Chelsea had “recent interest” in experienced Man City group and are likely to sign a defender this window | OneFootball

Chelsea’s summer was all going so smoothly until the injury to Levi Colwill.

The centre back has now had surgery and will miss the whole season. That’s thrown things into disarray at the back – he started 35 of 38 Premier League games last season and was set to do the same this time around. He was the one player of all the centre backs who was certain to be a starter, and now with just a few days until the season starts there’s a lot of uncertainty in the team.

Defender signing an increasing possibility for Chelsea

Levi Colwill with a Chelsea news logo. (Photo by George Wood/Getty Images)

The major question now is whether Chelsea will buy a replacement, and while we’ve heard lots of briefing from within that club that they won’t, we’re tending to think they will.

They’ve solved all their other problems using the transfer market – why would they stop now? Our writer Simon Phillips has been covering this exclusively on his Substack, and has some interesting names coming up.

Chelsea look at Man City experience for potential centre back deal

He speculates that Chelsea could aim for an “older head” to add a bit of experience, potentially on a loan deal. It would be a break from their usual model, but an understandable one given we want a player to contribute right away rather than an asset to improve in value.

He notes that there was interest in Aymeric Laporte, who we were apparently also interested in before his move to Saudi Arabia. Man City’s other centre backs Ruben Dias, John Stones and Nathan Ake have apparently also been the subject of “recent interest,” although he makes it clear that that doesn’t mean we’re trying to sign them right now.

Marc Guehi was the most obvious choice for us, but he “prefers to go elsewhere at the moment.”

“I’d be surprised if Chelsea now don’t sign a centre-back this window,” he concluded, and we’re starting to agree with him.