標籤: turmoil

Has emerged as an option for Barcelona chelseaMark Cucurella after this season.

The left-back is a product of Barcelona’s academy, but he has not received regular opportunities to prove his worth with their first team.

After spells at Eibar and Getafe, he moved to Brighton & Hove Albion in 2021 and then Chelsea a year later.

After overcoming early difficulties, the left-back has been a regular for the Blues, and has made 158 appearances.

His Premier League statistics this season are as follows:

• Appearances: 30
• Start: 27
• Total minutes: 2,350
• Minutes per game: 78
• Interceptions per game: 1.0
• Tackles per game: 1.6
• Recoveries per game: 3.3
• Clearances per game: 2.9
• Blocked shots per game: 0.3
• Duels won per game: 3.5

On Tuesday, Sports Witness Covered claims from Spain That Barcelona want to sign the 27-year-old. The same source said the La Liga side have talked about the Chelsea star within the club.

No contact with Chelsea player

Mark Cucurella would welcome a move to Barcelona, ​​and it’s on the front page of today’s edition sports world.

In the report, the newspaper say the Spain international has ‘opened the door’ to joining the La Liga winners.

Add World: ‘For him, a return to Barça would be a personal dream, a special motivation to return to the club of his life as a more mature player.’

During the last international break, the Spanish media asked him about the possibility of returning to Camp Nou.

At that time he said: “It would be hard to turn it down. I have to think about my family. If it happens, it happens, and we’ll see what decision is made.”

While the defender opens the door, Barcelona sporting director Deco has not yet spoken with his agent.

In addition, the situation at Stamford Bridge is another reason why the 27-year-old player is willing to join Barcelona.

The Blues parted ways with Enzo Maresca in January and appointed Liam Rosenior as his successor. Earlier this month, the Club World Cup winners sacked the latter after a string of poor performances.

Chelsea now sit eighth in the table, two points behind sixth-placed Brighton & Hove Albion and 10 points behind fifth-placed Aston Villa. He is likely to miss the Champions League.

Cucurella could consider leaving the west London club if there is an attractive offer and the Blues would also be open to a sale for around €50m.

It is unclear whether Barca are willing to pay this, even though his wages should not be an issue. At the moment, he is not a priority as Deco is focusing on improving other positions. The Catalan club could consider the Spaniard if there are significant sales in the summer.

Contract, price and agent information

Mark Cucurella’s contract expires in 2028 and is worth €50m transfer market.

The Blues fullback is being managed by agents Alex Pick and Alvaro Dominguez.

The Japanese Grand Prix hasn’t even started and two teams are already making news for all the wrong reasons.

Jonathan Wheatley is out of Audi. After just two races in what is regarded as a historic debut season for the German manufacturer in F1, the team principal who led the old Sauber operation through its rebrand has departed – officially for personal reasons, which is the kind of statement that invites more questions than it answers. Mattia Binotto, already serving as overall head of the Audi F1 project, has taken over team principal duties in the meantime while the team considers its next step.

Is Audi’s old boss going to be Aston Martin’s new boss?

Of course, the timing is not coincidental. Aston Martin are looking for a dedicated team principal to take the day-to-day burden off Adrian Newey, who never seemed particularly enthusiastic about the administrative side of the role and made it clear that the position was effectively a gap-filler. Wheatley and Newey go back decades – they spent several years together winning championships at Red Bull, and Wheatley’s background in race-weekend execution is exactly what Aston Martin doesn’t have right now. Whether quitting gardening leads to delays is not clear, but the dots connect very well.

For Audi, losing Wheatley is a real headache. He was the continuity between the identity of Sauber and the new works team – the institutional knowledge went out the door ten months after his arrival. Bortoletto scored points in the team’s very first race in Australia, so it’s not like the operation is going bad. But Binotto now has both jobs while they sort out a long-term structure, and that’s not ideal for anyone heading into a season when Audi is still learning what its own car really needs.

However, Aston Martin’s situation is something else entirely.

Aston Martin has enough shit

Neither Alonso nor Stroll have finished a race in 2026. Not even one. The Honda power unit was producing such severe vibrations that Newey told the media in Australia that Alonso felt he could not safely complete more than 25 consecutive laps without risking permanent nerve damage to his hands. The walk limit was even lower, at 15 laps. These are not the kind of problems you address with a change in management.

Its roots go deeper than a bad engine spec. When Honda recommitted to F1 at the end of 2022, much of its original engineering group had already moved on and Newey later admitted that he did not realize how inexperienced the reorganized Honda team really was until November last year, when rumors emerged that Honda would not be able to achieve its original power targets for race one, when he and Lawrence Stroll traveled to Tokyo. Until then, no one could do much about it.

Newey’s fingerprints are also on the timeline. Honda’s project general manager said that Newey requested a two-tier battery configuration to meet packaging requirements, which left them with time constraints. Building a Works Engine partnership from scratch under the new rules is significantly more difficult without last-minute design changes from your own technology partner.

Lawrence Stroll issued a rare public statement this week, insisting that Navy remains the core of the operation and that Aston Martin “does not currently adopt a traditional team lead role.” This made the structure appear deliberate rather than chaotic. It’s a tough sell when both of your drivers are sitting in cars that can barely finish the race.

What makes all this especially strange is the venue. Suzuka is Honda’s home race. The Japanese manufacturer will have its own people in the grandstand this weekend, watching the power unit that has made its works partner the worst team on the grid through two rounds. The rules don’t allow Honda to make meaningful development changes until after Miami in May, meaning Alonso and Stroll will head to Japan knowing that the fundamental problem won’t be fixed this weekend, no matter what happens in the management structure above them.

Two teams, two sets of problems. One of them can probably handle it. The second will require more than a new team principal.

Scott Gulbransen, a quintessential expert in the field of sports journalism, serves as an editor, nfl , mlb , Formula 1 … More about Scott Gulbransen