Chelsea will recommence their season with an away fixture at Aston Villa on Sunday June 21. It won’t be long now, but until we have football matches again, we still have plenty of transfer talk items to cover and analyze.
So let’s take a look at what the Chelsea related rumor mill is talking about in cyberspace on this Sunday. For our Chelsea restarted season preview and best potential starting XI go here.
In the race to acquire Kai Havertz, Chelsea remain in pole position, according to The Sun. However, now there’s another major player running in the derby, Real Madrid.
The Bayer Leverkusen scoring sensation is starting to emerge as the Blues top target for the summer, as they’ve reportedly withdrawn their pursuit of Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho and FC Barcelona’s Philippe Coutinho.
Leverkusen are hoping they can keep him in the Bundesliga, but he’s reportedly keen to move on to the Premier League. Chelsea are hoping they can grab him for a fee of around £70 million. It could be difficult, as Bayern Munich are also said to be interested.
We stay in the German top flight for the next transfer talk item, which centers around Sancho’s Dortmund teammate, Achraf Hakimi. According to 90min, Chelsea are interested in the right back, who can also play at left back. In other words, he’s a full back who can easily slot in where Stamford Bridge needs him.
Hakimi, a Moroccan international, has been on loan with BVB for the past two seasons, with his parent club being Real Madrid. There doesn’t seem to be a path to first team football at the Bernabeu for him right now, so his future is certainly in question right now.
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.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for Chicago Tribune.com, on Twitter and his cat on Instagram.