Barcelona will demand a big fee from Chelsea for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang even though he joined on a free transfer this year, according to reports.
The London club are keen to add more firepower to their frontline before the window closes after loaning Lukaku back to Inter and selling Timo Werner back to RB Leipzig.
That has seen them linked with a move for Aubameyang, with Thomas Tuchel doing little to play down the speculation.
The German manager worked with the Gabon international at Dortmund and has been speaking this week about the ‘close bond’ they share.
Aubameyang only moved to Camp Nou in February this year, with Arsenal having agreed to rip up his £350,000-a-week contract on deadline day so he could join Barcelona after the window had closed.
After a frustrating time at the Emirates in the first half of the 2021-22 season, which was punctuated with disciplinary issues and saw him lose the captaincy, Aubameyang enjoyed a resurgence at Barca.
The 33-year-old scored 11 goals in 17 La Liga games, helping the team finish second despite having been in a battle to qualify for the Champions League when he joined.
But the arrival of Lewandowski has pushed Aubameyang down the pecking order and he only came on for the final eight minutes of Barca’s draw with Rayo Vallecano on Saturday.
Barcelona – who have not registered Jules Kounde due to their financial issues – are believed to be keen to sell the player, with the terms of his contract meaning he is now on a bigger salary this season than he was in the previous campaign.
Despite Barca’s openness to selling Aubameyang, Spanish journalist Gerard Romero, speaking on his Jijantes FC Twitch show, says the Catalans are looking to extract a sizeable fee from Chelsea.
Barcelona are looking to secure a fee around €25m (£21m) to €28m (23m), which is around half the fee they paid Bayern for Lewandowski – which is being used as a barometer.
While the Catalan club are optimistic they can get a decent fee from Chelsea, the west London side are said to have baulked at that asking price and would want to pay less for a player in the twilight of his career who is on big wages.
Speaking about Aubameyang, Tuchel said last week: ‘Some players stay your players because you work very, very close, Auba is one of these players. We had a very close relationship.
‘Always when we played him here with Arsenal, there was always straight away this close bond. They always stay your players in a way, Auba is one of these guys.’
