Chelsea among “most serious suitors” for World Cup winner who could be new Thiago Silva | OneFootball

TeamTalk have an interesting story which claims that Chelsea are interested in signing Raphael Varane on a free transfer from Manchester United.

The idea is that he becomes the new Thiago Silva, an experienced veteran to help guide the younger players. Varane has not been a huge hit at Manchester United, with injuries holding him back. But it’s a pretty dysfunctional side overall, and we wouldn’t judge him too harshly on that. Varane is just 31, while Silva was fully 35 when we signed him, and is still perfectly capable now, at 39.

The report says that Chelsea are one of the “most serious suitors” for the World Cup winner, with Juventus also apparently in the mix. One potential stumbling block could be interest from Saudi Arabia – if Varane wants one final big payday, there will be huge offers which likely dwarf anything Chelsea can put out there.

Rapahel Varane playing for Manchester United.

A logical successor to Silva

There’s certainly something to be said for that idea, and we’ve always backed the idea of bringing in experience to the team to help out the younger players. It worked incredibly well with Silva, who was only initially supposed to stay for a year, but ended up here for four.

Varane is not the most outspoken personality, but then again Silva barely speaks English, so that doesn’t matter too much. It’s all about leading by example and what younger players can pick up from them in training and in games.

If the wages are reasonable and the medical checks out, and the plan is to save our transfer funds for other parts of the team, this could work well, with Varane slotting into the veteran role while Trevoh Chalobah, Axel Disasi, Benoit Badiashile and Wesley Fofana also compete for minutes.

It might just work…