Chelsea and Lyon are continuing direct talks today (Friday) over the signing of right-back Malo Gusto, football.london understands. The Blues are becoming frustrated with the French club's stance over the 19-year-old defender, who has been identified as their No. 1 target this month to offer support to Reece James.
Gusto is someone the west London club have been monitoring for a while, so their interest – that has only become public in the last week or so – is nothing new. The French defender was being looked at during Roman Abramovich's tenure, when there was a completely different recruitment team in place at Chelsea.
Chelsea started talks with Lyon over the weekend for Gusto and came in with an offer, understood to be around €17million (£14.9million), but the French outfit immediately turned that down. Lyon are adamant they will not sell Gusto this month, with Chelsea's late approach not giving them too much time to source a replacement for the young right-back.
