Chelsea ‘express interest’ in signing Leicester City midfielder Kieran Dewsbury-Hall

Chelsea’s supposedly head coach-agnostic transfer policy is about to be put to the test, with The Athletic reporting today that they have approached Leicester City about signing midfielder Kieran Dewsbury-Hall. The 25-year-old was a key part of Enzo Maresca’s tactics at Leicester and is likely to be targeted for a similar role at Chelsea now that Maresca has taken over from Mauricio Pochettino.

Of course, we’ve already spent over £200m in the last two years on a pair of midfielders around whom we’ve set out to build this squad for the next decade – not to mention everyone else who’s joined recently for no small expense, including the likes of Roméo Lavia and Lesley Ugochukwu — so adding a specialist midfielder specifically to suit the current coach’s whims seems to be in direct opposition to those intentions.

That said, Dewsbury-Hall are said to be “keen” on a potential move, although “no formal offer” has yet been made. The report does not speculate on a potential transfer fee, but with three years on the contract, it would not be small. The rumored valuation last year was £30m, and that was before his excellent season in winning the Championship and promotion to the Premier League under Maresca.

(The obvious corollary to this move, both financially and conceptually, would unfortunately be the departure of Connor Gallagher.)