Jules Kounde: Sevilla break silence on why Chelsea lost to Barcelona

Barcelona has this week, confirmed the signing of Jules Kounde, after hijacking Chelsea's move for the Sevilla defender in a deal worth up to £46million.

The LaLiga giants had agreed a deal in principle for the 23-year-old French centre-back, who is moments away from being announced as a Barcelona fan pending his successful medicals.

Chelsea had been in the driving seat for the former Sevilla defender who had already agreed personal terms with the Blues earlier this year.

However, the Blues failed to conclude the deal after seeing members of the club's directorial board step down under the new co-owners Todd Boehly consortium.

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Chelsea's delay allowed Barcelona to capitalize and swoop in for the Frenchman, who immediately set his sights on a switch to the Catalans instead of a move away from the country entirely.

Sevilla chief Monchi has now revealed the real reason why Chelsea ultimately failed in their pursuit of their long-term target.

Monchi confirmed that Chelsea had gone cold in their bid to bring the French defender to Stamford Bridge, which allowed Barcelona to step in and make their move, while also revealing Barcelona made a better offer than Chelsea anyway.

According to Monchi, Chelsea had already reached full agreement with the club for Kounde, but decided to double down in the latter stages over certain doubts about the player.

"On Thursday night Koundé was ‘sold’ to Chelsea. They began to have doubts and pulled out."

“Koundé had agreed to go to Chelsea, an agreement had been reached. But then Chelsea hesitated and wanted to wait.”

“Then Barca entered the deal. It is true that Chelsea came back to complete the deal later, but Barcelona's offer was better.” Monchi was quoted to have said as per SFC radio.

"Last Thursday we reached a verbal agreement with Chelsea, the player too, but as this football thing never ceases to surprise, at the last moment, there were doubts and everything stopped."

"Chelsea came back again, but Barcelona's offer was better." Monchi submitted.

Thomas Tuchel has now been forced to move onto alternative targets with Leicester's Wesley Fofana currently being eyed as well as Milan Skriniar of Inter Milan and Bayern Munich defender Benjamin Pavard.

It has since been suggested that Tuchel was never intent on Kounde, despite the club agreeing personal terms with the Frenchman earlier in the year.

Tuchel is currently desperate to shore up his defense for next season, but faces a race against time with Thiago Silva and Kalidou Koulibaly the only established center-backs at the club currently.