Midweek madness: Chelsea ponder Batshuayi, Benteke, Lichsteiner, Sturaro; plus Courtois's grandfather is a nudist

There's so much drama in Silly Season, sometimes it's hard to keep up.  Here are a few stories that have fallen through the cracks of time, reality, and sometimes believability (is that a word?) as well.

Take the Stephan Lichtsteiner story, for example.  Former Conte-man.  Serial winner at Juventus.  Good player, and has been for some time.  In fact, for quite a bit of time as he's now well into his 32nd year.  That's the same age as Branislav Ivanovic, a man whose position he'd take if signed by Chelsea.  Age is but a number of course and many can play well into their late 30s, but Chelsea do have a very strict one-year contract policy for the over 30 crowd.  So when The Sun claims that we're offering a three-year deal to the Swiss right back ... well, we're just going to have to call bullsh*t on it.  Signing a 32-year-old wouldn't be out of the question for Chelsea -- we've done similar moves at striker in recent seasons -- but giving him a three-year contract (and paying €15m to Juve for him, too) is out of the question.

Slightly younger than Lichtsteiner but probably no more likely to arrive at Chelsea this summer is Liverpool flop Christian Benteke.  Manager Jurgen Klopp seems to not like him much either, and there's a good chance Liverpool are looking to cut their losses and send him on his merry way.  I can't quite fathom why Chelsea would ever be interested but our name has been mentioned in connection with the Belgian international.  Benteke's agent claims no decisions will be made until after the Euros, which probably will be a common theme for any transfer target involved in the tournament.

Staying with Belgium but going younger, we find Michy Batshuayi whose name is almost as hard to spell as how badly he's wanted all around Europe.  The 22-year-old striker has had a productive couple seasons at Marseille, averaging goals at almost a 1-in-2 rate and it wouldn't be surprising is he cashed that in for a move to the Premier League.  West Ham have supposedly already had a bid rejected, while Spurs and Chelsea are among several others keeping tabs as well.  According to the Mirror, £31m-rated Batshuayi wants to play in the Champions League, preferably at a "big" club, so even if there was concrete interest from Chelsea, we'd hardly be his first choice at the moment.

Keeping it on the younger side, let's circle back to Italy and add one more name to the list of Juventus players Conte wants to sign (surely we've made it through most of their squad by now, no?), Stefano Sturaro.  The 23-year-old arrived at the Bianconeri the same summer Conte left for Italy and has recently established himself as an important member of the squad.  Some call him the "next Gattuso" though he strikes me as a slightly less aggressive and a bit more well-rounded player.  He's currently in Conte's squad for the Euros and, according to Gazzetta dello Sport, we've already had a €19m bid rejected for him.  Keep him in mind, I guess, as a Nainggolan alternative?

Lastly, in news of the weird, Chelsea and Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois's grandfather is a nudist, apparently, and has appeared in a Belgian newspaper to talk about his lifestyle.  The Sun claims this has caused a "disruption" in Thibaut's preparations, though I'm pretty sure they all just had a good laugh about it, exactly as I did when I read it, and then moved on with things that matter.