Blues push for Geremi

Premiership club Chelsea have come back with a second offer for Real Madrid defender Geremi and could land the player within the next few days.

According to reports in Spain, the Spanish champions rejected the Londoners' first offer of $US 8.15m nearly two weeks ago and made it clear that if they didn't receive a bid of at least $US 11m then they wouldn't be interested in parting company with Geremi.

However everything has since changed now that there is apparently a decent offer on the table and as Geremi was in favour of a move to Stamford Road the first time around, it seems unlikely that he would suddenly give the London club the brush off.

Real need to reduce their enormous squad during the summer months to raise the money needed to make offers for Valencia's Gaizka Mendieta and Juventus midfielder Zinedine Zidane so the Cameroon defender may just be one of many stars to leave the Bernabeu this summer.

Chelsea's managing director Colin Hutchinson has stated categorically that the club are not interested in the wing-back but the speculation will not go away.

Geremi was part of the Cameroon side that defeated Togo on Sunday to become the first country to qualify for next year's World Cup 2002 in Japan and Korea and was also part of the gold medal-winning side at the 2000 Olympics.