Jules Kounde looks like he may be finally set to seal a move to Chelsea with his time at Sevilla coming to a close.
The 23-year-old is finally set to get his long-awaited new challenge as the Blues finally decide to reignite their interest in the Frenchman as Presnel Kimpembe negotiations draw on. football.london understands that talks on Wednesday are expected to further advance as a £50million fee could be settled upon between the two parties with personal terms done a long-time ago.
Although Barcelona are still in the running, the expectation is that the Catalan giants may not be able to get a deal done in time to beat Chelsea to his signature.
READ MORE: Bayern Munich boss warns Chelsea of Jules Kounde transfer repeat with Barcelona
So, it's now full steam ahead for Kounde to Chelsea with Sevilla reportedly setting Thursday as the final deadline for a move as the Spanish club want a resolution before they board the plane to Portugal for their pre-season schedule.
And Julen Lopetegui has done something revealing that hints at movement on the deal for Sevilla's No.23. This is because as per @InfoSevillismo, Lopetegui told local media: "Kounde arrived at the Ciudad Deportiva of Sevilla FC on Wednesday morning but has not trained with his teammates. Departure is imminent."
In the unlikely case that negotiations were to breakdown for either of Kounde or Kimpembe, the Evening Standard have reported that RB Leipzig's Josko Gvardiol will be pursued actively by Todd Boehly as he looks to fulfil Tuchel's plans for three new defenders with Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen already leaving, and Marcos Alonso and Cesar Azpilicueta expected to follow.
"I have a figure I think we need a couple more players in to improve the squad," Tuchel said on the transfer situation. "We were third last season.
"We cannot discuss the reason forever but there was a gap between us Manchester City and Liverpool. I think in general if you want to keep your position if you want to fight for the same position you need to improve you cannot stand still.
"If you stand still other teams will overtake you. Given the position that we even lost players its common sense that we need to bring new quality to the team to maintain our level. Not even speaking about improving our level, so this is the situation where we are right now.
"It's the dream of any manager that you find players in your own league, that can adapt very quickly. But it's an individual process. Of course, we see that Raheem knows many players from the national team and he is very familiar with the habits in English clubs. This is nice to see.
"For Kalidou, it's a big help we have some French guys, that we have Edou (Mendy), his teammate from the national team, and Jorgi who is a big help from Napoli. It makes the process of integration faster because this is huge and both of them should be huge players for us. This is why we need to speed things up."
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