REPORTS: CHELSEA'S £44M RAID ON SPANISH CHAMPIONS!

Now here is someone who has been linked with Chelsea previously in recent weeks - Koke of Atletico Madrid!

According to the latest report here, Barcelona have withdrawn their reported interest in the hard working midfielder as they have to wait until January 2016 until they can do business. The report states that this has paved the way for Chelsea to make another mega bucks offer to Diego Simeone for one of his talisman.

For me personally, Koke has only come into prominence over the last two or three seasons. Before that, I had not heard of him. In saying that, and having watched a fair few performances, it's clear that he has something about him and has become an integral part of the Simeone machine in Madrid.

It's all about team work and working hard for each other under the Argentinian. Koke fits the bill perfect and I am sure would do the same in the Premier League.

The problem for me is the possible transfer fee for him which again sounds like it would be the figure that has been set in his contract in order to release him from it and to compensate Atletico. It's a ridiculous amount of money and I personally think there are better options that we should contemplate signing for less.

I wouldn't say that Koke is a box-to-box player who scores plenty from midfield having scored just 14 goals from 137 appearances. His game is about passing the ball and creating attacking opportunities.

For me personally, we have more than enough players that do that here so we need to look at his other attributes to see if he could do a job defensively to cover the likes of Nemanja Matic or Ramires if injured.

There is a growing number of people that would like to see a couple of our youngsters integrated into the first team squad rather than spend this amount on Koke.

You have to remember that players such as Koke were given first team exposure and then regular football in order to speed up their development and become an important player for his club and country. Chelsea MUST do that as quickly as possible with the likes of Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Patrick Bamford.

What do you people think of the link to Koke? Do you rate him as the sort of player Chelsea need and would you spend that much to get him or bring others through?