Eden Hazard has already sent Chelsea £72m warning as Thomas Tuchel eyes Ousmane Dembele transfer

Even psychologically for these players, sometimes they admit that having a lot of injuries knocks your confidence and trust in your own body, so there’s that to contend with.”

Childs then noted how Tuchel transformed Dembele into one of the world’s most expensive players and that their relationship shouldn’t be disregarded.

“Obviously, Tuchel, that connection is there and having read a lot about Tuchel when he was at Dortmund, and he was complimentary of Dembele saying, ‘the sky is the limit for this guy,’ and it definitely felt like that,” he said.

Clayton added by explaining his hesitancy over a potential deal for Dembele, shining a light on the £72m transfer activity that would likely have to follow if the Blues wanted to sign a non-homegrown left-back this month.

“I don’t want to say, ‘don’t back Tuchel,’ but if Tuchel really does want him, then I can accept it,” he said.

“If that happens, then we need to get rid of a player, and we’ve seen in Covid times how hard it is to sell players, so then it has a knock-on effect – where does the game time for [Christian] Pulisic and [Hakim] Ziyech come in?

“I worried that it’ll just be another player, and we’ve only got a certain amount of non-homegrown players, and we’re close to that limit now.

“If Chelsea got Dembele, then they wouldn’t have another slot even to get a left wing-back – it would have to be a homegrown player right now, so there’s a lot of questions if you do get Dembele.”

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