Chelsea linked with France striker Marcus Thuram

January was expected to be another “frantic” transfer window for Chelsea, and so far that’s proving true with three new signings already in through the door and a whole transfer saga already lived through with Enzo Fernández at Benfica.

And we may not be done yet. In fact, we’re probably not done yet.

The club were said to be hopeful of adding three first-team players with the priority on the striker position. It’s unclear if David Datro Fofana counts as one of those three (Benoît Badiashile certainly does), but there’s clearly still opportunities for the owners to splash some more cash.

And that means there’s clearly still opportunities for random transfer rumors, such as the one linking us with France international Marcus Thuram, who plays his club football in the Bundesliga with Borussia Mönchengladbach.

Marcus, son of the legendary defender Lilian Thuram, plays as a striker or wide-forward, and is having the best season of his career with 13 goals scored already in 17 appearances in all competitions for Gladbach. That’s one short of his career high, which prompts the concern that this is just a flash-in-the-pan season for him, rather than the start of expected greatness. It did lead to his involvement at the World Cup with France, raising public awareness of him at the same time.

Thuram may be relatively new on the world stage, but he is 25 already, which certainly isn’t old but it does make him older than any of the attacking players we currently seem to be building around, other than Raheem Sterling, 28. Hakim Ziyech and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang are both older as well, but it’s probably safe to assume that they won’t be here next season.

That alone doesn’t necessarily disprove this rumor, but it’s hard to see how he’d fit in, especially if international teammate Christopher Nkunku is indeed coming as well.

The original story, yesterday from Foot Mercato only said that “many European clubs are on the prowl” (of course they are) and that Chelsea “could take action as early as January” (it is certainly within the realm of possibilities in the vast multi-verse). Standard agenting and rumor-mongering. Thuram’s current contract is set to expire at the end of the season, which means he could go for free anywhere in the summer — or presumably Gladbach could collect a cut-rate fee to let him go in January.

That story has now been aggregated by Fabrizio Romano with even more baselessly teasing language, which lends it more credibility than it deserves. For now, we can safely file this under harmless Silly Season speculation.