{"id":6294,"date":"2026-05-09T06:02:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T06:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=6294"},"modified":"2026-05-09T06:02:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T06:02:04","slug":"fresh-twist-as-chelsea-make-decision-on-43m-rated-german-starlet-who-wants-pl-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=6294","title":{"rendered":"Fresh Twist As Chelsea Make Decision On \u00a343M Rated German Starlet Who Wants PL Move"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<article>\n<p><strong>Chelsea are \u201ccurrently not in the race\u201d to sign FC Cologne winger Said El Mala, according to <em>Sky Germany<\/em> reporter Florian Plettenberg.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Posting on his X account, Plettenberg said that the 19-year-old is keen on joining a Premier League club this summer, but the Blues are not looking to make a move for the player at the moment:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFC Koln still want up to \u20ac50m for Said El Mala. Brighton are waiting in the background. FC Bayern are out at that price. Chelsea are currently not in the race despite reports.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEl Mala would back himself to make the move to the Premier League in the summer. Nothing has been decided yet, though. His focus right now is participation at the World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Why are Cologne demanding so much for El Mala?<\/h2>\n<p>\u20ac50m (\u00a343m) is a lot of money for a teenager who has only one year of top-flight football under his belt.<\/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>However, El Mala has made a big impression in his first Bundesliga campaign, scoring 12 goals and providing 5 assists in 32 appearances. That is especially impressive when you consider that Cologne have been struggling to avoid relegation for most of the season.<\/p>\n<h2>Chelsea may be waiting to appoint a new head coach first<\/h2>\n<p><smartframe-embed customer-id=\"0fab81ce12e48a0794275e1d82449fb1\" image-id=\"1071085055\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 100%;\"\/><!-- https:\/\/smartframe.io\/embedding-support --><br \/>The Blues are currently without a permanent manager, and that may have played a role in the club hesitating to make an offer for El Mala.<\/p>\n<p>In the past, sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Lawrence Stewart may well have sanctioned a bid regardless of the managerial situation, but things are different this time around.<\/p>\n<p>One of the main candidates, Xabi Alonso, is <strong>reportedly<\/strong> keen on getting more say on transfer targets, and if the Blues do decide to hand over some power to their next manager, they can\u2019t be making new signings while such talks are ongoing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read more about the Chelsea First Team Squad for 2025\/26 here<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/article><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea are \u201ccurrently not in the race\u201d to sign FC Cologne winger Said El Mala,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6294","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\/6294","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=6294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}