The desperation to land a quality centre-back at Stamford Bridge has reportedly compelled Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich to give Blues’ boss Antonio Conte to splash the cash.
Ever since taking charge of the West London club, the Italian tactician has been desperate to sign a world-class defender to end Chelsea’s defensive woes. The Blues chased several centre-backs, most notably Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly and Milan’s Alessio Romagnoli, but failed to strike a deal. With transfer deadline coming close, the English giants signed David Luiz for £30 million, just two years after he left Stamford Bridge for the French capital in a record £50 million deal. They also secured the signing of Marcus Alonso from Fiorentina.
However, despite the two signing, Conte’s eyes are set on Juventus star Leonardo Bonucci and reports are suggesting that the former Juventus boss would bid a whopping amount of £60million in the coming transfer window in an attempt to lure the defender.
The Italy international was heavily linked with Chelsea throughout the summer with various suggesting that the defender was interested in joining his former boss at London. Later on, he became a prime target for City boss Pep Guardiola who wanted to bolster his defence. Guardiola reportedly wanted to lure the defender away from Juventus with a five-year contract worth a whopping €8 million per annum. However, nothing concrete materialised as the defender pledged his loyalty to the Italian champions.
But now it will be interesting to see Juventus and the defender’s reaction to the huge bid which can make the centre-back the most expensive defender in history.
Chelsea had a disastrous last season where they finished a lowly tenth. One of the biggest reasons for that dismal performance was their leaky defence. They started the new season with three consecutive wins but a draw against Swansea followed by consecutive defeats to Liverpool and Arsenal have brought back the memories of last season. And in order to avoid a disastrous campaign once again, Chelsea owner Abramovich spent extra hours at the club’s Cobham training base on discussing the team’s poor performance with the top brass of the club. Conte reportedly told him that he still needs new players to make the team genuine title-contenders and the Russian Billionaire has given the manager the green light .