Chelsea have moved to the next phase of a summer defensive overhaul with reported interest in Crystal Palace centre back Maxence Lacroix.<\/p>\n
BBC Sport has reported Lacroix is now considered a \u201ckey target\u201d as new manager Xabi Alonso prepares to reshape the squad and increase defensive depth. The 26-year-old has produced two strong seasons in the Premier League since his move to England in 2024, having earlier spent four seasons in the Bundesliga with Wolfsburg.<\/p>\n
Lacroix\u2019s form earned him a senior France callup in March, seven years after his last involvement with the U20s, and Didier Deschamps included him in his World Cup squad. He is yet to play at the World Cup but is part of a group of centre backs that includes William Saliba, Dayot Upamecano, Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 and Lucas Hernandez, on a level with Champions League-calibre defenders.<\/p>\n
Pursuing a 26-year-old such as Lacroix marks a notable shift from Chelsea\u2019s recent recruitment drive, which focused heavily on very young players. Last summer Jo\u00e3o Pedro was the club\u2019s oldest new signing at 23, Liam Delap was the only other recruit to have reached 21, and several arrivals were teenagers. That approach, driven by BlueCo since 2022, left the squad lighter on senior experience despite the financial rationale.<\/p>\n
A promising start to 2025\u201326 gave way to a collapse that ended with Chelsea in 10th place. In December 2025, shortly before his sudden exit, former manager Enzo Maresca signalled the need for more experience in the dressing room. \u201cWhen you have 20 and 21-year-olds and a player who is 30 or 31, and he starts to say something to them, it\u2019s invaluable. But [young players] is the strategy of the club,\u201d Maresca said at the time.<\/p>\n
Alonso\u2019s appointment as \u2018manager,\u2019 rather than \u2018head coach,\u2019 will give him greater influence over recruitment. Chelsea aim to boost defensive depth and build experience; that could lead to several departures. Trevoh Chalobah has been linked with Como, while Wesley Fofana and Tosin Adarabioyo could also move on. Full back Malo Gusto is attracting interest from Manchester City, though The Times report Chelsea value him at \u00a375 million, suggesting they do not plan to sell despite having Reece James and, imminently, Palestra on the books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea target Maxence Lacroix as Alonso seeks experienced centre back to add depth and experience .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15404,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,1383],"tags":[1761,1760],"class_list":["post-15405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-chelsea-news","tag-defensive-overhaul","tag-maxence-lacroix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}