Chelsea’s partner club Strasbourg are locked in a battle with Eintracht Frankfurt for £4million-rated 18-year-old Serbian striker Milos Lukovic.
French side Strasbourg have been in talks with Lukovic, who captains Serbian club FK IMT and is a highly-rated Serbia Under-21 international.
Should Strasbourg win the race to sign Lukovic, then he would enter Chelsea’s multi-club model.
But German club Frankfurt are attempting to hijack a deal for Lukovic, who has scored 10 goals in 19 games so far this season.
Spartak Moscow have also made an approach to take Lukovic to Russia but they are not expected to win the race to sign him.
Strasbourg have a remit to boost Chelsea's multi-club network by signing top Under-23 players after Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital bought a majority stake in the Ligue 1 club.
Chelsea and Strasbourg are now connected under the BlueCo umbrella, with further talks to add clubs in Portugal, Belgium and South America to the Manchester City-style multi-club group.
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Former Crystal Palace boss Patrick Vieira manages Strasbourg, who have £22m to spend in January.
They are expected to be more active than Chelsea this month and are also targeting left-sided Boca Juniors youngster Valentin Barco.
Strasbourg won their last three matches before the winter break in France to propel themselves into ninth place in the Ligue 1 table. They have an outside chance of qualifying for Europe this season.
Chelsea need to sell players before they can buy this January due to UEFA and Premier League financial rules.
