Thomas Tuchel is pushing for Chelsea to sign defender Kalidou Koulibaly from Napoli.
The Blues manager is driving interest in signing the 31-year-old from the Italan club - who value the defender at £33million.
Any deal at that price would break the Premier League record fee for a player over the age of 30. Koulibaly has been offered £8million-a-year to join Chelsea, which would be a substantial pay rise.
The Serie A club are typically difficult to negotiate with but would rather see their prized defensive asset move to west London than to domestic rivals Juventus.
Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly is known to have made contact multiple times with agents around the Senegal international. However, there remains a wait on negotiating fees and contracts around the potential signing.
The talks are not thought to affect a possible move for Manchester City's Nathan Ake. Ake is valued at £45m by the Premier League champions and the Blues are attempting to complete a move for him this week.
It could, however, further reduce Chelsea's chances of signing Juventus defender Matthijs de Ligt who has been in talks with Bayern Munich for some time.
The German side are positive that they have convinced the 22-year-old to join them but remain locked in talks with their Italian counterparts.
Chelsea have further interest in central defenders such as Sevilla's Jules Kounde, Bayern's Dayot Upamecano, and several others after losing two defenders on free transfers.
Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen joined Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively, with Cesar Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso keen on also joining the Catalan club.
The new Boehly-Clearlake ownership group are targeting an ambitious summer and have signed Raheem Sterling from Manchester City already for £47.5m. He will travel to join Chelsea in pre-season on Tuesday night and be unveiled as a new signing soon after.
Further attacking signings are being explored, with AC Milan's Rafael Leao and Serge Gnabry are among the options provisionally being looked at.
