Chelsea set to secure Barcelona defensive target’s signing in €35-40 million deal – report

After completing the deals for Andrey Santos and David Datro Fofana, Chelsea are moving quickly to wrap up the signing of a certain Barcelona target Benoît Badiashile of AS Monaco for a €35-40 million fee, reports SPORT.

Adding to the context, transfer market specialist Fabrizio Romano has already reported that the deal for the 21-year-old Frenchman is already in the final stage after the player agreed to the personal terms presented by the English team.

Interestingly enough, SPORT says that Badiashile happens to be one of the defenders who Barcelona shortlisted for the summer transfer window. The defender’s deal with the Ligue 1 side ends in 2024 and the player was keen on making a move in the summer.

Barcelona feel that the physicality shown by the youngster is impeccable and in addition, his ability on the ball is seen as a further bonus.

But at just 21 years of age, it is given that he is far from being a finished product. In France itself, they point out that the player sometimes lacks concentration and this leads to unwanted errors.

For Barcelona, they only preferred Badiashile as a fifth-choice defender after Ronald Araujo, Jules Kounde, Andreas Christensen, and Eric Garcia. So, it could have been really difficult for the team to convince him to join in the first place.

As far as Chelsea are concerned, they have been one of the most active teams in the transfer market, having already completed the deals for Andrey Santos and David Datro Fofana. And now, they are in the market to sign a new central defender despite acquiring Wesley Fofana and Kalidou Koulibaly in the summer.

In any way, Badiashile is all set to join Chelsea and through this, the London-based team avenged missing out on Raphinha after the Brazilian decided to ditch the Premier League side for Barcelona earlier this year.