The 5 players Chelsea tried to trade for attacking midfield star named by “top official in exclusive | OneFootball

The rather unlikely news we reported earlier, that Chelsea have made a big offer for Mohammed Kudus of West Ham.

This afternoon, more detail has been added by West Ham blog Claret and Hugh. They claim that they’re spoken to a “top official” at the club who told them that verified the approach, and said it was a cash plus player attempt to steal the unhappy Ghana star away from the Olympic Stadium.

“Sadly, none of the players offered interest us,” said the source, who added that the bid was rejected outright rather than negotiated.

There does seem to be some potential for a Kudus move this summer as the talented attacking midfielder falls further out of favour at West Ham. After a bright start he’s really faded, and it feels like his camp will push hard for a departure this summer if they can.

But the £85m price tag the Hammers want is crazy – it’s no wonder we’ve tried to chuck in a player or two to lower it.

Chelsea’s unwanted group also unwanted by West Ham

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall dribbling. (Photo by Patrik Lundin/Getty Images)

The list of players offered supposedly included Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Robert Sanchez, Carney Chukwuemeka, Tosin Adarabioyo and Trevoh Chalobah. Now that is the believable part of the story. The rest we’re not so sure about.

Kudus deal just doesn’t smell realistic under current conditions

As we wrote earlier, Kudus has not only had a real down season, it’s also hard to see where he fits into Enzo Maresca’s system comfortably. Right now there are so many attacking midfielders on the books and not that much space for them in the team.

If Kudus was great value on in great form, it would be a little more believable. But without either of those things we struggle to see Chelsea pushing too hard for the former Ajax man.