Chelsea have received a third bid for Wesley Fofana potentially worth around £70m from Leicester City and indicated they are willing to pay up to £60m to secure Everton’s Anthony Gordon.
Thomas Tuchel has made Fofana his No.1 defensive target and Chelsea could return with a fourth bid before the sides meet at Stamford Bridge on Saturday. Fofana was dropped for Leicester’s defeat to Southampton last Saturday, after which Rodgers admitted the player was “not quite in the right frame of mind” to feature.
Meanwhile, Chelsea have reopened negotiations with Everton over Gordon after their bid of around £45m was rejected last week. They are understood to be willing to pay up to £60million, including significant add-ons, for the England Under-21 international, although Frank Lampard is a huge fan of the boyhood Evertonian, as the player and personality, and wants to build around Gordon. instead of charging the academy graduate.
Fofana, who has announced his desire to leave Chelsea, missed a training session last week and trained alone on another day. “The club have invested in him and in his time here he has been absolutely brilliant,” said Rodgers. “But you have to set a standard of behavior and if it’s not quite right and your approach isn’t right, that just hurts your teammate.”
Chelsea are in talks with Internazionale over the transfer of centre-back Trevoh Chalobah, while Spezia have requested Ethan Ampadu on loan. Fofana has been a revelation since joining from St-Étienne in a £36.5m deal two years ago, although his impact was limited last season after breaking his leg in the preseason Leicester are demanding a bigger fee than they received for Harry Maguire, who was sold to Manchester United for £80m. Rodgers said last weekend: “I’ve been in these situations before. My experience helps at times.”
Leicester’s only recent signing has been goalkeeper Alex Smithies, a free agent after leaving Cardiff. Rodgers had numerous signings lined up this summer but has been unable to make additions as the club try to balance the books. Leicester have a bloated squad and were hoping to offload fringe players such as Jannik Vestergaard and Boubakary Soumare, both of whom joined the club last summer, in order to fund new signings given fair play financial limits.