Chelsea now in serious danger of missing two top defender targets from this summer | OneFootball

It was pretty clear that Chelsea’s number one priority among central defenders this summer was Dean Huijsen.

He had just had a brilliant season with Bournemouth, he was young and super talented, and best of all had a very reasonable release clause. Sadly, all of those positive factors made Real Madrid tempted too, and once they were in the mix we never had a chance.

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Chelsea work their way down the list

After chasing Huijsen – and looking for a brief moment like we might sign him, we moved on. There were rumours about a few targets – like Tomas Araujo of Benfica or more experienced options like Aymeric Laporte. But one option had been mentioned since January pretty consistently, and as far as we could see was our second choice: former Blue Marc Guehi.

There’s now bad news on that front too. We could be set to see another major target move out of our grasp.

Crystal Palace stalwart closes in on Liverpool move

Marc Guehi ready for Crystal Palace move.

All the rumours today are that Liverpool are closing on on the central defender, who is fresh from an FA Cup winning campaign with Palace.

Rudy Galetti reported that the Reds are “intensifying talks” over Guehi, and are “close to agreeing personal terms.”

It’s not a hopeless case for Chelsea just yet – other sources are saying he wants to be guaranteed first team football to move, and Liverpool can’t really offer him that given Virgil Van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate are so established.

But with Konate potentially leaving in a year’s time, it’s easy to see how Guehi could be persuaded he’ll get plenty of starts in the short term and take over full time next summer.

We’ll be nervously watching the next few days.