By Craig Scott

30th Dec, 2021 | 5:10pm

Chelsea ready to sell Ross Barkley as Leeds United eye loan-to-buy deal

Chelsea are ready to sell Leeds United-linked Ross Barkley in January as long as their injury crisis doesn’t worsen, according to Goal.

TeamTalk has reported that the Whites are mulling a loan-to-buy move for Barkley, 28, in January while Chelsea were still to decide upon what to do with the ex-Everton midfielder.

However, it now seems as though Thomas Tuchel is willing to give up the 33-times England international and sell him permanently.

But it seems as though if Tuchel gets more injuries in his midfield, he may reconsider that.

Absolutely not

Does anyone seriously think that Barkley has what it takes to perform well in Marcelo Bielsa’s system at Elland Road.

Bielsa demands at least 110 per cent from his players in every match and every training session.

Has Barkley ever done that in his career?

Sure, he’s a technically-gifted player and on his day he can be absolutely brilliant.

But this is a player who’s not played much in recent years due to him struggling at billionaire-owned Chelsea and failing to impress in a loan spell at Aston Villa.

Barkley isn’t the exciting attacking midfielder he was when he was at Everton and we really don’t want to see the former Leeds loanee returning to Elland Road any time soon.

He’ll cost a lot, he’ll probably be injured a lot and he simply isn’t the kind of player who Bielsa likes to go for.

In other Leeds United news, two international players are major doubts for Leeds to play against Burnley on Sunday.