Chelsea eyeing Russia’s most expensive player
Published: 16 March, 2009, 13:23
Daniel Miguel Alves Gomes
The most expensive player in Russian football Danni and his Zenit teammate Pavel Pogrebnyak have caught the attention of Chelsea Football Club, Russia’s Sport Express newspaper reports.
The London club has been following their performance for quite a long period of time. The Chelsea scouts were present at Zenit’s UEFA Cup game last Thursday, which the Saint Petersburg team lost to Udinese 2-0. They are also expected at the second leg of the encounter on March 19.
Portuguese Danni and Russian Pavel Pogrebnyak and are both 25-years-old and both play for their countries national teams.
Daniel Miguel Alves Gomes, more commonly known as Danni, joined Zenit in summer 2008 from Dynamo Moscow for a record fee of €30 million.
He was named the man of the match in the UEFA Super Cup 2008, where his goal brought Zenit a 2-1 victory over Chelsea’s principal Premier League rivals, Manchester United.
Pavel Pogrebnyak came to Saint Petersburg from Tomsk in 2007. The powerful striker became the joint best scorer in Zenit’s UEFA CUP 2007/08 triumph, scoring ten goals in the competition.
Chelsea, owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and coached by Russian national team’s boss, Guus Hiddink, is also reported to be in the hunt for two players from CSKA Moscow: Russia’s footballer of the year Yury Zhirkov and Brazilian forward Wagner Love, who already scored 11 times in the current UEFA Cup.
Chelsea’s head talent scout, Frank Arnesen, was in Moscow for the Army Men UEFA Cup clash with Shakhtar Donetsk on March 12.
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