Chelsea face transfer heat from La Liga giants with Real Madrid and Barcelona ready to begin talks over Blues trio

The Stamford Bridge club are expecting offers for some of their key players

Barcelona are ready to open talks with Chelsea over Willian in the coming days as Real Madrid prepare to make their own push for Eden Hazard and Thibaut Courtois.

The Stamford Bridge club have had a curious summer, but one that took an obvious upward turn when they announced the signing of Napoli midfielder Jorginho and the hire of Maurizio Sarri as their new manager over the weekend.

What goes up must come down, however, and Barca's push for Willian will come in the next week as Ernesto Valverde hopes to secure an energetic wideman to take his league-winning side to the next level. Manchester United have shown an interest in the Brazilian but, as a rule, Chelsea are reluctant to sell within the Premier League when there is a willing bidder from abroad and there has been enough encouragement to initial contacts from Barcelona that the Spanish side is confident a deal can be done.

Willian's arrival depends would be smoothed by Phillipe Coutinho securing a Portuguese passport, as it would mean the former Liverpool playmaker no longer occupied one of Barca's three non-EU squad berths. As things stand the Nou Camp club would likely need to ship out Colombian defender Yerry Mina in order to make space for Willian.

Real Madrid have no such issues as they target the Belgian pair of Courtois and Hazard but the former is a far easier deal to do than the latter. While Hazard expressed a desire to leave Chelsea in the wake of Belgium's third-place finish at the World Cup - a tournament in which he was among the best players - the playmaker has little leverage and would need Chelsea to play ball in order for him to leave.

Thibaut Courtois has opened the door to leaving Chelsea after rejecting their latest contract offer (Reuters)

The Spanish giants are more confident on Courtois, who has repeatedly talked about how he would like to move back to Madrid in order to be close to his children and has allowed his contract to tick down into its final 12 months. Overseas clubs can make pre-contract offers to Courtois from January and sign him on a Bosman in what would almost certainly be the largest contract ever handed out to a goalkeeper, and while Chelsea have tried to extend his deal they would need to sell him this summer to avoid losing him for free.

Chelsea have held initial talks with Aleksandr Golovin, the Russian international, over a move to Stamford Bridge but Monaco are also keen on the playmaker and have tabled a formal offer.