Chelsea 'willing' to pay £51.7m to grant Enzo Maresca transfer wish as price named for forward

Chelsea are now just a day away from kicking off their new Premier League campaign, welcoming Crystal Palace for their season-opener on Sunday. The Blues enjoyed a very different yet successful summer, ultimately winning the inaugural FIFA Club World Cup - at least in its new form.

Attention now turns to the Premier League, and Palace proved themselves tricky customers for many last season, making the fixture an interesting first test. In the meantime, we have rounded up all the latest news and transfer rumours surrounding Stamford Bridge.

Maresca on transfer need

Chelsea boss Maresca has made it clear he wants a new centre-back after Levi Colwill’s serious knee injury. He said during his pre-match press conference: “We need a central defender. We are looking for an internal solution but, as I said, the club know exactly what I think.

"When we build, we build with Levi in the middle. It's different to the player in the middle on the left side. Last year, we played 64 games and we played 64 games with Levi and Tosin [Adarabioyo]. Now Levi is out, the only one that he can do that job well is Tosin. [Jorrel] Hato is a new one. He never played as the guy in the middle last season. So it's not about being a central defender. Yes, [he is a] central defender. Can he do that? It's different, it's not just about that."

Hincapie links

On the centre-back front, Chelsea are said to be pushing for a deal to sign Bayer Leverkusen defender Piero Hincapié. That’s according to Bolavip, who say the Blues are willing to offer more than £51.7million to get a deal done this summer.

It’s added that Chelsea are expected to make a ‘final push’ to sign Hincapie in the coming weeks, though by the sound of Maresca’s comments, it seems that timeline could be shorter than reported, with Maresca feeling there is a glaring need at centre-back.

Nkunku asking price

Chelsea are pushing to sell Christopher Nkunku this summer as they look to free up more funds. There were reports on Thursday that Bayern Munich had lined up Nkunku as a possible target and that they were considering entering talks.

According to TalkSport, Chelsea will ask for £40million or less to sell Nkunku despite spending around £60milion two years ago. The Blues need to sell the forward to free up spending space, and they can’t afford to scare off Bayern given the lack of interest so far this summer.

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