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Chelsea defender Ben Chilwell has emerged as a “shock goal” for Manchester United because the Crimson Devils search additional reinforcements in defence this summer season.
Alex Prepare dinner (talkSPORT) reveals the 27-year-old fullback is on the “checklist of potential targets” at Previous Trafford together with his future at Stamford Bridge firmly unsure.
Chilwell endured a dismal marketing campaign for Chelsea final season. He fell down the pecking order beneath Mauricio Pochettino, with a mix of poor type and repeated knee accidents main the Argentine supervisor to desire Marc Cucurella because the season progressed.
Cucurella, 25, completed the yr strongly for the Blues after a poor begin, and continued this resurgence by beginning for the Spanish nationwide group at left-back, as La Roja emerged as deserving victors at EURO 2024 in Germany.
Spain beat England 2-1 within the last of the event – one Chilwell’s poor type led to him being excluded from by the then Three Lions supervisor, Gareth Southgate.
Pochettino departed Stamford Bridge on the finish of the season and was changed by Leicester Metropolis boss Enzo Maresca, who helped the Foxes to a storming Championship success in his first season on the membership.
Maresca was beforehand a coach at Manchester Metropolis beneath Pep Guardiola – a supervisor whose affect on the Italian is profound, with Prepare dinner describing Maresca as a “Guardiola disciple”.
Apparently, Metropolis had beforehand tried to signal Cucurella when purchasing for a brand new left-back, solely to be outbid by Chelsea. There’s something to the Spaniard’s sport Guardiola favored, nonetheless, and this admiration is more likely to be mirrored by his former assistant, Maresca.
TalkSPORT’s report contends Chilwell “has the issue of not becoming” into his new supervisor’s system. Maresca described the 27-year-old’s scenario as “delicate” in a latest interview with a must “discover…the appropriate place” for him.
United, by comparability, are eminently eager so as to add extra defenders to a unit which was decimated by harm final season. Left-back, particularly, was a repeated supply of angst for Erik ten Hag with each of his senior left-backs – Luke Shaw and Tyrell Malacia – spending vital durations of the yr on the facet strains.
As such, a transfer for a seasoned fullback like Chilwell, with European and worldwide expertise, could make sense for United. However solely on the proper worth.
Cash will probably be tight for the rest of the switch window at Previous Trafford given the acute stress of the Premier League’s Earnings and Sustainability Guidelines (PSR). United must promote earlier than they will purchase following the pricey purchases of Leny Yoro and Joshua Zirkzee.
A transfer for Chilwell, due to this fact, could make extra sense as a mortgage deal, later within the window; just like the one agreed for Cucurella on the finish of the switch window final summer season, just for Chelsea to demand too excessive a mortgage payment.
If the London membership are extra cheap of their calls for for an undesirable left-back this summer season, Ten Hag could have discovered a short-term answer to the left-back drawback which plagued him final season.
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