Rumors this week proclaimed that Chelsea are “preparing to advance” our interest in Maxence Lacroix, Crystal Palace’s France international center back, who predates BlueCo in the Chelsea rumor mill by a whole year, but is now apparently the very top of our defensive reinforcements wishlist.
While previous stories spoke highly of our interest, they did not hazard to put a potential value on the transfer. That gap has now been filled by L’Equipe, who claim that €55m would do it. They are fully “expecting” the transfer to happen after the World Cup, and seeing it as the right reward for a player who has been steadily improving and growing in stature over the past several years.
Lacroix has indeed been a key player and vocal leader for Palace since joining them from Wolfsburg a couple years ago, and at age 26 with a couple trophies at home, too, he’s more experienced than the usual transfer fare for BlueCo. He started and played well in France’s last group game, a 4-1 win over Norway, to earn his fifth cap.