Chelsea's plan to rain Barcelona for their sporting minds appears to have hit a snag.

The London club's Danish sporting director Frank Arnesen has announced that he will leave Stamford Bridge at the end of the season "to seek a new challenge."

And Chelsea's Russian owner Roman Abramovich had wanted former Barca director of football affairs Txiki Beguiristain to take Arnesen's place.

Beguiristain left Barca after their last presidential elections, and has met with Chelsea twice. But his interest in the job has cooled after it transpired that Abramovich was still unclear exactly what the Spaniard's duties would be.

The Blues are looking to copy Barca's successful model, hence their interest in Beguiristain, but it seems as if he will not be joining the Stamford Bridge club after all.

Meanwhile, the rumours that Chelsea will move to hire Barca coach Pep Guardiola have been dismissed as "total rubbish" by insiders at the club. And sources close to Guardiola himself have also denied that talks between him and Chelsea have even taken place.

Guardiola has yet to sign a new contract with Barca, and a few minor spats with the club's directors have fuelled the speculation that he will leave the club at the end of the season.

But those close to Guardiola insist that should he leave Barca- which is doubtful- he will take a year-long sabbatical from football before joining another club.

There is nothing wrong in being ambitious and cheaski's idea of replicating Barca's footie philosophy is a welcome development; that should give one an added bonus to watch the epl apart from the delightful play of arsenal however Abramovich should understand that it will not be an immediate result, this project is gonna be long term with solid emphasis on providing the neclues of the team from the youth team,therefore the youth team management and development will be superb, great coaches in the form of Cruyff or Rexach should be attracted to the club.

Pep is an intelligent guy who learnt from the masters and his only signing for a 1 year contract extension shows that anything is possible, he may leave at the end of the season although he is a catolonian @ heart. Goodluck to the blues but Gods speed to Barca