{"id":471869,"date":"2026-03-12T17:33:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T17:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/471869\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T17:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T17:33:11","slug":"chelsea-now-want-to-sign-42m-player-from-arsenal-and-change-his-position","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/471869\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea now want to sign \u00a342m player from Arsenal and change his position"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/ Add as preferred source on Google <\/a> <\/p>\n

Before his move from Bologna to Arsenal in 2024, Chelsea were also said to have had an interest in Riccardo Calafiori.<\/p>\n

To the present, and it looks like the Blues<\/a> still have Calafiori<\/a> on their radar.<\/p>\n

It is usually Arsenal buying players from Chelsea, but perhaps it could be the other way around this summer.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your centre-back pairing if Chelsea actually manage to pull off signing Alessandro Bastoni? <\/p>\n

\"ChelseaPhoto by Grzegorz Wajda\/SOPA Images\/LightRocket via Getty Images Chelsea could offer Riccardo Calafiori minutes at centre-back<\/p>\n

This season, Calafiori has mostly played at left-back. However, journalist Simon Phillips has claimed on Si Phillips Talks Chelsea<\/a> that the 23-year-old wants to be utilised in central defence.<\/p>\n

As a result, according to Phillips, Chelsea could now try to take advantage of that and offer Calafiori the opportunity to play there amid interest in the defender, who cost the Gunners \u00a342m<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"BayerPhoto by Stuart MacFarlane\/Arsenal FC via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Liam Rosenior<\/a> is not short of centre-half options. In his current squad, he has Trevoh Chalobah, Wesley Fofana, Mamadou Sarr, Benoit Badiashile, Josh Acheampong, Tosin Adarabioyo and Levi Colwill.<\/p>\n

However, other than Chalobah, none of those other names have been able to show any kind of consistency this season. Colwill has been out with an ACL injury so is exempt.<\/p>\n

Noni Madueke is the last outfield Chelsea player to have joined Arsenal. Joe Cole still thinks Chelsea selling Madueke was a mistake<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Riccardo Calafiori\u2019s stats this season<\/p>\n

Calafiori may not be an automatic starter at the Emirates right now, but he has still started a lot of games for Arsenal in the current campaign.<\/p>\n

For example, in the Premier League<\/a>, the Italian has been named in Mikel Arteta\u2019s first XI 17 times. He is not exactly a fringe player.<\/p>\n

Again, though, he has mostly been used at left-back, which is hardly a surprise. William Saliba and Gabriel are probably the best centre-back pairing in the division. Ousting either is almost an impossible task.<\/p>\n

Winning a spot at Chelsea, who have not really had a first-choice centre-back pairing for multiple reasons, will not be as difficult. Given where Chelsea are compared to Arsenal, though, Calafiori is unlikely to be in a hurry to join the Blues.<\/p>\n

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Receive a digest of our best Chelsea content each week direct to your mailbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Add as preferred source on Google Before his move from Bologna to Arsenal in 2024, Chelsea were also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,44424,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-471869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-riccardo-calafiori","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}