Chelsea ready fourth Wesley Fofana bid; Blues hopeful over Anthony Gordon
Chelsea are readying a fourth bid for Leicester City centre-back Wesley Fofana, 90min understands, with the Blues hopeful of teaming the Frenchman up with Everton's Anthony Gordon in the near future.
Owner Todd Boehly has already struck deals to sign Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly and Marc Cucurella to bolster the first team and there are still plans to bring in a handful of new faces, with Fofana at the top of the priority list.
Leicester have already rejected a number of bids from Chelsea for Fofana, who is training with the academy after missing a training session in an attempt to force through a move and will not feature on Saturday when the two sides face off. A fee of at least £80m is set to be required from Chelsea.
A fourth bid is expected to land on the desk at Leicester in the near future, and 90min understands the Blues will offer up around £77m with add-ons to take the price to £80m.
Sources close to Chelsea have revealed there is hope this bid will be enough to convince Leicester to part ways with Fofana, who has again stressed his desire to leave the club before the end of the summer.
Scott Saunders, Graeme Bailey & Toby Cudworth bring you Talking Transfers, discussing Lucas Paqueta's potential move to West Ham, Chelsea's plans to sign Anthony Gordon, Wesley Fofana and Arsen Zakharyan and the latest from Old Trafford. Available on all audio platforms and the 90min YouTube channel.
If you can't see the podcast embed, click here to download the episode in full!
Similarly, Chelsea are hopeful that they will be able to bring their pursuit of Everton's Gordon to a positive conclusion.
Everton have yet to respond to Chelsea's latest bid, which is made up of a guaranteed £50m, paid in instalments, plus a further £10m in add-ons. Frank Lampard's recent insistence that 'Chelsea have not bid £60m' is thought to relate more to the structure of the deal and the fact that the full £60m would not be guaranteed.
Like Fofana, Gordon is keen to swap Everton for Chelsea this summer and the Blues believe their bid is strong enough to convince the Toffees to sell.
Elsewhere, Chelsea remain in negotiations with Barcelona over striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and have recently opened talks with Dynamo Moscow over a deal to sign young winger Arsen Zakharyan.