Chelsea could now look to steal a march on their European rivals in a bid to sign Benjamin Pavard thanks to the Frenchman’s change of agent, as Christian Falk reported in his exclusive column for CaughtOffside.
The Blues are understood to be in the market for a quality defender, as can be demonstrated by their interest in Joško Gvardiol in the prior summer window.
With Cesar Azpilicueta’s contract set to expire in 2024 and Thiago Silva – whilst remarkably still defying the ageing process – having recently turned 38 (contract set to expire in 2023), there’s a clear need for the club to identify younger options in the heart of the backline.
“Pavard changed his agent – his new agent is Pini Zahavi – and if you see Pini’s friends, there are always two clubs,” the German journalist said.
“One is Chelsea. When he’s talking about Chelsea he’s often talking in terms of ‘us’ and ‘we’, so he’s really close.
“He’s living in London, so that’s why there were many rumours in the past around Pavard and Chelsea.”
The World Cup winner has been primarily utilised as a right-back for Bayern Munich in 2022/23, though his preferred position is thought to be the centre-half role.
Assuming that Graham Potter’s men are open to the prospect of meeting Pavard’s positional demands, it could hand them another advantage in the race for his signature.
Gvardiol, of course, remains an important target for Chelsea, though it seems the club will have to wait until the summer, not to mention stump up a sizeable bid, before they can take a seat at the negotiating table.
“Chelsea made very concrete talks in the past. On Leipzig’s end, they gave him a new contract until 2027 and they added a clause that allows him to leave in 2024,” Falk added.
“The interesting thing now is that they’ve set a benchmark of €112m [£98.9m] and they don’t want to sell him this summer.
“But everybody knows that Leipzig could lose him if Chelsea offer to pay €100m [£88.3m]. That’s really in their mind and they know they can’t say no for a second time if such an amount of money is on the table.
“The Blues won’t be alone in their interest, however, with London rivals Tottenham also very interested in the Croatian for the summer.”