Ousmane Dembele is waiting until after his holiday to make a decision over his future, a source has told football.london. Chelsea have held talks with the Frenchman's entourage over a free transfer this summer and the Blues are confident they can get the deal over the line.
Dembele sees his contract with Barcelona expire at the end of the month and he is set to become a free agent when it does. The 25-year-old winger is very much admired by Thomas Tuchel, who coached the France international during their days at Borussia Dortmund.
"He's a very good player and I am very fortunate to have trained him in my time at Dortmund," Tuchel said on Dembele when asked about the winger earlier in the year. "It was only one year, it should have been longer, but I needed to leave and he decided to leave."
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Dembele has been in dialogue with Tuchel in recent times, it is understood, speaking about possibly reuniting at Stamford Bridge over the summer. The two are said to have a strong relationship, something that could bode well for Chelsea and help fend off competition from Paris Saint-Germain.
The Blues are looking to add attackers to their ranks this summer with Tuchel wanting to fix the issues the side had in front of goal last season. Dembele is seen as a possible solution to this, but there are fears that injuries could prove crucial - as they have so often for the Frenchman at Barcelona.
Spanish football expert Sid Lowe, when speaking exclusively to football.london recently, said he is confident the French winger is over the worst in relation to his injury nightmare. Lowe said: "While he's had a lot of bad injuries, if you look at the past couple of years, there isn't a reason to be fatalistic about it.
"The season just gone, he played in the second half of the season where he was fit and actually played really well in a structure that seemed to work for him. He is a bizarre player. He can go from infuriating to awful, sometimes in exactly the same move, but it's not always just about injuries.
"I think the improvement in the structure has helped him play better. In a way, the forcing of certain options on him because he's a player who has sometimes taken bad decisions on the pitch in terms of choosing the wrong pass and so on.
"I think in a way you can improve that by effectively making it impossible for him to pick the wrong pass. You can obviously never make it completely impossible, but make the options clearer - giving him the exit points that he needs. Obviously, repetition over and over again so it becomes second nature."
