Romano: Chelsea “agreed personal terms” with top target, negotiating team already in France | OneFootball

Chelsea are closing in on a major January signing, in a window where they weren’t expected to sign anyone.

The Blues have decided to pull the trigger on bringing in a top new central defender, with Rennes’ young sensation Jeremy Jacquet the chosen man. The French side are holding out for a club record fee of €65m, and of course the Blues don’t want to pay that.

Romano notes Chelsea close to completing major January deal

Jeremy Jacquet close to signing for Chelsea according to Fabrizio Romano.

This one looks pretty advanced already. Romano says that our “mission to France” to meet with Jacquet and Rennes “already took place,” so now it will just be about trying to bring down that €65m fee.

As always, we expect a compromise to be found somewhere, with Rennes likely to get close to what they want and Chelsea making sure that a good chunk of it comes in performance based bonuses.

Ideally this gets done soon and the new man can come in and start training immediately. The fact that he’s our “clear main target” in that position is promising, and reports on his ability are all glowing. It will likely mean the departure of players like Tosin, and potentially Benoit Badiashile or Trevoh Chalobah in the future.

We’d be surprised if anyone goes in January, but in the summer it feels like a major changing of the guard at the back is coming.

In other news…

Simon Johnson’s piece for the Athletic was all about Cole Palmer’s fitness and why he’s still struggling for form despite apparently being fully recovered from his injury.

These reasons probably explain why Palmer played the full 90 last night. Rather than trying to nurse this injury, the idea is now to get him to full match sharpness by stacking some minutes.