Thiago Silva trying to ‘sell the Chelsea project’ to Presnel Kimpembe — report

Presnel Kimpembe set a new career high in games, minutes, and even goals scored this season, becoming truly a stalwart center back at Paris Saint-Germain. And he’s about to turn 27 with two years left on his contract, so he’s also setting a career high in terms of his theoretical transfer value — or wages in a new contract.

That might be bad news for the bank balances of any interested teams, one of whom might Chelsea, with out primary concern this summer being the rebuilding of the defense.

We’ve been linked with Kimpembe before — and our transfer connections with PSG are fairly strong over the past few years — but if France Football’s Olivier Brossard’s to be believed, there might be some work going on behind the scenes as well. Kimpembe’s former teammate Thiago Silva is personally trying to convince the man a decade his junior to follow him to Chelsea. (Incidentally, Kimpembe was earmarked as the heir to Silva, and was one of the reasons PSG were willing to let Silva go two years ago. That’s turned out pretty okay, for all involved.)

There’s no number attached to this rumor but none of our primary defensive targets are likely to be cheap (€65m+), whether they’re called Jules Koundé, Matthijs de Ligt, or whoever else. (Yet another reason to not forget to look to our own as well.)