Unfortunately Chelsea missed out on all of its defensive targets up until now with Kalidou Koulibaly being the last to pass on the Blues. Actually it would be more accurate to say that Napoli passed on Conte’s offer as there is no information regarding the defender’s desire to move to Stamford Bridge. The market has gone crazy this summer with Premier League clubs spending outrageous amounts of money which in turn increased the price of every negotiation held after a certain point during the summer. While Koulibaly would have been an extremely useful transfer, there’s no way Napoli could justify the £60million requested for their center-back. Today’s news said that Manchester City’s Eliaquim Mangala might be on his way to Napoli which some connected to him becoming Koulibaly’s replacement. It`s a bit unlikely though. It is more likely that the two will be paired down the middle of the defense.

Moving on, there are two more players who could complete Chelsea’s lot. Despite being turned down once by AC Milan, it appears that Conte is set on signing Alessio Romagnoli. The 21-year-old defender who recently emerged as a possible solution for the Blues is incredibly hard to sign especially with the transfer rumors causing a lot of fuss among AC Milan fans. The other defender Chelsea are still considering is according to the Telegraph Nikola Maksimovic currently under contract with Torino. We already spoke about a possible move for this defender who is seen as the next Nemanja Vidic. While they might not be Chelsea’s first choices, there’s little to choose from on the market. As Wenger also pointed out, there are a lot of good defenders playing for great teams but few are willing to leave their current clubs There’s one more thing who a lot of people fail to consider when analyzing transfers for big teams such as Chelsea: buying a player such as Manchester City’s John Stones who is just 22 is a gamble. Money may not be a problem but time is. Rushing into a transfer without knowing it will be a success might cost more than expected. Just think about what happens if Chelsea sign Koulibaly, Romagnoli or Maksimovic and they don’t like playing in England? Then you have an unhappy player, are out the fee paid and still need to sign another defender.