Todd Boehly has been reassured that Chelsea did not overpay for the signing of Wesley Fofana. The 21-year-old, who penned a seven-year deal in west London this summer, swapped the King Power Stadium for Stamford Bridge in a deal which is said to have cost the Blues in the region of £70million.
After just two training sessions, Thomas Tuchel threw the Frenchman in the deep end and handed him his debut for Chelsea against West Ham. The former Leicester City defender impressed and Pat Nevin is certain that Fofana will be the difference between Champions League and Europa League qualification this season.
Speaking to Grosvenor Sport, the former Blues forward defended the fee paid for the youngster, claiming that he is pivotal to Thomas Tuchel's side. Nevin said: "If you sign Wesley Fofana for £75million and keep him for the next 10 years - that works out at £10million per year, which is actually really cheap.
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"If Chelsea really needed Fofana - which they did - then the fee they paid is absolutely the right number and if they hadn't signed him this season then I don't think they would've finished in the top four. They wouldn't have had the quality."
Nevin isn't just the only person that Fofana has impressed since joining Chelsea. His quality has taken new teammate Ben Chilwell by storm too.
Speaking to talkSPORT, the 25-year-old left-back labelled the centre-back's debut performance versus West Ham as 'brilliant'. Chilwell said: "Massive kudos to Wes. He's only just come in, he's trained with us twice.
"We are very happy that we stayed patient, super happy that Todd [Boehly] was relentless on it and never gave up. We managed to fulfil this transfer. Wesley is young, he's fast, he's very, very strong in set-pieces, defending and attacking. He was one of the very early targets to replace our guys that left the club."
Fofana and Chilwell could lineup alongside one another again tonight as Chelsea prepare to face Dinamo Zagreb in a Champions League group stage opener. And, if Nevin is correct, then the Frenchman will have no trouble in guiding the Blues to a win.
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