Chelsea are interested in reuniting Granit Xhaka with incoming manager Xabi Alonso, to add a bit of leadership and . Xhaka himself is said to be open to the idea, with some reports in the last 24 hours going as far as to claim that personal terms are already agreed, at least verbally. But it looks like Sunderland are going to take a bit of convincing.
According to The Athletic, the Black Cats have not only rejected our opening £8m bid, they have done so with some prejudice, telling Chelsea to go away
and never come back with such a disrespectful offer, or some such, adding that “the contractual position should be respected by all parties” and that they have “no intention of sanctioning” a transfer.
In fairness, that is a bit of a lowball after Sunderland spent £13+5m on Xhaka just last summer and the 33-year-old still has two years left on his contract. But in the modern game, it’s hard to prevent a transfer if a player does really start pushing for it. So I guess it’ll depend on how much we increase our next offer and on just how much Xhaka wants to join us and trade Europa League football for free midweeks.
