{"id":2658,"date":"2023-07-29T15:13:20","date_gmt":"2023-07-29T14:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/2023\/07\/29\/read_news-phpnid48270\/"},"modified":"2023-07-29T15:13:20","modified_gmt":"2023-07-29T14:13:20","slug":"read_news-phpnid48270","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/2023\/07\/29\/read_news-phpnid48270\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea interested in nephew of Nigeria&#8217;s Dream Team IV centre-back\u00a0:: All Nigeria Soccer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"newsbody\">\n<p>                    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allnigeriasoccer.com\/..\/football_pics\/61713LU.png\" height=\"240\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" alt=\"Chelsea interested in nephew of Nigeria's Dream Team IV centre-back\u00a0\" align=\"left\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Premier League giants Chelsea have reportedly opened a line of communication with Rennes over the signing of talented French-born Nigerian youngster Lesley Ugochukwu.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0A holding midfielder by trade, Ugochukwu is the nephew of Nigeria&#8217;s Dream Team IV central defender Oyekachi Apam, who also won silver with the Flying Eagles at the 2005 Fifa U20 World Cup in the Netherlands.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ugochukwu has seen his stock rise after establishing himself as a first-team regular at Rennes and his nomination for the 2023 Golden Boy award.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Last season, the 2004-born player appeared in 35 matches across all competitions for Rennes, twenty of which he started, and was in action for 1,996 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lequipe.fr\/Football\/Actualites\/Transferts-chelsea-veut-lesley-ugochukwu-rennes\/1410830\" rel=\"noopener\">L&#8217;Equipe<\/a>,\u00a0Chelsea and Rennes have been negotiating a transfer of young midfielder Lesley Ugochukwu for ten days.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea are in the market for at least one midfielder before the close of the summer transfer window after the departures of\u00a0Mason Mount, Mateo Kovacic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, N&#8217;Golo Kant\u00e9, Tiemou\u00e9 Bakayoko and Denis Zakaria this summer.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Their priority target is Southampton&#8217;s Belgium international Rom\u00e9o Lavia, but Ugochukwu is on the list of midfielders being considered.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ugochukwu has played nonstop at Rennes since the age of eight and his contract with the\u00a0Red and Blacks runs out in the summer of 2025.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ifeanyi Emmanuel\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Copyright ANS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nAll rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from allnigeriasoccer.com<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.allnigeriasoccer.com\/read_news.php?nid=48270\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Premier League giants Chelsea have reportedly opened a line of communication with Rennes over the signing of talented French-born Nigerian youngster Lesley Ugochukwu. \u00a0 \u00a0A holding midfielder by trade, Ugochukwu is the nephew of Nigeria&#8217;s Dream Team IV central defender Oyekachi Apam, who also won silver with the Flying Eagles at the 2005 Fifa U20 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}