{"id":489200,"date":"2025-10-10T20:20:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T20:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/489200\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T20:20:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T20:20:18","slug":"chelsea-rival-real-madrid-and-liverpool-for-52m-defender-signing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/489200\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea rival Real Madrid\u00a0and Liverpool\u00a0for \u00a352m defender signing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Chelsea are one of the giant clubs interested in signing a talented central defender who\u2019s available for just over \u00a350m.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At the moment, the central defence is a major talking point for everyone at Stamford Bridge. Therefore, it is interesting timing that the Blues are now linked with a centre-half signing.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this week, reports claimed that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thechelseachronicle.com\/transfer-news\/chelsea-now-monitoring-60m-serie-a-star-who-has-trait-enzo-maresca-will-love\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chelsea are monitoring AC Milan centre-half Strahinja Pavlovic<\/a> as a potential target.<\/p>\n<p>There is now another centre-back profile in their sights, though.<\/p>\n<p>It is worth remembering that Chelsea already have Trevoh Chalobah, Josh Acheampong, Tosin Adarabioyo, Benoit Badiashile and Wesley Fofana competing to start in central defence. Unfortunately, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thechelseachronicle.com\/news\/wesley-fofana-and-several-chelsea-teammates-post-messages-to-levi-colwill-after-acl-injury\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Levi Colwill\u2019s ACL injury<\/a> means that he\u2019s not in the picture for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"689\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-2231528500-1024x689.jpg\" alt=\"Bayern Munich's Harry Kane and RB Leipzig's Castello Lukeba during a Bundesliga match.\" \/>Photo by Alexander Hassenstein\/Getty ImagesChelsea in race for Castello Lukeba<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.caughtoffside.com\/2025\/10\/10\/castello-lukeba-liverpool-chelsea\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">CaughtOffside<\/a>, Chelsea are one of the potential suitors for RB Leipzig\u2019s <strong>Castello Lukeba<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It is explained that Chelsea, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Manchester United and Newcastle United are interested in signing the 22-year-old defender.<\/p>\n<p>The report adds that the French centre-back has a \u20ac90m (\u00a378m) release clause in his Leipzig deal. However, the German Bundesliga side are prepared to accept something closer to \u20ac60m (\u00a352m).<\/p>\n<tr>\n<td>Club<\/td>\n<td>Appearances<\/td>\n<td>Goals<\/td>\n<td>Yellow cards<\/td>\n<td>Red cards<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>RB Leipzig<\/td>\n<td>79<\/td>\n<td>1<\/td>\n<td>12<\/td>\n<td>0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Lyon<\/td>\n<td>68<\/td>\n<td>4<\/td>\n<td>10<\/td>\n<td>1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<p>Castello Lukeba\u2019s senior club career<\/p>\n<p>If Lukeba ends up at Stamford Bridge, he would be adding to the French contingent that already includes Badiashile, Fofana and Malo Gusto. On top of that, his profile as a talented youngster definitely fits what we\u2019ve seen from the current <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thechelseachronicle.com\/club\/owners\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Blues owners<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-2237695295-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Castello Lukeba before Wolfsburg against RB Leipzig in the German Bundesliga.\" \/>Photo by RONNY HARTMANN\/AFP via Getty ImagesChelsea previously failed to sign Castello Lukeba in 2022<\/p>\n<p>Back in 2022, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thechelseachronicle.com\/transfer-news\/report-chelsea-had-38m-bid-for-defender-turned-down-in-the-summer-now-they-are-about-to-sign-his-rival\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lyon rejected Chelsea\u2019s \u00a338m bid for Lukeba<\/a>, even though they sold him in 2023 to Leipzig.<\/p>\n<p>If we skip forward to 2024, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thechelseachronicle.com\/transfer-news\/chelsea-among-the-elite-clubs-watching-60m-player-who-unai-emery-strongly-rates\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lukeba was once again on the Chelsea radar<\/a> because they continue to be linked with some of the best young talents around.<\/p>\n<p>It sounds like there may be some genuine interest in the current Leipzig man after frequent links, but is he the type of statement signing that can elevate the backline from day one if he joins?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chelsea are one of the giant clubs interested in signing a talented central defender who\u2019s available for just&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[93624,94,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-489200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-castello-lukeba","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}