Competition for the Premier League title this season has been fierce, with Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City leading alternately at the top of the table. Chelsea, which has been extremely strong before, has recently fallen into a low point, and Tuchel's team stability has dropped a lot, and there have been many losses, not to mention Giogenho's low-level mistakes that led to goals conceded. The loosening of the steel defensive line is most likely related to the player's hesitation to renew his contract.
Veteran captain Azpilicueta should not renew his contract, and Chelsea's willingness to keep him is also average, after all, the Spanish full-back is no longer at his peak. His destination is expected to be Barca, which currently lack the most mentally strong players, with only Alves struggling to support in the dressing room. Another difficult to renew his contract is Rudiger, who is currently the core of Chelsea's defence, but Chelsea are reluctant to meet the £200,000 weekly salary.
Rudiger is currently only 28 years old, which is the best age to fight for a big contract, tall, reaching 191cm, very good at using strong physical fitness to complete the confrontation, and basically can win the confrontation. Because of his obvious emotionalness, he always acted very excited, of course, most of the time in favor of the team. Recently, he has won two penalties for Chelsea in a single game, which is extremely rare as a centre-back player.
Rudiger is not short of subordinates, Real Madrid is the closest to taking him, because Tuchel has no better center-back options, so for the time being can only continue to reuse Rudiger. This has affected the mentality of other defenders to some extent, not to mention that there are two excellent centre-backs who are still negotiating a contract extension with the team, which is not difficult to understand why Chelsea suddenly entered a period of adjustment. However, Chelsea have long planned to introduce new centre-backs in the transfer market, with the goal of upgrading the strength of the back line.
The biggest target is no surprise, he is Sevilla's versatile defender Conde. Comte is only 23 years old, but he is already a France international and an absolute main force for Sevilla. He can play as a right-back and a centre-back, but unfortunately he is only 178cm tall, and air supremacy is a weakness. Overall, Comte pays more attention to defensive skills and power confrontation, and is also very fond of participating in the attack, and is a more aggressive defender than Rudiger.
Chelsea were unable to meet Sevilla's €70 million demand in the summer window, and now the two sides are renegotiating because Sevilla has relented and the final price should not exceed 60 million euros. This is not difficult for Chelsea, especially since Conde's weekly salary will not be too high and should be on par with Rudiger's weekly salary of £100,000. The only concern is whether Comte will be able to adapt to Chelsea's three-centre-back tactic.
But Conde is an extremely adaptable player, at least after Rudiger left, Conde was able to plug and play, and it is believed that he can quickly reach the ideal level through running-in. From the perspective of Chelsea's reinforcements, Comte is definitely not a parallel cargo, not to mention that Sevilla insists on such a relatively high transfer fee, which proves Comte's ability. Ideally, Comte would join Chelsea in January, but it would depend on the negotiations between the two teams.