Jules Kounde: Chelsea ahead of Barcelona in race for Sevilla defender
Ben Jacobs
- Updated: 19 Jul 2022 12:39 BST
- 3 min read
Chelsea are ahead of Barcelona in the race to sign Sevilla defender Jules Kounde, CBS reporter Ben Jacobs writes for FootballTransfers.
Defence is the priority for Chelsea now in the transfer market.
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Chelsea are not necessarily more confident than Barcelona of signing Kounde, but they are more advanced than the Blaugrana.
Chelsea agreed personal terms
They have agreed personal terms with the player for quite some time, which wasn’t the case with Raphinha (who joined Barcelona ahead of Chelsea last week).
But players do agree personal terms with multiple clubs so Barcelona and Chelsea will both feel they can agree terms with the player.
Sevilla hoping for a bidding war
That means, it then comes down to a straight race as to whether or not a deal can be agreed with Sevilla, who are hoping for a bidding war.
And that’s where Chelsea have the confidence that Barcelona won’t be able to use the same tactic they used when signing Raphinha.
With Raphinha, Barcelona were able to play on the fact that Leeds knew that Raphinha was leaving and they had already replaced him and wanted to get on with the situation.
How much will Kounde cost?
Sevilla won’t give Barcelona any cut-price deal so Barca are going to have to find about £50-55 million to get the deal done.
Kounde’s release clause is about £68-69m (€80m).
Chelsea won’t pay that and won’t pay anything close to that but it wouldn’t surprise me if they entertained something around the £55m plus add-ons mark.
And Chelsea have the confidence in knowing they already have personal terms agreed and from there they can hopefully proceed and get a quick deal.
From Barcelona’s point of view, they are just relying on the fact that the player likes Barcelona too. He has spoken to Xavi and has been told that he could be an integral centre back at Barcelona for close to a decade.
Sevilla won't do Barcelona any favours
But Sevilla are not going to do Barcelona any negotiation favours. So either Barca pay full whack or it could be that only Chelsea come to financial terms.
But it has been a frustrating negotiation for Chelsea. They have been over to Seville on a number of occasions, as recently as two weeks ago, and they have made no headway. But they won’t walk away.
I think PSG’s Presnel Kimpembe (who Chelsea are also in talks with) is a more realistic and simpler negotiation. PSG have left it up to Kimpembe to make a decision but he is settled in Paris.
So it’s a big week for Chelsea, it’s going to move very quickly. Both deals we should get more clarity on in the next seven days or so.
