{"id":16747,"date":"2026-07-12T18:03:42","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T18:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=16747"},"modified":"2026-07-12T18:03:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T18:03:42","slug":"chelsea-have-their-eyes-on-signing-18-year-old-defender-who-already-has-2-senior-caps-for-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=16747","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea &#8216;Have Their Eyes&#8217; On Signing 18 Year Old Defender Who Already Has 2 Senior Caps For Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<article>\n<p><strong>Chelsea could make a second raid on Atalanta this summer by making a move for centre-back Honest Ahanor, according to reports in the Italian media<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Tuttomercatoweb (TMW)<\/em> claim that the Blues \u201chave their eyes\u201d on the teenager, who had a breakout season after joining Atalanta from Genoa last year.<\/p>\n<p>Ahanor made 35 appearances in all competitions, with 19 starts in total, despite the fact that he only turned 18 back in February.<\/p>\n<p>His performances have been sufficiently impressive for him to get called up by Italy\u2019s senior side.<\/p>\n<p>Ahanor received his first cap after making a cameo appearance in the 1-0 friendly win against Luxembourg early last month. He then played the first half versus Greece in another friendly a few days later.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sra_unit\"><link rel=\"stylesheet\" id=\"block-sra\" href=\"https:\/\/chelseanews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/snack-related-articles\/dist\/css\/snack-related.min.css?230424-120159\" type=\"text\/css\" media=\"all\"\/>\n<aside class=\"sra-group sra-related-list\">\n<h2 class=\"sra-group-head\">Most Read on Chelsea News<\/h2>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Would Atalanta sell him after sanctioning Palestra\u2019s move?<\/h2>\n<p><smartframe-embed customer-id=\"a61405551f80e72f675225f083759bb9\" v=\"f216f6d5d0b6ef819f6e02bf8357cefd\" image-id=\"fwuQdp1wtA0f\" theme=\"iy-theme\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; aspect-ratio: 1.5; max-width: 6000px;\"\/><!-- https:\/\/smartframe.io\/embedding-support --><br \/>Having already allowed another young defender, Marco Palestra, to make the switch to Stamford Bridge, it would be a surprise if the Serie A side were prepared to let Ahanor go too.<\/p>\n<p>Xabi Alonso\u2019s side are not his only suitors, with <em>TMW<\/em> also mentioning Brighton as a potential destination, so it is unlikely that the young centre-half will be available for a low price, with there also being competition for his signature.<\/p>\n<h2>Chelsea want a leader at the back<\/h2>\n<p>Alonso is keen to bring in reinforcements for the centre of defence, but the Blues are believed to be focusing on recruiting more senior players.<\/p>\n<p>Crystal Palace\u2019s <strong>Maxence Lacroix<\/strong> is regarded as the top target. At the time of writing, a formal offer has still not been lodged for the France international, but he remains the priority.<\/p>\n<p>Como\u2019s Jacobo Ramon is thought to be the backup option. The Spaniard worked under Alonso in Real Madrid\u2019s academy several years ago.<\/p>\n<p>At 21 years of age, though, he is only slightly more experienced than Ahanor, which would raise questions about his suitability if he is pursued instead of Lacroix.<\/p>\n<\/article><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea could make a second raid on Atalanta this summer by making a move for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}