Chelsea round-up: £50m defender bid; Conte hints he didn’t want Matic sale; Candreva swap deal possible

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Chelsea have launched a £50 million bid to bring Southampton’s Virgil Van Dijk to Stamford Bridge, according to The Times. Van Dijk has made it clear that he wants to leave the south coast this summer, with Liverpool believed to be his preferred destination, but relations between those two clubs could rule out any potential move.

This now allows Chelsea to sneak in and make a move for one of the Premier League’s most respected defenders. Antonio Conte first identified him as a target in January and has now persuaded the club to make an offer for the Dutch international. They may face a bidding war with Liverpool to get their man.

Any move for Van Dijk is likely to use up the £40 million that the club received from the recent sale of Nemanja Matic to Manchester United. However, Antonio Conte appeared to hint that he was not happy about one of his key players from last season leaving as the Metro quote him as responding to a question on the midfielder by saying:

“You have to ask the club about this… Now for us its very important to try to improve our squad –  in the numerical aspect – we have a small squad. I think only one player is not enough to improve our team, we need more players.”

The answer was taken to be yet another subtle dig at Roman Abramovich and the club’s board over a lack of success in the transfer market. The club remain without cover at wing-back, with Alex Sandro not close to joining and Danilo having opted to move to Manchester City, whilst a number of other targets are still at their current clubs.

One of those is believed to be Inter Milan winger Antonio Candreva. Italian newspaper Tuttosport believe that the San Siro club may demand a swap deal in order to sell the 30-year-old, requesting Chelsea defender Andreas Christensen in return for the winger. Christensen is back in London after a two year loan spell at Borussia Monchengladbach.

The Dane has featured for the Blues in their pre-season campaign, but with reports today also linking Van Dijk with the club, it is hard to see how he would fit into the squad. As such, the move may be tempting to Chelsea, though they may prefer to loan the 21-year-old rather than sell him permanently.