Considering that all of Chelsea's transfer activities have been put on hold due to the takeover. Aston Villa might have thrown a spanner in the works to a deal that looked extremely likely this summer. It's with a heavy heart that I say that a Jules Kounde transfer may no longer be on the cards.
Andreas Christensen is set to leave on a free at the end of the month, joining Spanish giants Barcelona, and Chelsea will be stuck looking for a right-sided centre-back option to replace him.
I cannot imagine a world where Aston Villa takes one of Sevilla's starting centre-back options and still sell the other to Chelsea, but I really hope so.
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Chelsea had made early advances ahead of the summer transfer window to secure Kounde from Sevilla. With negotiations simply continuing from last summer's transfer window, it was expected to be Chelsea's priority target this time around. The sanctions then got imposed on Roman Abramovich and Chelsea, with the summer window targets slowly being picked off by sides.
The Blues could lose Cesar Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso to Barcelona as well as Antonio Rudiger when he moves to Real Madrid. The government sanctions have been clear, and the deal to take over Chelsea needs to be confirmed as soon as possible in the risk of losing out on all the targets they had set plans for.
Aston Villa confirmed the signing of the Carlos on Thursday afternoon, believed to be around £26m, just days after Kounde was spotted in London.
Premier League rivals Newcastle had tried to sign the Brazilan earlier this year, so the hope is that Sevilla have been planning for life without both of them next season.
Will Sevilla allow both star centre-backs to leave, or is it a first-come, first-served basis? Only time will tell.
In the last few weeks, Chelsea could only stand and watch as last summer's target Erling Haaland joined Man City. This could also be the case for long time target Aurélien Tchouaméni who is now getting heavily linked with Spanish giants Real Madrid after they missed out on Kylian Mbappé.
Hopefully, Chelsea's takeover situation will be sorted sooner rather than later to avoid missing out on Kounde or any other transfer targets this summer...
