\n<\/p>\n
Chelsea have joined Arsenal in the race to sign John Stones. <\/p>\n
According to The Athletic, the Blues have included the England international to their list of summer targets. <\/p>\n
Chelsea want to add more ready-made players to the squad and Stones fit their requirements. <\/p>\n
The West London club are receptive to offers for Axel Disasi and Trevoh Chalobah as they look to revamp their defence for next season. <\/p>\n
They have made an official enquiry for Crystal Palace\u2019s Maxence Lacroix, but the financial costs for a deal could be a major stumbling block. <\/p>\n
Palace want \u00a355m to sanction a sale, and Chelsea\u2019s valuation is below that figure. <\/p>\n
Xabi Alonso\u2019s side could bring in two centre-backs this summer depending on exits. <\/p>\n
Arsenal are in the market for a new defender after William Saliba\u2019s serious injury while playing for France at the World Cup. <\/p>\n
The 25-year-old is yet to be assessed by the Gunners, but there are fears he could be out for four to five months. <\/p>\n
Mikel Arteta\u2019s side have been heavily linked with Stones as a stop-gap solution to Saliba\u2019s injury. <\/p>\n
The 32-year-old is available to sign on a free transfer after his contract with Manchester City expired last month. <\/p>\n
Stones left City as one of the most decorated defenders in the club\u2019s modern history. <\/p>\n
He made 295 appearances across all competitions, helping his side win six Premier League titles and the Champions League trophy in 2023. <\/p>\n
Stats from Transfermarkt<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chelsea have joined Arsenal in the race to sign John Stones. According to The Athletic,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19595","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\/19595","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=19595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}