Chelsea are “optimistic” about completing a deal for Gabriel Magalhaes, according to a report on ESPN today which follows on from last week’s gathering rumours about the same player.
Their story is that we will have to pay more than €30m for the Lille defender, who has really impressed this season in Ligue 1.
He’s fast, aggressive, and most importantly left-footed. He looks a good prospect and it’s no surprise we’re interested.
What is strange is the profile of defender he is. We certainly need a centre-back but given we already have a host of super talented under 23 year old in that position, we were expecting to see us make more of a Virgil Van Dijk type move – massive money world class defender at their prime age to come in and play from day one.
Perhaps they see that kind of ability in Gabriel already, or perhaps the VVD type option just isn’t on the market right now – they don’t come up too often.
Either way, this is not the direction we expected from the club.
