Chelsea make first official bid for Borussia Dortmund’s Christian Pulisic — report

According to German newspaper Ruhr Nachrichten, as relayed by the Evening Standard, Chelsea have met with Borussia Dortmund on Friday and have made a first official bid for Christian Pulisic.

The sources don’t say how much Chelsea’s bid was worth, but it is “understood” to be below £70m, which may or may not be BVB’s asking price — £70m was the asking price last summer, but surely BVB will have to drop their price considering that Pulisic has 18 months left on his contract and isn’t looking likely to sign an extension. The 20-year-old American international also isn’t necessarily first-choice for head coach Lucien Favre at the moment, which further weakens BVB’s position.

Since this transfer isn’t likely to go through in January, all parties seem to agree, Chelsea do have some time to negotiate a better fee, especially as Liverpool’s interest has supposedly waned in recent months as well. Most reports agree that Chelsea are leading this chase, certainly as far as Premier League teams are concerned; now it’s just a matter of not paying £70m if we don’t have to.

The report talks of another interesting wrinkle in these proceedings, as BVB’s preferred replacement is apparently Thorgan Hazard, whose situation at Gladbach supposedly includes a clause that allows Chelsea to match any bids made for him. So the idea is that Chelsea could gain a bit of leverage by not competing for and driving up Thorgan’s price and making it a win-win situation for all involved.

Either way, this looks to be the first step in a process that’s unlikely to be over quickly or simply. As long as we end up with Pulisic by next summer however, we won’t have too many complaints!