Chelsea’s Ashley Cole is mulling over a move from SW6.
Several months ago, Chelsea Mad revealed that Ash was fed up with England and the spotlight he was constantly under.
Now it appears that the left-back may be getting what he wants and that’s a move to Spanish giants Real Madrid.
Chelsea have already ditched Joe Cole, Michael Ballack and Juliano Belletti.
Deco, Ricardo Carvalho are expected to move to Brazil and Italy within the next week or so.
While Chelsea were looking to strengthen their midfield and forward line, they did not seriously expect Ash to leave the Blues.
But circumstances have overtaken Chelsea’s intial strategy and now it looks as if they are going to lose Ashley Cole.
Chelsea were prepared to add versatile full-back Paulo Ferreira to the list making their way out of Stamford Bridge’s revolving door.
But they are going to have a major rethink on this.
Yury Zhirkov will take over the left-back slot from 'Cashley' with Ferreira providing the experienced back up to the Russian.
The £30m or so they will get for Cole will be above and beyond what they originally budgeted for this summer as far as transfer funds go and at least £10m of that will be added to the Fernando Torres fund.
This will leave the remainder used to stiffen up their attacking options with Inter Milan’s wonderkid Mario “Super Mario” Balotelli a likely target.
Certainly having an Italian manager like Carlo Ancelotti will be an attractive proposition to the speed merchant, who won’t be 20 until August 12.
He, like Ashley Cole, has had a number of problems on and off the field in Milan.
And Like Ash, might feel the best solution to his problems is a move aboard.