Chelsea ‘halt’ Jules Koundé pursuit as Sevilla ‘suddenly’ up their asking price — report

Just when it looked like Chelsea might finally get the Jules Koundé transfer over the line, we have reportedly “halted” our pursuit and are “not expected” to resurrect it unless Sevilla drop their asking price, which seems unlikely.

That’s the word from The Athletic’s David Ornstein, who claims that Sevilla have “suddenly” upped their asking price by €15m from a previous “verbal agreement”, and have no interest in doing business in the range of values we had been working in up to this point. This matches the stories seen in Spanish media over the weekend that talked about Sevilla wanting upwards of €65m, rather than something in the €50m range, which had been reported as a price we had already agreed upon in principle.

While Chelsea don’t necessarily need Koundé to have enough center backs on the team at the moment, he was being positioned as a long-term solution in an area of the squad that’s expected to see drastic changes in personnel in the next couple years due to age and contract considerations. Kurt Zouma’s departure was just the first move in that regard, for example.

Obviously, there are still a couple days left. Sevilla may be playing hardball now, but a lot can change between now and Tuesday night.