Exclusive says Chelsea will listen to offers for €38m defender considered a key player just 12 months ago | OneFootball

Our writer Simon Phillips’ exclusive this week is all about the players Chelsea will consider selling this summer.

Among them is Benoit Badiashile. “There is interest in Benoit Badiashile from Italian clubs, and he is another that Chelsea would be prepared to listen to offers for,” Phillips writes.

That wouldn’t surprise us at all. We’re looking to raise money and Badiashile has played poorly. The only question is whether we can recoup the €38m we paid for him just over a year ago. It’s hard to see us making a profit on him, given he’s bene injured or bad all season. And can the club really afford to realise losses like that? Surely they’d rather keep him around, even if it’s a decision that hurts us on a footballing level.

It’s always possible that a team comes in with a loan offer that allows us to shift him for a year and hope he regains his form. That’s probably the dream option for those in charge, if they really do want to sell.

A dramatic fall from grace

If you remember this time a year ago, it was truly bleak at Chelsea. After elimination from the Champions League the whole sorry mess of a crowded dressing room lost hope, and we were truly trudging to the end of the campaign.

One of the very few bright spots was Badiashile, who performed well after arriving in January. Fans universally had him pencilled in to their lineups for this season. That injury picked up right at the end of the campaign disrupted his summer and start to the season, and he’s never got back to his best.

In the space of a year he’s gone from the centre back of the future to a player nobody is surprised to hear is up for sale.