Chelsea have made a complete U-turn over the future of Mateo Kovacic amid interest from Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, according to CBS Sports journalist Ben Jacobs in TEAMtalk.
Jacobs has said that Chelsea are not planning to offload the former Real Madrid midfielder in the summer transfer window.
The journalist has added that the former Premier League and UEFA Champions League winners were thinking of getting rid of the £150,000-a-week (SalarySport) star earlier, but the London club have now changed their stance.
90min journalist Graeme Bailey said on the Talking Transfers podcast this month that Liverpool are interested in signing Chelsea midfielder Kovacic in the summer transfer window.
Chelsea stance on Liverpool target Mateo Kovacic
Jacobs said: “I don’t think there’s too much in the Kovacic links at this point. Liverpool will have other preferences and priorities.
“But the other thing about Kovacic, even if Liverpool did choose to explore that – and there’s nothing significant at this stage, I think you’d be looking more of a player like Wolves’ Matheus Nunes as seriously on their radar, but if they did – or any other club wants to pursue Kovacic, then you have to bear in mind that Chelsea have kind of changed their position a little bit because they’ve got rid of Jorginho and they realised that Kovacic has got leadership and can also chip in with the odd goal. And they’re always spectacular goals by the way.
“So now Chelsea’s position on Kovacic has changed from maybe six months ago. And their preference would be to try and agree something if they can, that keeps him at the football club.
“So whereas maybe towards the end of last year, we were talking about Kovacic as being a player more likely to leave than stay, now I think Kovacic is, arguably, more likely to stay than to leave.”
Sensible stance
In our view, it would be sensible of Chelsea to keep Mateo Kovacic and not sell him, especially to Premier League rivals Liverpool.
After all, Liverpool, like Chelsea, will be aiming to win the Premier League title next season.
So, in our view, by selling the Croatia international midfielder to the Reds, the Blues would only be making Jurgen Klopp’s side stronger.
Kovacic is at the top of his game now at the age of 28.
The Chelsea no. 8 has made 11 starts and eight substitute appearances in the Premier League so far this season.
Kovacic has scored one goal and given one assist in those games.
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