Chelsea make hopeful inquiry for €70m Thiago Alcântara at Bayern Munich — report

The vast majority of football matches are won or lost in midfield, but even so, having nine of them in a team’s squad is not only an embarrassment of riches, but also probably overkill, not to mention untenable. There are simply not enough minutes to go around that would keep all those players happy. But that’s the situation Bayern find themselves in at the moment.

Most are expecting them to clear the logjam by making a sale or two, and while some are more obvious candidates for getting moved out than others (former flash in a pan Renato Sanches, or aging and creaky Arturo Vidal, for example), the rumor mill claims that actually, Thiago Alcântara is one of the likelier possibilities. The 27-year-old former Barcelona youth star has spent the last five seasons at Bayern and signed a new 4-year deal just last year, but he’s never quite managed to establish himself as a nailed on starter and thus could be looking to move.

A veritable who’s who of Europe’s elite are keeping tabs on the €70m-rated midfielder, which is certainly understandable, with Chelsea joining that list thank to ESPN’s “source”, which seems rather fanciful.

Thiago is an elite-level talent who would be an exact fit for the sort of mobile three-man midfield Sarri’s trying to create. He would be a perfect signing, which surely means that we follow up our inquiry with a bit of monitoring, then a bit of preparing, and then the transfer window slams shut.