Chelsea add Oleksandr Zinchenko to ‘transfer wishlist’ — report

According to the Daily Mail, Chelsea have joined Everton and West Ham in the pursuit of Manchester City defender Oleksandr Zinchenko this summer, making him the third City player on our shortlist after Raheem Sterling and Nathan Aké.

In classic rumor-mongering style, the report covers all bases, with the headline saying that we’re “holding talks”, the summary saying that we’re “considering a move”, and the actual article adding that we’ve added Zinchenko the our “transfer wishlist” and are “keen” on bringing him to the club but it’s “uncertain” that we’d actually push ahead with doing so. Literally everything is possible. Oh, and City are also in “no rush” to push Zinchenko out of the club, despite his relative lack of involvement.

Closing the gap to City by signing their castoffs may not be the most efficient or successful way to go about doing that, so hopefully this is all just idle speculation. Since joining City from PSV Eindhoven in 2016, Zinchenko has made 128 appearances in all competitions, but just 76 in the Premier League, failing to crack even the 1500-minute mark in league play in any of those four seasons.

His versatility would be useful, especially if Marcos Alonso and Emerson leave as expected, but unless the 25-year-old were to discover a new level in his play, he would be just filler in the squad — the sort of signing we should be looking to avoid and utilize our homegrown prospects instead.