Chelsea know they desperately need a goalkeeper next summer, and they are starting to make moves towards signing one.
The Blues were previously being strongly linked with Inter Milan stopper Andre Onana, but things seem to have shifted in the last few days. At the weekend their city rivals AC sacked their sporting director and their technical director Paolo Maldini, and a lot of players have reacted badly to this - including their impressive goalie Mike Maignan.
He released a cryptic social media post responding to the news of Maldini's sacking, but it was really the analysis of the situation from Alessandro Carra on Calciomercato that was interesting:
"The big problem is Maignan, his social media release was cryptic. He has a three-year contract but he's the only one of the big names who hasn't renewed. For about 10 days Maldini had been starting to talk about this renewal. Maldini represented a guarantee," he said.
"Chelsea and Manchester United are looking for a goalkeeper and have offered the player ?8m a year [deal]," the insider reported.
"Maignan does not want to stay in a nebulous Milan and Milan's idea would be to finance the entire market with the sale of Maignan. if an offer between ?80m and ?100m were to arrive," Carra explained.
"Offers have not yet arrived, at the moment these are hypotheses. Certainly, Maignan wants a strong adjustment to his salary, also because Maldini had promised him such."
It sounds like the issues at Milan have created a weakness in their defences and we're going for it. That seems sensible, and if we can target Maignan's fears about being stuck at a stagnant club that will work even better.
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