Ian Maatsen made a horrible mistake in the Champions League final, but that’s not putting teams off him after a great 6 months on loan with Borussia Dortmund during which he made a major contribution towards them reaching that final.
The left back is being strongly linked with a transfer there permanently, but according to Dharmesh Sheth of Sky Sports, Bayern Munich are also “keeping an eye” on the situation, with a release clause of £35m able to be activated by anyone.
Borussia Dortmund in talks with Chelsea over permanent signing of defender Ian Maatsen. He signed new Chelsea contract last summer (2026 & £35m release clause) before joining Dortmund on loan. Dortmund want to negotiate on price. Bayern Munich keeping eye on situation. #BVB #CFC
— Dharmesh Sheth (@skysports_sheth) June 4, 2024
Knowing their old rivals are looking over their shoulder should be the perfect pressure on Dortmund for them to sign off on the deal as soon as possible, before they risk any disruption. Chelsea – who are keen to sell before the 30th of June accounting period cutoff for this season, will be delighted.
Maatsen is a perfect Maresca player
From Chelsea’s point of view, this can only be good news really. The more teams interested in Maatsen, the bigger fee we get.
Of course, the most sensible thing to do would be so keep him ourselves and sell one of our other left backs. That’s become even more clearly the case now that Enzo Maresca has been appointed manager. He must be looking at the way Maatsen revolutionised Dortmund’s season upon his arrival in January with his ability to “invert” and move centrally into midfield when they had the ball and dreaming of being able to use him at Chelsea in that way.
But we all know that Maresca has been appointed because he will work with what he’s given and not try to push for anything different, so we don’t expect him to kick up a fuss in his first month in the job because he wants a deal that the club have long been banking on suddenly blown up.
