Chelsea closing in on Benôit Badiashile but AS Monaco want more money — report

Chelsea have been strongly linked with AS Monaco’s Benôit Badiashile as we head into the January transfer window, following up our brief summer interest with seemingly a genuine attempt to acquire the 21-year-old center back and reinforce our defensive corps.

We are supposedly closing in and trying to get this deal done at “around €35m”, but according to the latest reports out of France, Monaco are hoping to squeeze a bit more out of us by floating the specter of Barcelona.

L’Equipe (via GFFN) claim that €40m might get it done, though they also say that Monaco were initially hoping for €60m all-in, so there’s room for them to keep pushing their demands higher if we acquiesce. That said, with just 18 months left on the player’s contract, they can’t play this sort of game for too long without risking their returns.

Maybe we can let them keep Malang Sarr for free to sweeten the deal instead?