Chelsea still interested in Kingsley Coman, potential Callum Hudson-Odoi swap — report

Kingsley Coman continues to not budge in his wage demands and contract extension negotiations with Bayern Munich, though with the Bavarian giants setting their asking price at £86m, exit rumors have also died away.

But if there is one club who can always be reasonably linked, it’s Chelsea, who supposedly remain interested in the 25-year-old winger, according to a report from L’Équipe (via Get French Football News).

The credibility of the report takes a big hit however with the suggestion of Chelsea looking to engineer a swap deal involving Callum Hudson-Odoi. Even if we pretend that swap deals don’t rarely, if ever happen in football (even in these economic times), Bayern reportedly dropped their interest in Hudson-Odoi several weeks ago. At the same time, we had multiple reports of the 20-year-old wanting to very much stay and fight for his right to minutes at Chelsea. It would seem unlikely for that situation to change so drastically already, regardless of the talks with Coman, who has two years left on his contract still.

The brief moment we witnessed between Tuchel and Hudson-Odoi at the start of preseason training, with the head coach proclaiming semi-jokingly that Callum can no longer “hide” is surely more indicative of a future together rather than apart.

Of course, you never truly know in football, and given the recent anti-youth shift in narrative around Chelsea, booting Hudson-Odoi out next makes for an easy story, especially given his previous drama with Bayern. But this is unlikely to be anything more than idle speculation in what’s been a rather slow and uneventful window for the Blues (despite the rumor mill’s best efforts).