Chelsea join battle for Eintracht Frankfurt star Luka Jovic

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Bengaluru, February 20: Chelsea have joined Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich in the race to sign £52million-rated Frankfurt striker Luka Jovic.

The Serbian, 21, has had a superb Bundesliga season so far, netting 19 goals in 29 appearances. Frankfurt are front-runners to land the Benfica loanee on a permanent basis, for only £5.3m given their deal with the Portuguese club.

The German side can then sell Jovic for upwards of ten times that sum, which would represent a brilliant piece of business especially for a small club like them.

According to reports, the interested clubs are hopeful that Frankfurt will drop their asking price to around £31m.

Barcelona are looking at a long-term replacement for Luis Suarez, 32, who is coming into the final lap of his stellar career.

The Blaugrana scouts are immensely confident that Jovic would be a worthy successor of the Uruguayan which makes them one of the top-runners for his signature.

Chelsea, meanwhile, are also looking to bolster their forward ranks, but uncertainty over Maurizio Sarri's future as manager at Stamford Bridge and the arrival of Gonzalo Higuain has led Jovic to prefer Catalonia to west London.

Higuain could yet depart this summer, with his original loan deal set to be up after six months, but the Blues can choose to extend that by a further year or sign the Argentina international permanently from Juventus for €36m (£32m/$40.7m).

German news outlet Bild have claimed Blues officials have approached Jovic's Portuguese parent club with an offer of around £40million.

Jovic said recently: "I feel honoured that big clubs are showing an interest in me.

"For the moment I am happy to be with Frankfurt and I feel good with them."