\n<\/p>\n
Chelsea<\/b><\/a> are set to make Atalanta defender Marco Palestra the first signing for new boss Xabi Alonso for a fee in excess of \u00a343m.<\/b><\/p>\n Palestra had been expected to join Italian champions Inter Milan following a successful loan spell at Cagliari last season, where he was named Serie A’s best defender.<\/p>\n However, after 24 hours of talks, the Premier League club have emerged as the 21-year-old’s preferred destination as sources in Italy claim Inter could not match Chelsea<\/a>‘s offer on personal terms.<\/p>\n Palestra, who made his international debut for Italy this year, is viewed at Stamford Bridge as an exciting option capable of playing on either flank, both as a wing-back and more conventional full-back.<\/p>\n It is also an early sign of new manager Alonso’s influence. <\/p>\n Having been appointed as manager rather than head coach, he is understood to have approved the move – the first major signing made by the club since the former Spain midfielder was named Liam Rosenior’s replacement in May.<\/a><\/p>\n Alonso is set to formally join Chelsea<\/a> on 1 July, but has been in regular contact with the club hierarchy regarding incoming and outgoing transfers.<\/p>\n Chelsea<\/a> are also targeting at least one central defender, as well as a midfielder – likely to be Strasbourg’s Valentin Barco – with multiple sources suggesting that deal is close. A further versatile attacker is also on the list.<\/p>\n A number of players are also scheduled to move to west London this summer in deals completed last year, including \u00a340m winger Geovany Quenda<\/a> from Sporting and Strasbourg striker Emmanuel Emegha.<\/a> <\/p>\n There are expected to be further departures following Marc Cucurella’s move to Real Madrid<\/a>as Chelsea<\/a> look to trim their squad after a turbulent season in which they finished 10th in the Premier League and failed to qualify for Europe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chelsea are set to make Atalanta defender Marco Palestra the first signing for new boss Xabi Alonso for a fee…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}