{"id":18440,"date":"2026-07-18T08:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T08:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=18440"},"modified":"2026-07-18T08:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T08:14:10","slug":"chelsea-face-arsenal-competition-for-maxence-lacroix-transfer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=18440","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea face Arsenal competition for Maxence Lacroix transfer"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Maxence Lacroix in action for France against Spain in the World Cup semi-final (Photo by Florencia Tan Jun\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

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Sources have given me an update on Chelsea\u2019s pursuit of Maxence Lacroix, with Arsenal and other clubs also possibly set to enter the equation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Crucially, there has been a lack of progress on the Blues\u2019 pursuit of Lacroix despite ongoing efforts to bring him to Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n

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My understanding after conversations with well-connected figures in the agents industry, is that Lacroix is keen on the move to Chelsea, and they\u2019ve made him their top defensive target.<\/p>\n

However, the issue seems to be at Crystal Palace\u2019s end, as they\u2019ve now ramped up the France international\u2019s asking price from around \u20ac55m to more like \u20ac65-70m.<\/p>\n

Crystal Palace hoping for Maxence Lacroix bidding war<\/h2>\n

My suspicion here is that Palace would prefer a bidding war for Lacroix, so it\u2019s in their interests to drag this out a bit, and see if they can get more money for the player after his participation at the World Cup 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cChelsea have made Lacroix their priority and efforts are still ongoing to get a deal done,\u201d one source said. \u201cPalace won\u2019t make it easy, though, and their initial asking price of \u20ac55m has risen now quite substantially.<\/p>\n

\u201cPalace are aware of other clubs circling. Arsenal have been monitoring his situation and they\u2019re now stepping up their interest in a new centre-back following William Saliba\u2019s injury. Look out for Liverpool, Manchester United, and Manchester City as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Could Arsenal beat Chelsea to Maxence Lacroix transfer?<\/h2>\n

Arsenal are also looking at Ezri Konsa, as we informed you in our report yesterday, while West Ham\u2019s Konstantinos Mavropanos has also been considered.<\/p>\n

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Lacroix certainly looks like another option, though, and the Gunners will no doubt feel a great deal of satisfaction if they can beat rivals Chelsea to his signature.<\/p>\n

For now, the feeling is still that CFC are leading the race, but it\u2019s certainly not advancing as quickly as they would like, and that could let AFC and others back in.<\/p>\n

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Maxence Lacroix in action for France against Spain in the World Cup semi-final (Photo by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18440","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\/18440","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=18440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}