{"id":18452,"date":"2026-07-18T09:08:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T09:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=18452"},"modified":"2026-07-18T09:08:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T09:08:33","slug":"blues-hesitate-to-pay-e70m-for-defensive-target","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=18452","title":{"rendered":"Blues hesitate to pay \u20ac70m for defensive target"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n\t\t\t<!-- Article Start --><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Chelsea transfer news: The Blues have made\u00a0Crystal Palace\u00a0centre-back Maxence Lacroix their absolute prime target to fix a leaky defensive line. Xabi Alonso wants him. The player wants the move. According to a fresh report from\u00a0Transfer Feed, the Stamford Bridge hierarchy is actively trying to breathe life into a summer rebuild by bringing the 26-year-old Frenchman across the capital. It has injected immediate drama into a window that was starting to look a bit stagnant. But there is a problem. Negotiations are stalling, and the hierarchy in West London is getting jittery. Palace are digging their heels in.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Chelsea transfer news: South London star Maxence Lacroix wanted<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They know what they have. The Selhurst Park executives have kicked their initial \u20ac55m valuation into touch, now demanding a hefty \u20ac65-70m. They are well aware that rival European scouts are sniffing around the dynamic centre-half. A bidding war suits them perfectly. Lacroix was colossal last term. He racked up 35 Premier League appearances, chipped in with a goal and two assists, and clocked over 3,000 minutes on the pitch. Add another 1,035 minutes in the UEFA Conference League, where he anchored the backline all the way to lifting the trophy. Stalling tactics risk everything<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Delaying this gives rival suitors a massive window of opportunity. While Chelsea dither over the extra cash, the door stands wide open for European heavyweights to hijack the deal. Alonso desperately needs elite enforcers. 52 league goals conceded last season tells its own story. Lacroix, fresh from a World Cup semi-final run against Spain with France, has the recovery pace and physical presence to transform this backline.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">VF\u2019s take:<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Chelsea just need to pay the premium. Lacroix completely transformed Palace last year. Letting a priority target slip through the fingers over a \u20ac15m valuation gap is a terrible strategy. It is the same old hesitation we see every summer, and it usually ends with another club stealing the prize.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<!-- Article End --><\/p>\n<div class=\"c-author\">\n<div class=\"c-author__avatar\">\n        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/aacadf3e95bfb01ce13b429dee6bd0a5e90e6507900d73b4a9224a6381a644be?s=75&amp;d=mm&amp;r=g\" width=\"75\" height=\"75\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-author__thumb\" alt=\"Photo of Rohit Sarkar\"\/>\n    <\/div>\n<h3 class=\"c-author__name\">Rohit Sarkar<\/h3>\n<div class=\"c-author__bio\">\n<p>Rohit Sarkar is a passionate writer with a deep love for multiple sports, but his favourites are football and cricket. Since 2017, he has been covering football and cricket news with a keen eye for detail and compelling storytelling. He is a fan of the beautiful game and a specialist\u2026<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p> <!-- \/\/c-author --><\/p>\n<p> <!-- \/\/c-share --><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t    <!-- Begin Tabola Creative --><\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea transfer news: The Blues have made\u00a0Crystal Palace\u00a0centre-back Maxence Lacroix their absolute prime target to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18452","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\/18452","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=18452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}