Wesley Fofana opened the scoring for Chelsea on the night. (Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)
As per the tweet from Fabrizio Romano (h/t Football.London), Chelsea are preparing a new bid for their long-term summer transfer target and Leicester City centre-back Wesley Fofana.
This new bid could be around £75m, having known that the French centre-back is involved in the Leicester squad for their game against the Blues this weekend at Stamford Bridge.
The discussions about the new bid have been going on internally at Chelsea since Tuesday after the Foxes rejected another bid, which was around £70m for the player.
It is a curious case of the club looking to sign a player and doing everything in their power. But the selling club, in this instance Leicester, are adamant that they are not going to let go of the player even if he is not settled and wants this move to happen.
Fofana’s quality and this being so late in the transfer window could be a big part of the reason, although this saga has been going on for some weeks now. Maybe, Leicester know they won’t be able to get a replacement now and are hence playing hardball with Chelsea.
If the deal indeed doesn’t go through by any stretch of the imagination, it could be disappointing news for the Frenchman, who wanted to move to a big club, and play games in order to be in contention to get selected for the World Cup squad coming up.
From Chelsea’s point of view, unless they are dead convinced of this deal happening even if it goes till deadline day if they are certain they need another centre-back, the process of looking at alternatives and making bids for them should start now.
They wouldn’t want to be in a situation where Fofana lags beyond the deadline and the club does not have any backup plan ready to put into place if this situation persists.
The 22-year-old will make this team better at the back and add depth though. Moreover, his age conveys that he could be a long-term fix in that department for Chelsea.
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