Chelsea have now made contact with Ateltico Madrid over signing Pablo Barrios, according to reports, and have been told how much it will take to lure the midfielder away from Spain in 2026.

With the January transfer window less than two months away, the Blues have already got an eye on potential reinforcements. It’s a rare day when those in West London aren’t thinking about the transfer window and Todd Boehly could be about to spend big yet again to help Chelsea bridge the gap on Premier League leaders Arsenal.

Having already welcomed the likes of Jamie Gittens and Joao Pedro in the summer, those at Stamford Bridge are now reportedly interested in signing Ousmane Diomande.

The Sporting CP defender is one of the most promising centre-backs in Europe and certainly fits the criteria of young stars that Chelsea have been recruiting in recent years. But he’s not the only target in their sights.

The Blues have also been linked with a midfield upgrade in Crystal Palace’s Adam Wharton. The England international is among the most sought-after talents in the Premier League and will have the biggest decision of his career to make sooner or later. Whether that results in a move to West London remains to be seen.

With Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez at the base of the Blues’ midfield, it would take quite the talent to take a starting spot in the middle of Enzo Maresca’s side, but that may not stand in the way of BlueCo’s spending.

If it’s not Wharton that arrives in 2026, then it could be Atletico Madrid star Barrios, who has entered Chelsea’s radar ahead of the January transfer window.

Chelsea launch contact to sign Pablo Barrios

According to reports in Spain, Chelsea have now made contact over signing Barrios from Atletico Madrid, only to be told that the Spanish club will only be accepting offers in the region of €100m (£88m).

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Whilst money hasn’t been a problem for Chelsea in the past, they should question whether they actually need another midfielder with Caicedo and Fernandez already performing so well together this season.

League stats P90 25/26

Barrios

Caicedo

Fernandez

Minutes

856

945

880

Progressive Passes

7.47

5.71

8.16

Tackles Won

0.95

1.90

0.71

Ball Recoveries

6.11

5.43

3.88

Barrios has certainly impressed enough to force Chelsea to ask themselves the question about his potential arrival, but whether they can lure him away from Atletico Madrid is another question entirely.

Diego Simeone is a big fan of the midfielder and told reporters when the 22-year-old was first breaking through: “He has a fantastic game, and I told him that we’re going to work to shape it. Koke is there now (at the ‘5’) and we are trying to bring out Pablo’s full potential. He has to grow, but he’s doing very well. I’m excited. He’s a kid from the academy, and he can play several roles.”

Forget Delap: 18-year-old star is destined to be Chelsea's future number 9

There’s still a lack of clarity on his exact role in the team right now, but he has what it takes to be an elite allrounder

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Has Washington nailed his spot in India’s Test XI?

Before Washington Sundar scored his maiden Test hundred to help India save the Old Trafford Test, he had had innings of 27 off 90, 0 off 4, 23 off 76, 12* off 7 and 42 off 103 in this series. To go with figures of 2 for 107, 4 for 22, 0 for 21, 1 for 28 and 0 for 73.Nothing extraordinary apart from the Lord’s four-for, but if you sit down and remember the shots of the series and the balls of the series for a highlight reel, Washington will feature prominently.Even before the massively drifting offbreak to trap Ben Stokes lbw at Edgbaston, Washington had reprised his Gabba pull, only more emphatically, off Josh Tongue. He had also been at the receiving end of a stunning offbreak from Joe Root that bowled him. Then there was the lovely inside-out six off Root into the biggest pocket at Lord’s. Nothing more than a chip, but it just kept going.In having lofty standards for his son, even Washington’s father has managed to draw comparisons with the father of another batter who was immensely pleasing on the eye, Kumar Sangakkara. Like any father would, Washington’s father might feel he has been hard done by the selectors and the team management, but the decision-makers in Indian cricket have actually gone out of their way to play Washington as much as they can. It is not charity; they want to exploit the high ceiling of Washington’s talent.Related

