Mauricio Pochettino confirms center back and midfield needs at Chelsea

Chelsea may have produced another pretty good preseason performance in beating Fulham, 2-0 in (the) Washington, DC (area), and in the process getting to practice a trophy lift as well with the “Premier League Summer Series” trinket, but a lot of the focus in the Chelsea-verse was once again on the transfer market, where we are about to make two more signings, reportedly.

Young midfielder Lesley Ugochukwu and established center back Axel Disasi are both about to join the Blues — not officially confirmed yet obviously, but all signs pointing to yes — and Mauricio Pochettino was unsurprisingly asked about both in his post-match press conference as well.

While he’s claimed to know less than the assembled journalists with their laptops hooked directly into the Fabrizio Romano information superhighway, Poch did essentially confirm that Disasi is coming because of Wesley Fofana’s injury.

“You know more than me [but] with Fofana’s injury, I think it is obvious that maybe we need to reinforce this area. It is clear.”

Benoît Badiashile and now Trevoh Chalobah are also dealing with muscle concerns, so Disasi’s arrival does seem like a logical step — even if it does create new questions about the futures of Levi Colwill and Chalobah himself. After all, neither Bashir Humphreys nor Alfie Gilchrist looked out of place during preseason, so it’s not like we’re hurting for (in-house) options if needed.

Where we do seem to be at least one player light is in (defensive) midfield, which makes the rumored signing of Lesley Ugochukwu extra intriguing. However, the 19-year-old appears to be set for a loan this season.

“We need experience in midfield [...] for me it’s important, the club is working really hard to improve all of the areas, the right profiles to make the squad strong. The club is working really hard to find the right profile.

“[...] I have the information you have. My information is a player that is from France that maybe they sign with the idea to send on loan. The information was already in your laptop.”

-Mauricio Pochettino; source: Football.London

The window closes in a month but the season starts in two weeks.