Chelsea agree personal terms with Juventus defender.

Chelsea have taken a massive step forward with a deal to sign Juventus defender Alex Sandro with personal terms being agreed. It's now down to both clubs to agree a fee.

Alex Sandro appears to be the second big money signing for Antonio Conte this summer with Tiemoue Bakayoko expected to sign in the next few days from Monaco for £35m. A combined cost of around £100m is a real signal of intent from the Italian manager who took the Premier League by storm last season.

Every Chelsea fan would have looked at our squad as we celebrated lifting the Premier League trophy and thought that there are a few areas of the squad that do need to be strengthened ahead of this coming year. A wing-back, a centre back, a central midfielder and a striker are the areas we needed to bolster and credit to the club for getting two of those deals done early if both sign in the coming days as expected.

Alex Sandro would become the worlds most expensive defender eclipsing the £50m that PSG paid Chelsea to take David Luiz to the French capital three years ago. According to reports, Sandro would double his current £75,000 per week wages and Chelsea would need to spend £61m to convince Juventus to let him go having rejected an offer of around £57m last week.

With the arrival of Sandro, uncertainty remains over Marcos Alonso who had a fantastic season at Chelsea under Conte. Alonso came back to the Premier League after a successful period at Fiorentina after two failed attempts on making it in England previously with Sunderland and Bolton.

No one would have expected the impact he made here with the addition of goals a welcome bonus as he made that left wing-back position his own. Now you have to question just how much involvement he would have this coming season as Sandro would have to come in as the number one choice having spent that amount of money. The addition of the Champions League to the demands of the Premier League would indicate that there would be an intention to rotate players this season. Just how much and how often is yet to be seen.

As I keep saying on here, the arrival of a foreign player into this country can be a difficult one but he would have the likes of David Luiz and Willian to help settle him down here. It's how quickly he adjusts to life in England that will determine whether or not he is the right solution to a position that isn't broke in my opinion.

I have expressed my doubts over the signing of Alex Sandro for the massive fee that is being quoted here as I believe there are alternative solutions available at a fraction of the price (Ryan Bertrand). 

Let's hope that he proves to be an outstanding signing and has the same impact as Marcos Alonso!

(Article source: Here)