Premier League Champions Chelsea are keeping tabs on Paris Saint-Germain’s highly-promising French shot-stopper Alphonse Areola.
According to a report in Transfermarketweb, the Blues are monitoring the 24-year-old Frenchman and are keeping a track of his current situation despite having signed former Manchester City shot-stopper Willy Caballero a few days ago to act as backup for Thibaut Courtois.
Areola, whose current contract is said to run until the summer of 2019, is also the subject of interest of Serie A side SSC Napoli and La Liga side Valencia CF. The former U20 French international is a product of PSG’s youth academy and the legendary Clairefontaine football center.
He came through the youth ranks of the PSG academy and spent a season at Clairefontaine to fasten his development, before returning to the Parc des Princes to sign his first professional contract in 2009. He would go on to make his PSG debut in May 2013.
He would spend the following seasons on loan at RC Lens and SC Bastia before moving to La Liga side Villarreal on loan. Areola enjoyed another fine individual season under his belt and was announced as Villarreal CF player for 2015/16 season.
The Parisians decided to retain Areola last summer in order to provide competition to Kevin Trapp, but after the first half of the campaign, he would lose his place in the starting XI to the German shot-stopper and would eventually go on to make only 27 appearances across all competitions.
His future came under a lot of speculation as a result and in June, he gave an interview with TF1 where he revealed that he had informed about PSG’s desire to bring a new goalkeeper to the club and that his future was unclear at the moment, despite having 2 seasons left on his contract.
While it seems that Areola, who is also eligible to play for the Philippines, is set for an exit this summer as PSG get linked with Atletico Madrid’s Jan Oblak and FC Porto’s Iker Casillas, a move to Chelsea remains highly unlikely especially after their recent purchase of Caballero.
The 35-year-old Argentine was signed on a bosman with the intention to replace Asmir Begovic, who left Chelsea after 2 seasons to sign for AFC Bournemouth. Chelsea also extended third-choice keeper Eduardo’s contract for another season, keeping him at the club till June next year.
So needless to say, reports of the Blues’ interest in Areola are surprising, despite being so well stocked with personnel in the goalkeeping section. Thibaut Courtois once again has been linked with a Real Madrid move this summer, but that seems highly unlikely at this stage.
Even if Chelsea were really keeping tabs on certain goalkeepers in the off chance that they may need to replace Thibaut Courtois someday in the near future, Areola would be a questionable candidate, given his inability to hold down a place in the PSG first team.
