Chelsea have made an official approach for Fernando Torres according to a series of reports around the UK press on Friday morning. The Daily Mirror were first to claim Chelsea’s interest, quoting a fee of around £60 million. That “exclusive” was later removed from their site, only for the Daily Telegraph to later release their own article. The story is now being picked up elsewhere.

The latest reports claim that a Liverpool “spokesman” has revealed that they have turned down a bid from Chelsea, believed to be in the region of £40 million.

“Chelsea have made an offer for Fernando, which has been rejected. The player is not for sale.”

The news comes as the latest proposed big money move by Chelsea following accusations that Roman Abramovich was losing interest in the club and the quest for honours. Chelsea have reportedly had a £52 million bid for Atletico Madrid striker Sergio Aguero and defender Diego Godin turned down earlier the week. The club later denied such a bid. Meanwhile, the Blues are thought to be closing in on the £26 million capture of Benfica defender David Luiz. Make no mistake about it, Chelsea are getting busy.

This bold move for Torres is yet to be confirmed by Chelsea sources, but is a new transfer thread that will certainly interest Fantasy Managers. There’s no doubt that such a development would have a massive impact, not only on the Fantasy potential of Torres, but also on his new team-mates.

With under a week to go before the January window closes, we can only wait in anticipation to see if this develops further. It seems very unlikely that Liverpool, with Kenny Dalglish steering them to a recovery, will look to sell regardless of the offer on the table. Dalglish could of course rebuild but with just a few days left to do business, he would have little time to exploit any available funds.