Chelsea battle Tottenham Hotspur for Juventus centre-back Matthijs de Ligt amidst Barcelona interest
According to the Spanish publication Sport via Sport Witness (h/t Football.London), Chelsea are set to battle Tottenham Hotspur for signing Juventus centre-back Matthijs de Ligt amidst interest from Barcelona. A transfer could potentially happen in the coming transfer windows looking at the circumstances.
Juve are willing to sell De Ligt to solve the financial problems plaguing them at the moment. The Blues and Spurs have “launched” themselves after this update as they look to take advantage of this situation. Barca are also in the mix, but they are also suffering from issues with their finances, which has seen them fall behind.
Both English clubs have an advantage as a result, but the Blaugrana club cannot be completely ruled out. They are still a European powerhouse, and the prospect of playing at Camp Nou would be exciting for most players in world football. Thomas Tuchel’s side would need to be ready to play their cards when needed to safeguard against a defensive crisis.
De ligt to solve centre-back crisis?
Four of our centre-backs will see their contracts expire at the end of the current campaign if they don’t put pen to paper on a new deal. As a result, it has put us in a precarious situation as the winter transfer window will open in the coming days. We would need to shortlist targets and safeguard against the possibility of losing all of them.
Antonio Rudiger, Andreas Christensen, Cesar Azpilicueta and Thiago Silva are set to become free agents next summer, which has resulted in concerns among the supporters. Our defence is one of our main strengths, and losing even two of the four aforementioned names would put us in a dangerous situation.
The club would need to focus its attention on extending the deals of the centre-back quartet. And if we fail to keep one of them, the Juve ace could bridge the gap that the potential departure would create.
The three defenders bar Christensen does not have many years left at the top in their playing careers, and the Dutchman would future-proof us in that regard. We would eventually have to replace them in the future, and bringing him early would surely help him adjust to the team sooner.
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Ideally, fans would have wanted him at Stamford Bridge next month but a transfer mid-season is always challenging in general. Time will tell where he would end up but we would need to see off Tottenham and the Catalans in this case and it is important to remember that things can change quickly in the footballing world when it comes to transfers.
Our sporting project is better compared to the other interested parties, at least at the current moment. Not to mention, our situation with the expiring contracts of several defenders also indicates how the Dutchman could become a mainstay in defence from the get-go..