Chelsea pushing ahead with Kai Havertz bid but will need to sell first to reinforce defense — report

Barring a miracle — and we’ve already had one in Munich, so don’t bank on a second — Chelsea’s 2019-20 season is, at long last, over. But there isn’t much time to rest (barely a month, in fact, which is another issue entirely), and that also means that we need to act swiftly when it comes to transfer market activities.

In a rundown of Chelsea’s priorities for the window, the Telegraph’s Matt Law is reporting that Chelsea will continue to push forward with (trying to) sign Kai Havertz from Bayer Leverkusen, even if he won’t be able to join until later in August and even if the team’s bigger concerns lie in defending rather than attacking.

To wit, the FA Cup final was just the third game in the last 15 that we failed to score at least 2 goals, but was the sixth time in that same span that we conceded at least 2 goals (keeping the same amount of clean sheets, which was actually an improvement over the rest of the season).

We may have good intentions in rebuilding the squad, but we do face a logjam of players at certain positions, including at center back and central midfield and even goalkeeper, thanks to big spending and big contracts for less than stellar players.

And so while apparently we’re happy to spend nearly €100m on Havertz, if we are to reinforce the defensive aspect, we would need to clear space first. This is reportedly the main reason why we decided not to activate Nathan Aké’s buyback clause — although opinions on the former Chelsea prospect remain firmly divided.

Lampard is said to be interested in Declan Rice and José Giménez, but we would need to shift at least one of Antonio Rüdiger, Kurt Zouma, or Andreas Christensen first. Law’s report does not mention Fikayo Tomori, which is fine by me.

It’s a similar conundrum at left back, where Ben Chilwell remains the priority.

Time to get to work.