Immediately following the reports of Chelsea agreeing a fee with Arsenal for the transfer for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, French outlet SFR Sport have claimed that a deal has also been agreed for Leicester’s title-winning central midfielder, Danny Drinkwater.
Danny Drinkwater to Chelsea is a done deal ! More than 30M€ #CFC #LCFC https://t.co/ZiqX8MgU49
— Francois Piraux (@F8Piraux) August 28, 2017
In an attempt to bolster squad depth with homegrown players, Chelsea’s interest in Drinkwater has been widely reported for the last few weeks. Leicester’s initial stance was, of course, to not sell but ultimately all players have a price and the 2015/16 Champions demanded a princely sum of £40 million for Drinkwater. After a couple of laughable low-balling attempts by Chelsea beginning with an initial bid of £15 million, the clubs have appeared to agree on a final sum of €30 million, which is arguably just as much as the player is worth.
Another aspect of this developing story is Leicester’s newfound interest in PSG outcast Grzegorz Krychowiak, as reported by mysterious yet (so-far) accurate Twitter ITK account, Paris United.
[Info Paris U] Krychowiak est dans la short list de Leicester. pic.twitter.com/4XLyQmGU4e
— Paris United (@parisunited6) August 28, 2017
Apart from Drinkwater, Leicester already have Wilfried Ndidi, Matty James, Andy King, Daniel Amartey and the currently injured Vicente Iborra who can play in midfield, so signing Krychowiak would only make sense if Drinkwater’s sale was edging closer. Drinkwater was also excluded from Leicester’s match-day squad on Saturday despite recovering from injury and training with the squad for well over a week, which only adds fuel to the fire.
Looks like Chelsea do plan to get some business done, after all!