GoalZaza can confirm that Chelsea have opened discussions over a move for Sunderland's Granit Xhaka, but the Black Cats have issued a firm hands off w...
GoalZaza can confirm that Chelsea have opened discussions over a move for Sunderland's Granit Xhaka, but the Black Cats have issued a firm hands off warning. The experienced midfielder, who has been a lynchpin in the engine room at the Stadium of Light, is at the centre of a surprise late window approach from Stamford Bridge.Sources close to the North East club have made it abundantly clear that Xhaka is not for sale, despite what they describe as tentative enquiries from the London side. For Sunderland, the message is simple: he is not a bauble to be dangled in front of a Premier League suitor. This is a player who still patrols the middle third with a snarling authority, dictating the tempo from deep and offering a rare mix of guile and grit.Let's be brutally honest here. Chelsea's midfield has lacked a certain bite ever since N'Golo Kanté's legs began to creak. They have technicians, they have runners, but do they have a man who can sit in front of the back four, take the ball off the centre halves, and start attacks with a crisp 40 yard pass Xhaka does that for Sunderland, often dropping between the two central defenders to form a kind of tactical buffer. His ability to read the game before it happens is something Mauricio Pochettino's side have sorely missed in those frantic transitional moments.Sunderland, however, are not blinking. They have built a squad around Xhaka's experience, and selling him now would be akin to removing the keystone from an arch. There is a stubbornness here, a refusal to be bullied by a bigger club waving a chequebook. It is the kind of defiance that supporters adore. But money talks, and if Chelsea throw enough of it on the table, that resolve could be tested in the final days of the window.Does Xhaka fit the profile of a typical Chelsea signing Not really. He is not a 21 year old project. He is a grizzled operator who has seen it all, a man who knows how to win ugly. And maybe that is exactly what an unbalanced Chelsea side needs: a bit of cynical intelligence in the middle of the pitch. For now, though, Sunderland are holding firm. The ball, as they say, is very much in Chelsea's court.
