Chelsea make second bid for Rennes goalkeeper Édouard Mendy — report

Édouard Mendy is a name not many of us had heard of before last week, but the Stade Rennais and Senegal national team goalkeeper has now firmly entered the Chelsea rumor mill, and actually looks like a realistic option for adding the necessary competition we need for Kepa Arrizabalaga. (Neither Kepa nor Caballero played particularly great in Chelsea’s 1-1 friendly at Brighton, even if Caballero did save one of the two penalties given away by the team.)

According to Goal (and several others), Chelsea have made a second bid for the 28-year-old, to the tune of €20m. The Guardian says the first bid was €16m. This time last week, we were only making inquiries — though chances are that given the connections Christophe Lollichon and Petr Čech have with Rennes, we’ve been aware of Mendy for a fair bit longer than that.

Rennes must have rejected the first offer, obviously, but while the report claims that they’re not a selling club, it also doesn’t rule out them accepting €20m (or whatever final price they can get) for a player for whom they paid just €5m last summer.

Mendy did not start for Rennes earlier today as they beat Montpellier, 2-1 in Ligue 1, and wasn’t on the bench or on any injury report either. Some unconfirmed reports claim that he’s got the Covid; others point the finger at transferitis. Either way, we’ll find out soon whether he’s Chelsea-bound or not.