The suggestion that Chelsea are interested in signing Jean Clair Todibo has been around for a while, and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
The Nice defender looks set to move to a bigger team this summer, and the Blues are consistently thrown into the mix. But for all his quality, it’s not ideal for Chelsea.
Transfermarkt value the 24 year old at €35m after he really started to find his feet as one of the best central defenders in Ligue 1 this season. The final price Nice ask for him could easily be significantly more than that. Chelsea, having bought Axel Disasi last summer and Benoit Badiashile 6 months before that, don’t really need to be dropping money they don’t have on yet another impressive defender from the French top flight.
There’s certainly an argument they should be strengthening their options in defence, but it’s an opportunity to add experience and leadership that shouldn’t be missed.
JCT should be Chelsea’s third choice at best in centre-back ranking
We like the idea of signing Tosin Adarabioyo. It works. He knows some of our players and some of our recruitment team from the Man City academy, he’s already settled in West London and he’s got a decent bit of Premier League experience built up. Most importantly he’s a free agent, so his cost is intrinsically amortised throughout his contract length.
But what we like even more is simply keeping Trevoh Chalobah – he’s even more settled, has even more Premier League experience relative to his age, he’s home grown, on a good contract and is even more versatile, able to cover across the back line and midfield.
So our preferred option is keeping him, second best is signing Tosin. Todibo should without question be at the bottom of this list, as even if he’s highly rated, he lacks those essential ingredients present in the other two options.
