Chelsea have been in discussions today with Sevilla over a move for Jules Kounde. The saga which has lasted well over a year came active once again after Chelsea failed to land Nathan Ake or Mathijs De Ligt who has signed for Bayern Munich. Originally thought to be a previous regime board target, Thomas Tuchel has clearly given the green light for a potential move as Todd Boehly submitted a verbal proposal on Monday night with a total package worth around €55m was offered, which in return was swiftly rejected.
Sevilla are thought to be holding out for a total package worth £55m and as reported by Fabrizio Romano and others, Chelsea are set to make a new bid very soon to try and close the operation and fight off interest from FC Barcelona, who Xavi considers a priority signing for the defence.
ChelseaFC365 understands Chelsea aim to close the Jules Kounde operation on Wednesday, with some suggesting to us the perfect PR move to gain hype before the friendly match against Charlotte on Wednesday night US time (12:30am Thursday Morning for UK Viewers).
What do we know about the player’s wishes?
Well, there has been a lot of mixed reporting, some Spanish sources suggest that Kounde is willing to wait until Barcelona have activated the second economic lever which gives them transfer market spending power (Expected on Wednesday or Thursday) whilst English sources such as Jacob Steinberg from Guardian Sport have suggested he would be open to moving to either club, what we do know for fact is that Kounde did agree personal terms ahead of a potential move this summer, although that was under the old regime and specifically negotiated by Marina Granovskia so it is expected that Todd Boehly will revisit those terms and potentially adjust them in line with how he wants to run things.
Chelsea so far have spent £80.5m on Kalidou Koulibaly and Raheem Sterling, with the latter being offered a new incentivised bonus related contract by Todd Boehly. It is thought that Chelsea have around £200m available this window even before potential player sales.
Ben Jacobs from CBS Sports informed me via a Twitter Space which you can find on my Twitter – @CFCPys that Todd Boehly and Clearlake capital inherited a club that were well within FFP and premier league’s profit and sustainability margins, allowing the club to spend aggressively this summer and also in January without player sales, should they wish to do so.
Chelsea’s books are currently in a healthy state thanks largely to the £89m worth of sales last summer on the likes of Tomori, Guehi and Abraham.
