Chelsea's move for Sevilla's Jules Koundé 'looks over' | OneFootball

Chelsea have been dealt a significant blow in their pursuit of Sevilla defender Jules Koundé and the move now looks unlikely to go through before the transfer deadline.

That’s according to The Athletic’ David Ornstein, who reports on Monday that the European champions thought they had come to a verbal agreement with Sevilla over the transfer fee, only for the LaLiga club to increase their asking price by €15m.

The Blues are understood to have been interested in Koundé for two years but it seems unless Sevilla lower their demands, he won’t be heading to Stamford Bridge this summer, and Thomas Tuchel will have to make do with what he’s got.

Chelsea sold Kurt Zouma to West Ham for a reported £29.8m over the weekend and The Athletic say that deal plus the difficulty in finding a replacement for Koundé at this stage of the window may have changed Sevilla’s mind.

In terms of his defensive options Tuchel still has Thiago Silva, Andreas Christensen, Antonio Rudiger, Cesar Azpilicueta, Reece James and Trevoh Chalobah and if Koundé doesn’t arrive before Tuesday’s transfer deadline, there is a possibility the deal could be resurrected in January.