Chelsea are in talks with Marseille with a view to establishing an informal loan arrangement with the French club.

Marseille president Vincent Labrune attended the second leg of Chelsea’s FA Youth Cup victory over Manchester City earlier this month and afterwards had dinner with Michael Emenalo, Chelsea’s technical director.

“I told him a club like Marseille was very interested to build something with a club like Chelsea and have some of the young players on loan,” Labrune told The Independent in Marseille this week. “Players who have big potential but cannot get into the first team in the Premier League, they come here on loan and the English club pays part of the salary.”

Chelsea have in recent years loaned players to Dutch club Vitesse as part of a co-operation agreement(Wallace, Josh McEachran and Bertrand Traore are there at present). However, the Eredivisie has not proved a successful stepping stone for the Premier League.

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