Chelsea still willing to do business for midfielder – but Ligue 1 side will try to wait until summer

Chelsea haven’t ruled out a deal with Monaco for Lamine Camara – but a January move smells very unlikely to us at this stage.

Kieran Gill’s Chelsea Confidential pieces are always interesting, but in the content desert of the international break they’re even more welcome.

This week there’s an interesting section on Lamine Camara, and whether Chelsea might return to try and sign the midfielder in January. The breakdown in talks with Monaco at the last transfer deadline seemed like it would leave bad blood – but it sounds like the Blues aren’t going to cut off their nose to spite their face.

They know they’re a midfielder short, and they clearly like Camara.

Chelsea will still deal with Monaco for in demand midfielder

“Chelsea haven’t suddenly blacklisted Monaco from what I hear,” Gill writes.

“As for Camara and this January, it is complicated. Chelsea admired him as a player in the summer, and still admire him today, but Monaco may insist their midfielder is not for sale this winter.”

We can’t see it happening. Monaco knew they were going to cost themselves a lot of credibility by blowing up the deal at the deadline. If they then just sell him a few months later, that will have been wasted. They’ll hold on until next summer at least, hoping the midfielder’s price continues to rise.

In other news…

Chelsea have multiple players injured and are trying to work out how many of them will be back for their game against Brentford.

A ranking of the top 50 players in the Premier League produced 4 Chelsea names, which seems pretty reasonable, all things considered.