German Bundesliga club VfB Stuttgart have made a late bid to take Chelsea defender Bashir Humphreys to the MHP arena this week. Talks between Swansea and Chelsea have gone ahead and the Swans have registered their interest in the player in what looks like a four club scrap for Bashir.

The other clubs interested are Stoke City and Coventry City.

Chelsea have stalled on releasing twenty year old Bashir who featured in all of their USA premier League friendlies last month, and he made a huge impression on new boss Mauricio Pochettino. The news this morning isn’t necessarily the interest from VfB Stuttgart, it’s more about Chelsea seeing their young defender as more important to their own squad rather than loaning him out. Bashir’s talents were quickly noticed during his spell at SC Paderborn 07 in Germany last season. Talking to a contact of the website yesterday evening we have been told VfB came across the youngster in the DFB POKAL cup in January and were readily impressed. So much so they have contacted Chelsea regards the availability of the player.

Current VfB head coach Sebastian Hoeneß left TSG 1899 Hoffenheim in 2022 and like many younger coaches applied himself to increasing his knowledge base by travelling around Europe watching coaching sessions, and increasing his awareness regards the management of young footballers. He watched Bashir during his time at Paderborn, and has been in involved in media work before taking the VfB Stuttgart job in April. That’s the link to VfB and Chelsea this morning.

Both the Swans and Stoke are two clubs who have registered an interest in Bashir and Chelsea won’t be afraid to allow their player to go to the Bundesliga yet again, he has after all experienced the country already. However, that’s a big IF and it now seems the final word rests with Pochettino and not the Blues U21 manager Mark Robinson who has had direct dialogue with Paul Watson the Sporting Director at Swansea. Watson’s equivalents at Chelsea, Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart have also had talks with the Swans. The latest information is if Bashir is made available, and that could be at any point, Chelsea will talk through his options, and which clubs would favour his development. There is also some final work to be done as well on a new Chelsea contract that has been agreed in principle. Bashir’s current deal has only a year to run.

The player and his club will make a quick decision, which we believe will be made by the end of this week.

Photographs licensed from Reuters & Open Source

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