Chelsea are pushing to take their summer spending to £300million after lodging a bid for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
The Blues have made an offer of £15m plus Marcos Alonso for Aubameyang, while they remain intent on signing Wesley Fofana and Anthony Gordon.
Yesterday’s 3-0 defeat at Leeds underlined the need for more arrivals and Chelsea are now ready to step up their bid to strengthen their squad before the window closes. Aubameyang has been reluctant to leave Barcelona but Chelsea met his representatives last week in a bid to convince the former Arsenal striker to move to Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea have had two bids rejected for Fofana and will need to make the 21-year-old the most expensive defender in the world to sign him from Leicester, who want more than £80m.
Fofana is keen to move to Stamford Bridge and was left out of the Leicester squad on Saturday because Brendan Rodgers did not think he was in the right frame of mind to play.
Everton winger Gordon remains keen on joining Chelsea. The Blues had a £45m bid for the England Under-21 international rejected last week. Everton do not want to lose Gordon but Frank Lampard has admitted he cannot offer assurances the 21-year-old will stay at Goodison Park.
Should Chelsea sign Aubameyang, Fofana and Gordon during the remaining 10 days of the summer window, they will break the record for a transfer spend in a single summer, having already splashed out £170m.
New owners Todd Boehly and Clearlake believe they need to spend to compete with Manchester City and Liverpool. They are backing Thomas Tuchel, who has had initial talks about extending his contract beyond 2024.
Tuchel said yesterday: “The transfer period is still open and it gets later and later and we need to focus on what we have and what we can do.”
