, and represents a potentially cut-price option for their backline, with experience to boot.

It is not clear whether the Blaugrana would be willing to do business with Milan for Christensen. While Barcelona still have five central defenders including Eric Garcia, Jules Kounde, Pau Cubarsi and Ronald Araujo, the former two are slated to be playing right-back this season, the exit of Martinez would appear to satisfy the wish of Director of Football Deco to find an exit for one of them. While Gerard Martin is seemingly being adapted from left-back to central defence too, it would be a surprise if Christensen were to be allowed to leave.

Manager Hansi Flick made it clear last summer that he was not happy about the idea of losing any more players while talking about Fermin and Marc Casado. However Deco and the club had made it a policy not to allow any of their players to enter the final year of their deal, otherwise opting for a sale – Christensen does fit into that category, and there is no suggestion of a contract renewal.