Chelsea's defensive targets widely varied across the past summer: jumping from Jules Kounde to Matthijs de Ligt to Presnel Kimpembe.
None of the trio ended up at Stamford Bridge, with Chelsea's new owners instead forking out over £100million to secure the duo of Kalidou Koulibaly and Wesley Fofana.
The pressure on the club's new owners to invest in defence was clear from the moment Antonio Rudiger decided to depart at the end of his contract back in April. That blow was compounded by Andreas Christensen following suit, with both players jumping to La Liga, committing their futures to Spain's two big hitters.
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Todd Boehly and Clearlake acted. Although the jury is still out over Koulibaly and Fofana's knee injury in October scuppered any definitive judgement, it appears like the spending in that area is not going to halt in 2023.
Even after Chelsea had splashed on Fofana, spending weeks pursuing the highly-touted Leicester star, reports emerged that the Blues were in serious negotiations to sign RB Leipzig's 20-year-old Josko Gvardiol. That chase was concluded swiftly with the Bundesliga club announcing a contract extension for Gvardiol until 2027.
Links have again sprung up given Gvardiol's prominence for his nation at the World Cup in Qatar. Helping them keep two clean sheets across their three group games, stifling Belgium's attempts to rescue their faltering campaign. Much to the chagrin of Romelu Lukaku, Gvardiol's last-ditch tackles and robust performance further impressed Chelsea fans watching on.
As reported by The Athletic, the negotiations over the summer broke down due to Leipzig changing the asking price. Rising from around £60.5million to as high as £77million.
Chelsea have two advantages in the upcoming chase for Gvardiol in 2023, the most obvious being the Croatian connection between the defender and Mateo Kovacic, also currently at the World Cup as the duo prepare for Monday's last-16 clash with Japan.
Kovacic's presence was mentioned by Gvardiol on Thursday after Croatia's 0-0 draw with Belgium. When asked about a potential future move to Chelsea, he said: “[Chelsea’s] a big club of course and, who knows, maybe one day I will be there. It’s really nice to see things like this, especially because there is Kovacic, so you never know. I talk with him.”
The second advantage is the imminent arrival of Christopher Vivell as a technical director who will join Boehly's new recruitment team. Vivell departed Leipzig at the beginning of October and will have good knowledge of Gvardiol and the situation with Chelsea over the past summer.
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