Chelsea are going to ‘try everything they can’ to sign Jules Koundé this summer and are ‘looking for solutions’ to work out a deal with Sevilla for him.
That’s according to Diario de Sevilla, who cover the situation around the French centre-back at this moment in time.
As you’ll be aware, Chelsea are very keen on signing Koundé this summer and are working on a deal with Sevilla.
At this moment in time, the two parties seem to be apart, and this is where Diario pick up the thread today.
They say Chelsea already have a preliminary agreement in place with Koundé, and so negotiations are now focused on Sevilla.
At first, they tried to bring Emerson into the deal to bring Koundé’s price tag down, but Sevilla resisted this, believing the offered deal of around €30-35m would not be good value given they turned down €55m last year.
They believe that any replacement arriving should be at the same level, and so that is why they are pushing Chelsea to include Kurt Zouma.
Sevilla would accept a deal including him and a bigger financial offer so that the overall value of the deal would be close to €80m, which is Koundé’s release clause. If that can’t be reached, they are ‘pushing as hard as they can’ to get as good a price as possible.
It’s stated that the ‘chess game has begun’, and when one piece falls, the others will follow soon after.
If Sevilla sell Koundé before signing a replacement, they will then be squeezed financially as clubs will know how much they’ve brought in for the Frenchman.
That is why they are said to have already made a bid for Ozan Kabak, who would be a cheap alternative at €17m.
It’s all a game of strategy at this point, with Chelsea making the first move with an offer and Sevilla offering a counter offer.
The cards are now on the table after that, and it is up to the Blues to make another move to get things going once again.
