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Manchester United have reportedly “stepped up talks” with Chelsea over a potential deal to sign Ben Chilwell.
Chilwell, 27, has firmly fallen down the pecking order under new Blues boss Enzo Maresca with the London club actively seeking to sell the fullback before Friday night’s deadline.
United’s continued issues on the left side of defence, with both of Erik ten Hag’s senior left-backs (Luke Shaw and Tyrell Malacia) currently unavailable through injury, has led Old Trafford executives to “explore the option of whether a deal can be done for Chilwell.”
The former Leicester City defender has been linked with a move to United all summer but it’s only in the past few days have concrete reports emerged over a potential switch.
United and Chelsea have been locked in talks this week over deals for Jadon Sancho and Raheem Sterling. Both clubs are keen to shift their respective English wingers given their considerable wage packets and their manager’s disfavour of them.
Miguel Delaney (The Independent) reveals club executives have been in “constant negotiation over the last two days”, with a deal involving Chilwell emerging as “separate” to one involving Sancho and Sterling. The reporter describes how the “numbers are still some way off” given the left-back’s “high wage at Chelsea”.
United have made a concerted effort to reduce the wage bill at Old Trafford this summer with expensive contracts for Raphael Varane and Anthony Martial allowed to expire, while a host of squad players and academy graduates have also departed the club on permanent deals.
It feels unlikely the recruitment team would use this increased budget to then sanction a move for an out-of-favour defender at a rival club on wages of £200,000 a week, particularly one with the injury issues which have plagued Chilwell in recent years.
However, if a loan deal could be struck, involving Chelsea paying a portion of their defender’s wage packet, this may pique United’s interest given the ongoing injury problems of their own left-backs.
Malacia has not played a single match in 15 months while Shaw is currently ruled out with a calf injury. His return will come in September but the England international’s inability to stay fit means he is more likely to be ruled out again then he is to stay fit.
An exchange of loan deals, which would see Chilwell arrive and Sancho head in the other direction, could be one option, with Delaney describing how “there is a possibility that each club takes the other’s player on loan this season – Chilwell going to United, Sancho to Stamford Bridge – with a deal struck on wages.”
However, while it would be a boost to see Sancho depart Old Trafford given the negativity his continued presence at the club generates, the idea of United’s left-back woes being cured by yet another injury-prone defender appears fanciful at best, and outright delusional at worst.
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