Chelsea launch club record £60m bid for cultured attacker as Blues look to match Man City & Man United spending power

Chelsea have failed with an initial offer of £60m for Real Madrid star James Rodriguez according to the Daily Mirror.

The Spanish side are however open to selling the Colombian and as such the Blues may well look to make a fresh offer for the 25-year-old attacker.

Antonio Conte is keen to strengthen his attacking options and has the full backing of Blues owner Roman Abramovich and having already offered a club record sum for the South American one imagines a second offer wouldn’t be that much of a surprise.

Despite the absence of both Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo the former AS Monaco man hasn’t started a La Liga fixture this term, with Zinedine Zidane putting faith in young talents Alvaro Morata and Marco Asensio alongside Gareth Bale in a front three.

This would appear to signal Rodriguez as a less prominent member of Zidane’s first-team set-up than the player would be willing to accept.

Real Madrid paid £65m for Rodriguez in 2014 and in his first campaign the adaptable forward bagged 13 goals and 13 assists in La Liga action alone but last term he started just 17 top tier domestic fixtures.

Chelsea have started the season with three successive victories but one can well see why Conte would choose to bring in further options to boost his attack, especially given the level of spending the likes of Man City and Man United have reached.