Chelsea ‘will accept offers’ for five players as medical is confirmed for seventh signing

Chelsea are ready to accept offers for five players as a deal for Maxence Lacroix could trigger a mass exodus at Stamford Bridge, according to reports.

The Blues finished tenth in the Premier League last term as Chelsea sacked Enzo Maresca and Liam Rosenior in a turbulent campaign in west London.

Chelsea have only lost one of their big hitters this summer with Marc Cucurella joining Real Madrid, although there are rumours that Enzo Fernandez could follow the Spaniard out of the door.

Players like Joao Pedro and Cole Palmer are completely off limits to any suitors this summer, while Chelsea have invested a large amount of money already this summer with six signings official.

Geovany Quenda, Denner, Dastan Satpaev, Emmanuel Emegha, Marco Palestra and Morgan Rogers have all arrived at Stamford Bridge this summer as Xabi Alonso looks to rework his squad.

And they are about to make it signing number seven in the coming days after Crystal Palace defender Lacroix completed his medical on Saturday.

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Fabrizio Romano revealed on X: ‘Maxence Lacroix completed his medical in London as new Chelsea player. Clubs exchanging documents for £52m deal completed this week.’

And now Football Insider are claiming that Chelsea ‘have let intermediaries know they will accept offers this summer’ for Benoit Badiashile, Tosin Adarabioyo, Wesley Fofana, Trevoh Chalobah and Mamadou Sarr.

Chelsea are keen to be left with Lacroix, Josh Acheampong, Axel Disasi and Levi Colwill as their four main centre-backs with the Blues completely overstocked in that department.

Chelsea’s wage bill is ‘out of control’

Former Manchester City financial adviser Stefan Borson insists BlueCo’s strategy in the transfer market at Chelsea “is to probably over-purchase and then to sell where you can.”

Borson told Football Insider: “Commercially, it’s disappointing, what they’ve done. They’ve done okay considering they’ve got no principal front-of-shirt sponsor.

READ: Rogers to Chelsea only the third-biggest Premier League overpay so far this summer

“But there’s a limit to what else they can do until they can get that major sponsor on board. It’s capped out at the £200m-mark. So they don’t have many levers to play with from a business perspective.

“Then you look at costs. Well, the wage bill has historically been very high. They keep talking about bringing it down.

“But if you keep bringing in players in the way that they they do, that kind of a strategy is to probably over-purchase and then to sell where you can.

“That’s not going to keep your wage bill under control. It’s also going to give you a big bill for agent fees.

“So if you’ve got loads and loads of transactions in and out, even if they’re fringe players, all of those deals have lots and lots of ancillary costs.

“It’s agent fees, salaries, all these sorts of things, solidarity costs. So it’s an expensive business buying and selling footballers.”

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