Chelsea want to hold talks with Bayer Leverkusen’s Tim Steidten over their sporting director role after missing out on Red Bull Salzburg’s Christoph Freund, according to the latest reports.
Our chief Chelsea correspondent at football.london Adam Newson recently spoke about the difficulties the club found agreeing a deal for Freund. "Over the weekend, it became apparent that Chelsea had held further talks with Christoph Freund and were very confident they were close to an agreement with him to become their new sporting director. It's a role that's not been filled in a while.
"Todd Boehly filled it for a while. Marina Granovskaia wasn't Chelsea's sporting director, but did oversee transfer business in her role. This was going to be a big hire for Boehly and the new ownership, they were going to be the person that really shaped their vision and make what they want to do a reality in terms of developmental, bringing players through, progression, a clear plan for working towards the future.
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"So it is a big appointment for them. Arguably it's even more of a big appointment than the head coach. They felt they got their man at the weekend, they were confident and expected it to happen and then very quickly, really, it was sort of played down by people at Salzburg, who came out and said there was no agreement with them.
"It was quite clear from early on Sunday when the news came out about Freund and Chelsea coming to an agreement that there wasn't an agreement in place with Salzburg on Chelsea's end. That's where I feel we are now."
Now, after failing in their attempts to bring Freund to the club, Chelsea are said to be turning their attention to Steidten. With that in mind, let's take a look at his professional career.
Steidten spent most of his football career in native Germany. After a brief spell with Werder Bremen's reserve team, he moved to Seattle in 2000, where he made 10 league appearances for Seattle Sounders. In 2004, the defensive midfielder moved to SV Meppen, where he made 38 league appearances, scoring one goal. He finished his playing career in 2009, with lower league outfit Vfl Oldenburg.
In 2019, he took over the role as squad planner at Leverkusen. As per the Guardian, part of Steidten’s appeal to the Blues is that, like Freund, he puts heavy focus on data when it comes to finding players. A potential complication, though, is that he became the Bundesliga side’s sporting director only last summer, stepping up when Simon Rolfes was promoted to managing director of sport.
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