Danny Drinkwater to follow N’Golo Kanté to Chelsea?

Sky Sports posted a report today citing “sources,” suggesting that Chelsea are looking at Danny Drinkwater as an option to replace Nemanja Matić after the Serbian’s £40 million move to Manchester United. This one comes completely out of the blue, and at first glance, seems extremely dubious.

The defending champions have no shortage of midfield options, having added Tiemoué Bakayoko to the likes of Eden Hazard, Cesc Fàbregas, and, of course N’Golo Kanté. In addition, they have approximately one hundred million players (real number: 37) who were loaned out last year, some of whom were central midfielders.

Photo by Paul Gilham/Getty Images

It’s difficult to see Leicester having any interest is selling the thrice-capped England midfielder. The club has used different preferred central midfield pairings each of the last four years:

• 2013/14 - Drinkwater and James
• 2014/15 - Cambiasso and James
• 2015/16 - Drinkwater and Kanté
• 2016/17 - Drinkwater and (eventually) Ndidi

City’s fortunes have always depended on a strong engine room in the midfield and breaking up what looks to be a promising partnership would be an enormous risk.

This strikes me as one of the more unlikely rumours we’ve seen thus far, but since it’s the silly season, can a case be made for Leicester’s number 4 moving to Stamford Bridge? Unless the Foxes bring in an expensive, creative central midfielder as a replacement, I don’t think there’s much chance of this happening.