“I want to join Pep Guardiola” – Chelsea star wants to make shock Man City move after latest Enzo Maresca comments
In the most recent development in a summer full of surprises at Chelsea, one of their most seasoned English players may decide to leave for rivals Manchester City.
Chelsea fired manager Mauricio Pochettino at the start of the summer and brought in Enzo Maresca, who had recently won the Championship with Leicester City.
After that, Stamford Bridge has seen a flurry of transfers, with Pedro Neto, a £54 million acquisition, becoming the team’s ninth summer addition. To improve the club’s PSR situation, a number of indigenous players have gone, however Conor Gallagher’s transfer to Atletico Madrid seems to have fallen through as the player is scheduled to return to the UK following five days in Spain waiting for the move to be completed.
And now another familiar face could be on the way out, as TEAMtalk claim that Manchester City could make a move for their long-term target Ben Chillwell, following a blunt assessment of the left-back from Maresca.
Chilwell has been hoping that he would be able to turn the page on an injury-hit season and make a mark under Maresca, but the 27-year-old does not appear to fit into the Italian’s style of play and has been sidelined for most of the preseason.
“Chilly is left-back, for sure,” Maresca told journalist Ben Jacobs last month. “The Chilly situation is a bit delicate. We are trying to find a solution for him in terms of a position. He probably needs a bit of time. By delicate I mean in terms of finding his best position, not in terms of [his future at the club].
“We want players that can perform at 100 percent in their positions. I am sure, for instance, Malo [Gusto] and Reece [James] can both do the work required of them in the next two-three days and they can both finish with more assists, or be more dangerous, than they were in the past.
“In that position, they are good enough to make ‘last passes’ or get some assists because their quality is very good.”
TEAMtalk add that Chilwell ‘has taken an exceedingly dim view’ of these suggestions that he does not have the quality to be a first-team regular and that he is open to leaving the club, with Chelsea ready to sell him for the right price.
City are long-term admirers of Chilwell and while their current stance on bringing in the defender is ‘unclear’ the report adds that Chelsea’s asking price would be in the £40million mark.
That fee is well above Chilwell’s £24million Transfermarkt valuation and in Chelsea247 opinion, would make this a non-starter, as City have not built the squad they have by overspending on injury-hit players of that age.