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The Impact Player rule in the IPL has been a stumbling block for Washington because the playing condition gives teams no incentive to develop allrounders. After having become a regular, Washington has played only 15 matches in the three years of the Impact Player era; he played 30 in the previous three.Being out of sight can hurt a player’s perception, but thankfully not in the eyes of the selectors. It has perhaps also helped Washington develop his bowling. In this series, for example, no spinner has managed to drift the ball as much as he has: 2.543 degrees on an average, with Liam Dawson, Ravindra Jadeja and Shoaib Bashir hovering around 1.5 degrees. He has also attacked the stumps more often than other spinners bar Dawson. On pitches with little help for spinners, drift and line have created most of his seven wickets, including Stokes’ at Edgbaston, which went bewitchingly late and against the prevailing wind.This is also an improvement on his own numbers of 2.233 degrees against England at home in 2021. He has also bowled quicker than he did at home – average pace of 91.71kph as against 87.61 – perhaps because there isn’t much to be gained on these pitches by going slower. While Washington has been doing more in the air laterally, it would appear he is not as accurate as Jadeja or perhaps not getting as much dip.Washington Sundar celebrates his maiden Test century•AFP/Getty ImagesIf batters can play the ball within two metres of its pitching or go back and give themselves more than three metres to intercept it, the chances of a spinner getting them in trouble reduce drastically. Spinners endeavour to catch them in between. Washington has done so only 19.7% of the time in this series; a measure of how good Jadeja is that he has done so every third ball. This is why Jadeja is in the contest almost everywhere. These numbers are consistent with Washington at home as well.Add Washington’s batting to the package, and you know why the decision-makers have been so keen on him. Throughout his effort to draw the fourth Test, it never looked like he would give England even a chance. As early as in his first Test, the historic Gabba win, Washington showed he was capable of batting in various gears: slow and composed when in trouble in the first innings, counterattacking in a chase.Washington is at a stage of his career where the team hasn’t quite figured out what his best role is. He could be a specialist batter who bowls a little outside Asia. He could be a frontline spinner who bats in the lower middle order in Asia. Even in this phase, he has elite allrounder’s numbers: average of 44.86 with the bat and 27.87 with the ball.Of course, at this stage, Washington gets to play only in conditions that suit him: as a third spinner until now, he came in only in extreme conditions in India. Now, though, he is the heir apparent to the now-retired R Ashwin as the spinner who also bats. Jadeja is no spring chicken. Whenever he retires, Washington is in pole position to become India’s No. 1 all-conditions allrounder.In scoring his first hundred to draw the Test from the No. 5 slot vacated by the injured Rishabh Pant, Washington has shown enough to earn that trust. Now the expectations are lofty, and not just his dad’s.

The black-soil surface in Delhi will have patches of grass, interspersed with bald areas, and is expected to help spinners later on

Nagraj Gollapudi07-Oct-2025The pitch for the second and final India-West Indies Test, which starts on October 10 in Delhi, will have patches of grass interspersed with bald areas, unlike the Ahmedabad pitch for the first Test that had an even grass covering.The Delhi pitch will have a black-soil base and is likely to favour batters, with spin playing a role as the surface dries up gradually.West Indies lost the first Test inside three days after electing to bat on one of the greenest pitches in India since the World Test Championship was launched in 2019. With four millimetres of live grass covering spread over a red-soil pitch coupled with good bounce, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj gleefully went about their job on the first morning as West Indies were all out in 44.1 overs. The visitors lasted just 45.1 overs in their second innings, suffering a bruising defeat by an innings and 140 runs.The pitch at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, though, is understood to be more batting-friendly, coupled with a quick outfield and slightly shorter boundaries. The last Test played here was the second of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in 2023. In that game, Australia, having elected to bat on a slow turner, lost by six wickets, inside three days.

The last five years of his Test career were not very prolific, but Pujara still ended with numbers that mark him as one of India’s best in the format

S Rajesh25-Aug-2025With an aggregate of 7195 runs in his 103 Tests, Cheteshwar Pujara ranks eighth in the list of top run-getters in the format for India. Only Rahul Dravid has more runs for India from No. 3 than Pujara’s 6529, which is a testament to his quality at the top of the order.However, with Pujara, the runs he scored only told part of the story. His true value was in the number of balls he consumed at the crease, ensuring that the batters who followed had the luxury of facing a ball and a bowling attack considerably less fresh than at the start of the innings.ESPNcricinfo LtdOver the duration of Pujara’s Test career – from October 2009 to June 2023 – only four batters faced more deliveries than his 16,217 in the format: Joe Root, Alastair Cook, Steven Smith and Azhar Ali. That, in a nutshell, illustrates Pujara’s value to the India team for almost 14 years. In terms of batting averages, Pujara sits at a modest 11th position among the 19 players who scored at least 5000 runs during his career span, but with him, just the runs scored doesn’t paint the complete picture.Related

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In the 103 Tests, Pujara was dismissed once every 98.3 deliveries. That puts him in fifth position among those 19 batters mentioned above, which is significantly better than his rank based on averages. In an age when aggression and taking the attack to the bowlers is increasingly seen as the best approach, Pujara belonged to a dwindling tribe that believed in grinding down an attack. It is an approach that attracted a fair share of detractors, but it also fetched him over 7000 Test runs and 19 hundreds.