Chelsea nab Oscar for €32m

TRANSFER NEWS:CHELSEA HAVE completed the signing of the Brazil midfielder Oscar from Internacional for a fee thought to be €32 million. The 20-year-old has been linked with the European champions for some time and he has previously said that joining Chelsea would be a "dream".

Oscar, who is part of the Brazil squad that will compete at the Olympic Games, had already undergone a medical with the west London club.

Chelsea have embarked on an overhaul of their attacking options, having already paid €41 million to Lille for Eden Hazard and €9 million to Werder Bremen for Marko Marin. The Brazilian, who played in the 2-0 warm-up win over Britain on Friday, started his career at Sao Paulo before joining Internacional in 2010.

Frank Lampard, who has been at Chelsea since 2001, believes the squad will benefit from the extra competition for places.

“We proved to be a great team and a great unit in the second half of last season,” he said. “This year maybe we are slightly different because we have more new young players coming in.

“There might not be the settled togetherness that we had on the pitch in that side because we had been together a long time. But there is an excitement about our team as well and that’s probably the main difference.

“Everyone is trying to impress, and you never lose that in pre-season, there’s not one manager I’ve met yet who will close the door on any player.

“We have to perform at a high level to stay in the team because of the quality of the squad we have.

The next arrival at Stamford Bridge may be Marseille full back Cesar Azpilicueta, after he confirmed he is on Chelsea’s radar. “It is flattering when you have clubs such as Chelsea interested in you, but there are other clubs interested as well,” the Spaniard said.

Meanwhile, Rio Ferdinand has defended using Twitter as the Manchester United defender is reportedly under investigation by the English Football Association.

The FA are reported to have contacted Ferdinand over his re-tweeting of a comment about Chelsea and England defender Ashley Cole.

Ferdinand has come out in support of using the social network website and has claimed he uses abuse from rivals fans as motivation.

Ferdinand, speaking in Shanghai during United’s pre-season tour, said: “Twitter is something that lets fans get a bit closer to you by letting them see you do everyday things – just giving them a glimpse of what you get up to.

“I treat it [Twitter] as fun. I don’t take it too seriously, to be honest. When I first started doing it, they [Ferdinand’s team-mates] were all caning me, saying ‘What are you doing that for?’.

“But then they see there’s some benefit in doing it. You have Liverpool fans, Manchester City fans, obviously now Chelsea fans, who seem to follow me and come on there just to abuse me, but I’m not a**ed.

“I’ve said it before, but that kind of stuff is like fuel.

“You use that stuff so when you play their team, there’s even a little bit more rivalry about the game, that type of thing.”