Chelsea FC defender rumors: Stones scramble; Thiago Silva approach; Nacho chase

With so much drama in the rumor mill
It's not hard to find silly content with which to fill...
Our days — to no end

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JOHN STONES

It's a scramble, or perhaps a battle.  Possibly an intense thumb-war.  Or maybe it should be karaoke; we all know how much Stones's current manager likes to sing in the shower.  Unfortunately.   Anyway, the Mail claims that £50m will in fact buy you Stones, but Chelsea will have to battle Barcelona and Real Madrid for the privilege.  Assuming that Real will be allowed to buy players in the first place.  This, I suppose, is nothing new — neither is Martinez's adamant stance that Stones (nor Ross Barkley) will be sold this summer — but that won't stop it from being rumor mill fodder for the next however many months.

THIAGO SILVA

Perhaps because £50m is an absolutely ridiculous price to pay for a defender who, when it comes down to it, may or may not be better than Andreas Christensen, Chelsea are getting linked to a few other names as well.  For example, young Marquinhos had made the rounds at the end of the summer, but today it was his PSG teammate Thiago Silva who made an appearance.  The story goes that PSG don't want to lose the younger center back, so they'd be willing to let the older one leave even though he still has two years left on his contract ... but probably would still charge an arm and a leg for him.  Overpaying for a 31-year-old?  Where do we sign up?  (Fortunately this one's a TMW "exclusive", so it's probably nothing to worry about.)

NACHO FERNÁNDEZ

Slightly younger and slightly worse is Real Madrid local boy and spare part José Ignacio Fernández Iglesias, i.e. Nacho.  This one's also of dubious origins (though that's a bit of a common theme here), with The Sun claiming that alongside Chelsea, both Arsenal and Roma are interested in the versatile defender as well.  The rumored price is around £8m.