Chelsea player stranded after £20m transfer ‘collapses’ as high earner reveals he rejected exit

Chelsea are looking for ‘solutions’ to secure a £20m exit but almost none exist, while Wesley Fofana “thought about” taking a whole load off that wage bill.

Chelsea generated the most money through player sales of any club for the second straight summer in the transfer window just gone, with more than a dozen players sold and a similar amount sent out on loan.

The Blues took a hard line stance on many members of their bloated squad, leading to new manager Enzo Maresca at one stage stating that “15-20 players are training apart” from the first team while potential suitors were being sounded out.

“It’s not a mess like it looks from the outside,” he insisted. Poor bloke.

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Most of the bomb squad were assigned to new clubs, including Conor Gallagher (Atletico Madrid), Romelu Lukaku (Napoli), Kepa Arrizabalaga (Bournemouth), Armando Broja (Everton), Trevoh Chalobah (Crystal Palace) and Raheem Sterling (Arsenal).

But some players remain with absolutely no sign of there being a way back into Maresca’s plans.

They include the very much stuck Ben Chilwell and striker David Datro Fofana, who has played more games for loan clubs Union Berlin and Burnley than he has Chelsea since joining the Blues for around £10.5m in January 2023.

Chelsea had hoped to send Fofana on another loan to Greek side AEK Athens with a £20m buy option built in, but Fabrizio Romano has revealed that deal ‘collapsed’ shortly ahead of the country’s transfer deadline on Wednesday night.

The Blues are ‘still looking for a solution’ in terms of where to place the 21-year-old but their options are limited: the Russian transfer deadline is on Thursday, with Turkey and Serbia – the only other remaining European windows – closing on Friday.

Fofana will not be made part of Maresca’s squad in any event.

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He remains, for the time being, teammates with namesake Wesley Fofana, but the centre-half has revealed that he himself almost left in the summer exodus.

“I had a conversation [this summer] that really touched me,” Fofana told Free Foot. “I would be lying if I said I didn’t weigh it up. It was from [Mehdi] Benatia, Marseille’s sporting director.

“It touched me and I think everyone knows why. I thought about it but there you go, the current objective is to succeed at Chelsea, to try and play regularly, and to establish myself at my club.

“We’ll see one day. I still have a contract until 2029 and we’ll see after that. I have never hidden it, [Marseille] is my city, my club, I am an OM supporter. We’ll see if I end up being at Marseille in a few years, or if I stay at Chelsea for the rest of my career.”

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