{"id":19599,"date":"2026-07-21T13:46:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T13:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=19599"},"modified":"2026-07-21T13:46:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T13:46:45","slug":"might-be-another-thiago-silva-has-everyone-gone-mad-chelsea-fans-discuss-move-for-free-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=19599","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Might Be Another Thiago Silva&#8217; &#8216;Has Everyone Gone Mad?&#8217; Chelsea Fans Discuss Move For Free Agent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p><strong>Chelsea have \u201cadded\u201d John Stones to their list of centre-back targets, according to reports.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The Athletic<\/em> claim that the 32-year-old could make the switch to Stamford Bridge on a free transfer after leaving Man City at the end of last month.<\/p>\n<p>Manager Xabi Alonso is keen to bring in more experience to the first-team squad. He reportedly wants more \u201cready-made\u201d players, and Stones is seen as a good fit.<\/p>\n<p>Supporters on X are very much split on whether Stones would be a good addition, with some raising concerns about his fitness record:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This might be another Thiago Silva, go for him<\/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<p>\u2014 Jonah_17\ud83c\udd92\u2728 (@OJonah1371) July 21, 2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">He&#8217;s injury prone, has everyone gone mad??<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Whoami\ud83e\udee7 (@ashh_bones) July 21, 2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Lacroix and Stones. Yeah I like it.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ed (@BornBredChelski) July 21, 2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">He would be a great character in the medical room<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Eng. arch. Quizzmo (@Quizzmo2) July 21, 2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Still only 32. Would add great cover and experience.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ian Kimber (@kimber74073) July 21, 2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">No more sick notes please!<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Paul Newton (@pauldgnewton) July 21, 2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2>Stones could be used as a rotation option<\/h2>\n<p>The Blues are not exactly short of centre-halves. Even if the likes of Trevoh Chalobah, Benoit Badiashile and Axel Disasi are offloaded over the coming weeks, Alonso still has plenty of depth in that position.<\/p>\n<p>Levi Colwill, Wesley Fofana, Tosin Adarabioyo, Mamadou Sarr and Aaron Anselmino are all available, while Jorrel Hato can also be deployed there, especially in a back three.<\/p>\n<p>For that reason, Stones\u2019 fitness should not be a massive concern. There is no European football, and if the club also land <strong>top centre-back target Maxence Lacroix<\/strong>Stones won\u2019t be needed every week.<\/p>\n<h2>Chelsea could have competition for the defender<\/h2>\n<p><smartframe-embed customer-id=\"b0c95bc04383cef69c6b47df872135cf\" v=\"f216f6d5d0b6ef819f6e02bf8357cefd\" image-id=\"WmOBR4p8DaTS\" theme=\"iy-theme\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; aspect-ratio: 1.5; max-width: 6000px;\"\/><!-- https:\/\/smartframe.io\/embedding-support --><br \/>It is believed that Arsenal are also weighing up a move for the England international. The Premier League champions have recently been dealt a major injury setback, with William Saliba expected to be sidelined for several months with a back problem.<\/p>\n<p>The Gunners need short-term cover, and Stones is one of the names under consideration. Having gone head-to-head for Rogers, there is a good chance that the two London clubs could battle it out for another target. Alonso proved to be the key in getting the move for the Aston Villa forward over the line, so we shall see if he can be the difference again with Stones.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea have \u201cadded\u201d John Stones to their list of centre-back targets, according to reports. The&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19599","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\/19599","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=19599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}