Having dealt with Sevilla for the past two summers and not had the greatest time, Chelsea fans would be understandably sceptical in forming early preconceptions on their chase for a new director of football.
Having been close with Christoph Freund, football.london understands a verbal agreement was in place between the two parties before a U-turn saw the sporting director remain at RB Salzburg, and efforts to lure Michael Edwards away from his break being unsuccessful, Todd Boehly is being frustrated once more.
Chelsea do still hold interest in a number of other figures that could act in the director of football or sporting director role, including Tim Steidten of Bayer Leverkusen and Victor Orta at Leeds.
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The latest name in the hat, one surely big enough for a magician to pull several birds from given the amount of candidates, is Sevilla's influential director Monchi.
The former goalkeeper is reportedly in the mix according to 90min, but he, like Freund and other names, could yet be put off by the holistic approach taken by Boehly. By this, it is that in order to create a fully functioning and operational sporting department at the club - having thrown the baby, the bath water and the rubber ducks out in the summer refurb of the bathroom - Chelsea are keen to get as many eyes on their project as possible.
Be it with several advisors or one main director pulling the strings with advisory positions in constant flux, nobody knows yet and it will be hard to predict what may happen. Anyway, Boehly is being active and creative in his new direction for the club that is based on creating a long-term, sustainable club.
Here, football.london looks at why Boehly is such a fan of the Sevilla director.
Having been part of the Jules Kounde transfer saga with Chelsea, Monchi is perhaps not the most liked man for Blues fans, but when looking at his record for Sevilla and Roma - where he spent two years between 2017 and 2019 - the attraction is obvious.
After playing for the club over nine years Monchi has a wealth of experience having been a director for 22 years since, including 16 straight overseeing Sevilla's progress where they won 11 trophies. In this original stint he was the sporting director involved in decisions to promote Sergio Ramos, Jesus Navas and Jose Antonio Reyes. More recently Luis Alberto and Alberto Moreno have come through the club.
Having brought Ramos and Reyes through the club's academy the pair were sold for a combined £44m in the early 2000s, this for two players both aged 19. Monchi was also at Sevilla as they signed Dani Alves for less than £1m, selling him for £32m less five years later.
Ivan Rakitic was signed by Sevilla for less than £3m before being sold for £16m three years later, he would go on to be a World Cup finalist and Champions League winner. Between sales for Adriano (signed for £2m and sold for £18m), Dani Alves, Júlio Baptista (sold for nine times the price paid for him just two years after joining), Federico Fazio, Seydou Keita and Rakitić, Sevilla made more than £180m worth of profit, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
In his two year spell at Roma there were breakthroughs for Patrik Schick, Justin Kluivert and Nicolò Zaniolo whilst the Italians made more than £230m from selling Mohammed Salah, Antonio Rudiger, Leandro Paredes, Allison, Radja Nainggolan, Kevin Strootman and Kostas Manolas.
It maybe isn't the same as Freund's list which included Dayot Upamecano, Sadio Mane and Erling Haaland, but Monchi has his own impressive portfolio of success stories to tempt Chelsea. Just in case the names above weren't good enough, having spent £45m on Alvaro Negredo, Gary Medel, Geoffrey Kondogbia, Vincente Iborra, Kevin Gamiero, Carlos Bacca, Vitolo, Grzegorz Krychowiak and Aleix Vidal, Monchi made £188m in return.
The task at Chelsea will admittedly be different with the aim to be selling less players but being behind deals that resulted in such successful transactions whilst having relative European and domestic success is a sign of good things.
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