Aymen Abdennour reveals why he chose to join Valencia instead of becoming Chelsea's Papy Djilobodji

As Chelsea scrambled around on the final day of the summer transfer window, trying to panic buy every mediocre and barely known center back who may have been available in some misguided attempt to just be seen doing something after the John Stones saga ended unfavorably for us, one of the seemingly random names linked was then Monaco center back Aymen Abdennour.

Turns out, the link wasn't a random Wheel of Transfer Rumors guess after all.

"[Chelsea?] Yes, it's true that there was interest."

"There were a lot of clubs I could have gone to play for in England or in Italy, but in the the end [Peter] Lim's project was what attracted me. I felt really flattered by Valencia's interest and it's really good [to be here]."

-Aymen Abdennour; source: Super Deporte via Evening Standard

Abdennour was meant to be the replacement for Manchester City-bound Nicolas Otamendi, but the new man had only played in 5 matches before suffering a hamstring strain at the end of September that has had him sidelined ever since.  Still a better fate than playing the Papy Djilobodji role at Chelsea, I suppose (though Abdennour, as far as it's possible to tell with these things, was probably higher on our list than Big Papy).