Mouctar Diakhaby of Lyon has been linked with a move to English champions Chelsea. The highly-rated defender has grabbed attention from another English club as well in the form of Manchester City.
Diakhaby has played four Ligue 1 matches for the French outfit this season while also featuring for the entire 90 minutes in the doubleheader against Everton in the Europa League fixtures. The 20-year old’s latest match was for the France under 21 side where his side recorded a 4-1 win over Kazakhstan in the European Championships.
Diakhaby has been very impressive since he broke into the first team last season at Lyon and the tall, burly defender has already shown great promise. He is a composed defender which is rare at his age alongside being a potential goal threat from set pieces because of his 6ft 4ins height.
It is now being reported that Chelsea, who had been previously linked with him, are now about to be rivalled for the player’s signature by their domestic rivals Manchester City. Chelsea have a habit of scouting for young talent and bringing in the players with maximum potential.
The club’s policy to sign players at a young age so that they can extract a higher value of him if they decide to unload him in the future has served Chelsea well in the past. They operated under similar processes with players like Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku, Oscar and many more.
Although a player of Diakhaby’s quality would be an exciting addition to the team, the Blues will have to deal with a problem of plenty. Diakhaby will be a buy for the future and will eventually be a replacement for Gary Cahill who appears to be past his prime and looking more and more average with every passing game.
What his welcome would do however, is that it intensifies the competition amongst the young defenders at the club and the development of Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen might just suffer with Antonio Conte having to pick one out of the three young players alongside David Luiz and Cesar Azpilicueta at the heart of his defence, should the Frenchman make the switch.
While getting Diakhaby would be a major boost in the backline for Chelsea’s future, the club has bigger issues to deal with. They are suffering from a serious shortage of players in other positions after a mass exodus in the summer and will need to bring in wing backs on the left flank and a recognized striker first to stop them from collapsing. Maybe instead of chasing Diakhaby, that is what they should be focusing on.
