{"id":17541,"date":"2026-07-15T09:57:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T09:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=17541"},"modified":"2026-07-15T09:57:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T09:57:34","slug":"chelsea-set-to-sign-malard-from-man-utd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=17541","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea set to sign Malard from Man Utd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Chelsea have agreed a deal to sign Manchester United forward Melvine Malard in a transfer worth around \u00a3850,000.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 26-year-old France international is set to undergo a medical ahead of her move to Stamford Bridge, where she will be reunited with Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor.<\/p>\n<p>Bompastor, the former Lyon boss, previously managed Malard in France and is a known admirer of the versatile attacker, who can play centrally or out wide.<\/p>\n<p>Malard, who registered 19 goal involvements in all competitions last season, told United she wanted to seek a new challenge rather than sign a new contract.<\/p>\n<p>With her current deal expiring next summer, United agreed to the sale rather than lose her for free in 2027.<\/p>\n<p>She is set to become Chelsea\u2019s third arrival of the summer, following the signings of versatile Arsenal defender Katie McCabe and Japanese midfielder Manaka Matsukubo.<\/p>\n<p>Her arrival will help offset the loss of star striker Sam Kerr, who recently left the Blues to join American side Gotham FC.<\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: #1b4f9c; color: white; border-radius: 12px; padding: 16px; display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 12px; font-family: sans-serif; box-shadow: 0 2px 6px rgba(0,0,0,0.1); flex-wrap: nowrap;\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 28px; height: 28px; flex-shrink: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/6\/6b\/WhatsApp.svg\" alt=\"WhatsApp\"\/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Get the latest direct to your phone \u2013 follow West London Sport\u2019s WhatsApp channel<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- \/.commentwrap --><\/p>\n<p><!-- \/themify_builder_content --><\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea have agreed a deal to sign Manchester United forward Melvine Malard in a transfer&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17541","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\/17541","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=17541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}