Chelsea told to pay €80m for player they bid €60m for last summer – how Blues can make deal work | OneFootball

Top of Chelsea’s list of defenders to try and sign this summer is Dean Huijsen. We can tell that just from the number of rumours we’re hearing him mentioned in, and the quality of sources bringing him up.

There’s also a lot of talk about Marc Guehi, who provides a different sort of profile, one that many fans we actually need more than another teenage ball playing defenders.

But as well as that pair, the club are clearly lining up another few options to make sure they don’t get fixated on one target and end up overpaying. Hence the recent mention of Tomas Aruajo, the Benfica defender.

CaughtOffside say that we have the Benfica starlet on our radar as a “player of growing interest,” with Real Madrid and the Blues both having made “informal contact” with the Portuguese side over how much the 22 year old might cost.

Benfica are determined not to let their latest top player go for less than his €80m release clause, which is almost certainly too steep for us to afford. It’s also reported that Chelsea bid €60m a year ago for the same player, only to be rejected.

Chelsea could return to last year’s target with a bigger budget

Dean Huijsen and Marc Guehi in a montage. (Photo by Alex Broadway/Getty Images)

Chelsea’s first priority is to sell off some defenders. Once that’s done, they may have raised enough money to make a bid close enough to Araujo’s clause that Benfica will have to listen. The likes of Axel Disasi, Renato Veiga and Trevoh Chalobah could all be sold for €30m or more each, bringing big funds togeher.

Given Huijsen has a fixed €50m clause, we expect we will pursue him first and see what results from that interest. If he proves hard to sign, options like Araujo could suddenly come into focus.