Chelsea are closing in on securing Edouard Mendy's signature

Chelsea seem not to be done with recruitment over the summer transfer window as they are close to agreeing on a deal to sign goalkeeper Edouard Mendy from French club Rennes.

Once the deal is done, the goalkeeper would join the likes of Hakim Ziyech, Timo Werner, Xavier Mbuyamba, Ben Chilwell, Thiago Silva, Malang Sarr, and Kai Havertz to become Chelsea’s eighth signing of the summer.

Mendy is being considered to join so as to provide competition for Kepa Arrizabalaga and Willy Caballero to be the club’s first-choice ‘keeper.

Mendy did not partake in the club’s training session on Friday morning even though he was at the training ground. It was reported that he was with his representative for talks with the club.

Mendy has already told Rennes he wants to move to Chelsea.

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Should Mendy join, he would be following in the footsteps of Chelsea’s legendary goalkeeper Petr Cech, who made the same move from Rennes to Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2004.

Cech, however, is now Chelsea’s technical director after retiring from football at the end of the 2019 season and will certainly be involved in identifying Mendy as a transfer target.

Chelsea are also thought to be showing interest in another Ligue 1 goalkeeper in Lille’s Mike Maignan.

However, Lille wanted £32m for the 25-year-old, which was way higher than the expected £22m valuation of the player.