With the exception of Belarus, South Korea and starting this Saturday, Germany, global football is currently suspended. The Premier League has been given the all clear by the government to restart after June 1, behind closed doors, and with that in mind, teams are now training awhile adhering to social distancing guidelines.
However, there are still plenty of questions to be answered when it comes to Project Restart, and we’ll learn more this week as meetings are held and votes taken. Until football returns, we still have plenty of transfer rumors to cover. So let’s take a spin with through the Chelsea FC rumor mill.
For today’s first edition of Chelsea FC transfer talk, go here.
We start with the latest on Philippe Coutinho, the FC Barcelona winger currently out on loan at Bayern Munich. The expensive flop is likely to move this summer, and Catalan club great Rivaldo believes that Chelsea are the favorites to sign him.
Rivaldo also thinks that Stamford Bridge will not be put off by the Brazilian’s injury and although the former Liverpool man has had a tough run, he’s backing Coutinho to return to his previous stellar form.
“I still believe Coutinho has the quality to succeed,” said Rivaldo, “but sometimes football is tough and volatile.”
“The misfortune you might have at one moment can be overcome, so Coutinho must keep calm and be confident about the future because he has lots of quality to shine at any club. This is a delicate moment for him and he must stay positive that things will turn for the better soon.”
If Chelsea don’t land Coutinho, then perhaps the expensive winger they could acquire would is Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho. And we mean expensive too, as there’s talk of BVB holding steady at a price of £120 million.
To help raise the funding of that purchase, Chelsea will look to jettison two major flops- Tiemoue Bakayoko and Alvaro Morata. We covered that earlier, but also on the potential chopping block are Marcos Alonso, Emerson Palmieri, Michy Batshuayi and Davide Zappacosta.
That’s according to a report in ESPN, who also claim that N’Golo Kante and Jorginho have been deemed untouchable.
Chelsea will not hear offers for the pair of midfielders, with the latter often being linked with a move to Juventus, and a reunion with manager Maurizio Sarri.
If that deal were to actually happen, it would mark the third club where the pair would be working together (Chelsea, Napoli). As for Kante, he’s such an important part of what Chelsea does and is right now, it’s hard to imagine why they would want to part ways with him right now.
Still, in order to acquire either of the two expensive wingers currently playing in the Bundesliga, Chelsea will need a major sell-off. And with the likelihood that both Pedro and Willian move on this summer, Stamford Bridge will need to acquire new wing players.
The ESPN report goes on to mention Blues boss Frank Lampard’s hoping to sign Ben Chilwell from Leicester City, a transfer rumor that’s gained a lot of traction lately. Here’s more on it from the Leicester Mercury at this link and again at this link.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly contributes to WGN TV, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Now and SB Nation.
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