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Chelsea are eyeing up centre-backs and have added the England international John Stones to the list. A potential signing could see Xabi Alonso land the experienced and battle-hardened defender, who is now available on a free transfer, meaning no transfer fee would need to be paid.<\/p>\n
Stones became a free agent in high demand when his ten-year contract with Manchester City came to an end, making him available to a number of teams. The 32-year-old enjoyed a long and successful spell at the Etihad Stadium, making 295 appearances, winning six Premier League titles and lifting the Champions League trophy in 2023. So his is a CV laden with the experience and respectability that Chelsea\u2019s young, inexperienced team has been so notably lacking.<\/p>\n
But interest is still just in the early stages, not very far along. Chelsea are still at the deliberation stage of their pursuit and are not currently in concrete negotiations, suggesting the Blues are simply looking at their options before deciding what to do. It would be a big change to how the club usually recruits players, as they prefer younger players with more potential to be sold later, depending on how the move goes.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, Chelsea aren\u2019t the only club keen on signing the veteran. Arsenal had been linked with Stones before Chelsea\u2019s interest emerged. The Gunners were looking at a move as William Saliba injured himself at the World Cup and could be out for months. If they manage to sign Stones, it will be a second hammer blow for Mikel Arteta\u2019s side, who lost out on their \u00a3117 million chase of Morgan Rogers.<\/p>\n
Chelsea\u2019s long-term defensive overhaul is far from complete<\/h2>\n Stones isn\u2019t the only defender Chelsea are chasing this summer, nor is he their number one target. The Blues still want to sign Crystal Palace centre-back Maxence Lacroix and have him ahead of both Jacobo Ramon and Stones. There\u2019s a world of difference between the two profiles: the Frenchman would cost a lot, while Stones would come up for free.<\/p>\n
It is not hard to see what produced this defensive reconstruction. Chelsea\u2019s defence conceded 52 goals in the Premier League in 2025-26, nearly as bad as even teams like 16th-placed Nottingham Forest. This left them in a disappointing tenth and made unquestionable wholesale reinforcement a must for the new regime.<\/p>\n
Discussions about Lacroix in the boardroom have been swift. Co-owner Behdad Eghbali is said to have met with Palace chairman Steve Parish at a hotel in New York after the World Cup final, and Chelsea have offered in the region of \u20ac65 million, but Palace are standing firm at \u20ac70 million.<\/p>\n\n <\/aside>\n \n\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea are eyeing up centre-backs and have added the England international John Stones to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19980","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\/19980","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=19980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}