Chelsea are looking to make a transfer window splash on their return to the Champions League
After providing more England players than any other team at Euro 2024, Crystal Palace are one of the teams to watch this summer for a different reason with three of those Lions the centre of major speculation this transfer window: Eberechi Eze, Adam Wharton and Marc Guehi.
As is seemingly the case every season, Chelsea are looking to overhaul the spine of their team having already brought in Liam Delap and been heavily linked with Mike Maignan in a bizarre transfer saga that now appears dead in the water.
Winger has also been an area of interest for Enzo Maresca with Borussia Dortmund rejecting two bids of €35m and €50m (£30m and £42m) for Jamie Gittens according to Fabrizio Romano, as the deal is at least on hold until after the Club World Cup if not also sleeping with the fishes.
That could force the Blues to turn their attention elsewhere and with two years remaining on his contract, Eze could be the perfect addition to the Blues’ attack - if they can prise him away from Palace. But Enzo Maresca may already possess a secret weapon for that in the form of Trevoh Chalobah.
Eberechi Eze, not Jamie Gittens or Alejandro Garnacho, is the best fit for Chelsea attack
There’s no denying that Gittens is an absolute menace with the ball at his feet - in the top 1% for successful take-ons among wingers and attacking midfielders in Europe’s top five leagues this year, the Englishman strikes fear into the hearts of opposition defenders - and he’s a deadly goal threat.
Gittens outperformed his expected goals by +0.23 per 90 minutes last season meaning he effectively conjures a score out of absolutely nothing once every four games (again in the 99th percentile for similar players) but those 12 goals from the wing in all competitions combine with an exceptionally poor assist record of just five in the campaign.
Fellow target Alejandro Garnacho is a similar profile if slightly more well-rounded, as he was in the top 8% of Premier League players in his position for progressive carries and total shots in his stellar 2023/24 season and scored almost half as many goals as he assisted.
The issue is that Noni Madueke already exists in the Chelsea frontline as a winger who’s absolutely fantastic at beating a man and scoring as a result, but doesn’t create nearly as many opportunities for the players around him - boasting a goals:assists ratio of 11:5 in 2024/25.
Maresca balanced Madueke’s goal threat with the more generous Pedro Neto in 22 of the Englishman’s 32 Premier League appearances last season and that’s the profile of player he should be targeting this summer, as the 25-year-old made nine assists to six goals in 2024/25.
With a reported release clause of £68m, Eze perfectly fits the bill. He was joint-tenth in the Premier League assist charts this season creating eight goals for Crystal Palace (and scoring the same number) in the services of Jean-Philippe Mateta - a striker not dissimilar to Delap.
The asking price is high and the Eagles would drive a hard bargain but cashing in on Eze while they still can would unlock some enticing options this window while the player would have the chance to push for a starting berth for England if he can dovetail well with Delap, Madueke and Cole Palmer as Thomas Tuchel’s left-wing berth is very much up for grabs.
Trevoh Chalobah fills Marc Guehi hole for Palace
Born in the same region of Africa just a year apart, moving to similar areas of London at around the same age and both scouted by Chelsea youth ranks, Chalobah and Guehi have had eerily similar paths to the big stage and possess almost identical playing styles to boot. Yet despite all the echoes, before Chalobah’s loan move to Selhurst Park the pair had played just 835 minutes together in nine seasons, for England U20s and U21s, and Chelsea U18s.
And they now seem set to pass like ships in the night again with Guehi’s expected departure - but Chalobah remains the ideal replacement. Despite sturdy statures, neither player is renowned for their physicality and each win only around half their aerial duels, but compensate with underrated mobility and technical ability with the ball at their feet.
Meanwhile Chelsea have the familiar problem of being flush with centre-backs while not trusting many of them to get the job done in the starting XI.
Levi Colwill and Tosin Adarabioyo started on the final day of the season while Benoit Badiashile, Wesley Fofana, Axel Disasi, Aaron Anselmino and the versatile Josh Acheampong are alternative centre-back options and Maresca has just completed the £12m signing of Mamadou Sarr from feeder club Strasbourg.
So they’re unlikely to miss Chalobah who enjoyed a very successful start to his loan spell at Palace before he was recalled in January, and as an academy graduate he would be booked as pure profit for the Blues giving them plenty of PSR scope to blow money on players like Enzo Fernandez, Mykhailo Mudryk and Robert Sanchez.
Chelsea slapped a £40m price tag on the 25-year-old at the time and he did start most of Chelsea’s remaining Premier League games (and the Conference League final) but delivered only five clean sheets in the remainder of the top flight season, one against Leicester.
So that valuation probably hasn’t risen too much despite three years still remaining on Chalobah’s deal, meaning a swap deal plus a £25-30m sweetener for the Eagles would net them a heavily discounted Premier League superstar and lock in a tasty return on a home-grown player. Meanwhile Crystal Palace would fill a major hole and get a tidy amount to target the next Eberechi Eze who could test himself in the Champions League - a win-win-win-win.
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