Chelsea boss Avram Grant was ready to compete with Arsenal for Levski Sofia striker Nikolay Dimitrov. Grant was interested in Levsi striker Valeri Domovchiyski.

Emil Velev, Levski assistant coach, told Sport 1 that Grant had phoned him to ask about both Dimitrov and Domovchiyski.

Dimitrov was close to a move to Arsenal, after successful trials with the club. “Arsenal is in talks with Levski about a fee for Dimitrov,” tribalfootball.com said.

Domovchiyski on the other hand has been training with Blackburn Rovers.

“The pair could now spend some time at Chelsea training with Grant and his Blues coaching staff,” tribalfootball.com said.

Bulgarian footballers seem to grow more popular in the UK as another UK club, Derby County, has shown interest in two other Bulgarians.

The under-21 internationals Ivelin Popov and Ivan Ivanov would arrive in mid-January for trials with Derby County, BBC said.