Defensive reinforcements on the way for Chelsea?

I was thinking about doing the normal Monday Goals/Games analysis as a transfer palate cleanser — a little pear sorbet for the soul — but then this weekend was fairly barren of goals and excitement.

So back to the transfer content you crave. It has, as expected, been a busy window already!

• Kim touched on the Guehi adventure on Friday, which also sparked Palace head coach Oliver Glasner to vent his frustration about the poverty line squad Palace has been left with. Given past public outbursts, I’d say Glasner has been remarkably restrained during his time stationed near Gatwick Airport. Sorry Palace fans — you only have your ownership to blame.

• Speaking of City, their rumoured pursuit of Elliott Anderson makes too much sense to be fake. Kim did a poll on “Anderson vs. Adam Wharton for the same price,” and 57% of you picked Wharton, which makes sense given the hype, but was also slightly surprising in that it wasn’t more lopsided? I would not be shocked if the number for either player is £100M+.
  
  Note: That wailing you hear in the background is Newcastle fans looking at that number, and then thinking about their barren squad and Yankuba Minteh way down South. They should have taken the PSR fine two summers ago.

• Chelsea are very interested in Rennes’ defender Jeremy Jacquet, as they look to solve their long-term revolving centreback issues by spending 60-ish million Euros on another 20-year-old. Is Jacquet good enough to fill that role? That sounds exactly like the type of long-form piece we might write in the future!

• Having missed out on Marc Guehi, Liverpool are allegedly casting their beady eyes to Italy, and Inter Milan’s Alessandro Bastoni. My take here is a) Bastoni is real good, especially with the ball at his feet and b) elite Italians rarely leave Italy, and especially not from the Italian giants. That said, the financial gap these days is molto grande.

• Spanish press are once again reporting that Liverpool would love to get their hands on Eduardo Camavinga, which also makes a ton of sense, even if players are even less likely to leave Real Madrid than they are Milan.

• Real Madrid are supposedly considering Enzo Fernandez as a potential summer move. Chelsea do like to both buy AND sell players. Is this a real rumour, or just the press putting together puzzle pieces and trying to paint a picture?

• Juve apparently want Mateta as a long-term replacement for Vlahovic. We like Mateta and we have never been high on Vlahovic, whose agent seems to have created the biggest vortex of hype versus ability of any forward in recent memory. Or maybe that was Juve, who have been desperate to sell him for about three seasons now? Anyway, Vlahovic is on a free in the summer, so maybe then he’ll finally come good for someone and prove us wrong.

• Fans of TTF since at least this summer might remember the name Lorenzo Lucca, a transfer from Udinese to Napoli made that we panned completely because, well, he’s not very good. It will not surprise many of you that his name is now back in the rumour mill as potentially going elsewhere (Romano suggests on loan to Nottingham Forest to fill a Chris Wood-shaped hole) because Napoli have now realised… he’s not very good. But the hunt for a Bigger Sucker continues! [If you think I plucked this rumour mostly to get Patrick riled up for a Lucca segment on the podcast today… you might be correct.]

• I am slightly worried that Leeds fans would come after me (I used to work with a few) if I didn’t post something about their pursuit of Werder Bremen midfielder Romano Schmid in here. He’s 25, the rumoured fee is £13M, and yeah, I can kind of shrug and be fine about it. He’s been rather good at creating goals for his teammates for quite a while, and Leeds could use more of that. Just be careful of all the blocked shots.

• Aston Villa could bring in Dani Ceballos, as Unai Emery looks to replay all his classic transfer hits.

• Jorgen Strand Larsen, yadda yadda.

• Ricardo Pepi, broken forearm, still might transfer yadda.

• Jadon Sancho — who has 4 90s played on loan for Villa in the Premier League this season — is in the rumour mill again, as his agent desperately scrambles for future options when his contract expires this season. The dude is 25. This is kinda sad. Happy Monday.

—TK

If you enjoyed this newsletter, we’d appreciate it if you would forward it to a friend. If you’re that friend, welcome! You can subscribe to The Transfer Flow here. We also have a podcast where we go in depth on transfer news and rumours every week. We’re on YouTube here, and you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify by searching for “The Transfer Flow Podcast.” If you’re interested in football betting, check out this post on why we started Variance Betting.