The Blues have now set their sights on Brighton’s Lewis Dunk as they look to shore up a defence that was leaky all season long. Dunk has spent over a decade at Brighton, playing 306 matches for the Seagulls in three different divisions. The 28-year-old has emerged as one of Brighton’s most consistent players and impressed this season as the club finished 15th in the Premier League.
While this may sound bizarre, Dunk’s Brighton actually conceded the same number of Premier League goals as Chelsea last season. Chelsea’s defensive struggles have been well documented and Frank Lampard is desperate to strengthen his squad in that area, having already welcomed attackers Timo Werner and Hakim Ziyech to the Bridge this summer. The Blues have expressed interest in signing West Ham’s Declan Rice but his valuation of around £80m has led Chelsea to look elsewhere.
Chelsea is set to land Kai Havertz in the coming weeks and may want to cut any incessant costs on other signings. Dunk is a lifelong Chelsea fan so he should have no problem joining the Premier League giants in the coming weeks. Tottenham also have their eyes on the players but it would appear his loyalties hand Chelsea the advantage
Brighton fans have supposedly begun to fear a move away from the Amex is on the cards with Dunk absent from recent promotional material released by the club. The Seagulls have a ready-made replacement in the form of Ben White, who has returned from a successful loan spell at Leeds.
Well, Brighton chief Tony Bloom has already suggested there could be movement in terms of central defenders during the summer transfer window.
I’m not going to speculate on whether we may or may not get offers for many of our players,” Bloom said. “We certainly do have an abundance of centre-backs and there are constant discussions between myself and Graham and Dan (Ashworth, technical director) and the recruitment team about what our needs are, what’s going to be happening.”
“There will be some players who go out on loan at some point during pre-season or the first few weeks of the season. There are lots of things to make decisions on, but it’s a really good thing that we’ve got some very good players in our squad, not all of whom will be in our squad come to the end of the transfer window.”
