Chelsea are off until April 4, when they’ll resume their Premier League campaign at home against West Bromwich Albion. In the meantime, we’ve got some news and notes to cover, but we’ll get started with some transfer talk.
Arsenal man/Real Madrid loanee Martin Odegaard is making a lot of headlines this international break. He’s captaining a Norway side that is grabbing worldwide attention for their protest of the exploitation of migrant workers constructing facilities for the Qatar World Cup.
Odegaard has been the straw that stirs the drink at Arsenal, where he’s getting chances he simply would not get at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu. Zinedine Zidane will allow the Norwegian to leave this summer, reports Football Insider, and if that comes to fruition, it means competition for Arsenal in the race to acquire him permanently.
The Daily Star claims that Chelsea, Liverpool and PSG are all interested, and that is driving the valuation up from €35m to €55m, over a span of just a few weeks.
Watch this space, as it’s a transfer battle which could heat up and trigger a bidding war.
Moving on, this has been a very eventful internationals for Christian Pulisic, who has opened up publicly about his role at Chelsea and his intentions and ambitions at Stamford Bridge. This season has been, well we just did our in-depth report card on the 22-year-old American’s season, and the marks weren’t high, obviously.
Today was a big deal though, as Pulisic was Man of the Match and team captain in the USA’s 2-1 win at Northern Ireland in a friendly today. He converted a PK to become the 13th player to score at least 15 goals for the USMNT and the second youngest to get there.
There was also this:
That was ridiculous from Pulisic ?https://t.co/UxIcYyCI3D
— N (@Nino12x) March 28, 2021
Maybe this will spur an individual turnaround for him? He wasn’t the only Chelsea young gun succeeding today for his respective country.
Mason Mount scored for England, in their 2-0 win over Albania in World Cup qualifiers and Kai Havertz got on the scoresheet again for Germany. Mount became the first Chelsea player to score or assist in three consecutive Three Lions appearances since Frank Lampard, who ran his streak to seven before it ended in 2013.
Enjoy the show:
Mason Mount’s goal for England! (2-0)
Excellent finish ? #ALBENG https://t.co/izoBars4eI
— LDN (@LDNFootbalI) March 28, 2021
Havertz’s assist today complements the goal he scored versus Iceland three days ago. Indeed Chelsea players are thriving everywhere, in all sorts of different ways during this international break.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.