Baba Rahman is on the brink of a return to German football by joining Schalke. The Ghana international cost Chelsea more than £20million when he arrived from Augsburg 12 months ago but he made only 15 appearances in the Premier League.

Ola Aina, the England Under-21 international, played left-back for Chelsea on Wednesday in Pasadena when they beat Liverpool 1-0 and Antonio Conte is happy for Rahmann to leave.

Rahmann, who has four years remaining on his contract, has found opportunities hard to come by and his situation will not change under the new Italian head coach.

The loan fee for the deal is yet to be confirmed.

The 22-year-old had interest from Atletico Madrid and Roma but travelled to Germany on Saturday for his medical and will link up with former Augsburg coach Markus Weinzierl.

Chelsea have enquired about PSV Eindhoven full-back Santiago Arias as a possible replacement fro Rahman.
The 24-year-old Colombian can play on either side of the defence and was watched by Chelsea scouts last week.

Chelsea are also continuing to hunt for a new defender with a £38million bid on the table for Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly and Benfica’s Victor Lindelof and Torino’s Nikola Maksimovic also on their list of options

Source: Daily Mail