Report: Chelsea Want Both Declan Rice And Edson Alvarez

Despite the summer transfer having reached its conclusion on Thursday, Chelsea are still chasing targets to keep their midfield options fresh, with West Ham's Declan Rice and Ajax's Edson Alvarez their main two interests, according to Simon Phillips.

Thomas Tuchel has been a long time admirer of Rice, but Chelsea have been unwilling to meet West Ham's previous valuation of £100million for the 23-year old midfielder.

Rice had rejected an eight-year contract extension offer from the Hammers in May that was worth £200k-a-week, so Chelsea will hope that with this being the case, West Ham will lower their valuation of their captain come January or next summer.

Rice was part of Chelsea's academy as a youngster.

Alvarez meanwhile, is a much more recent target of Chelsea's. On the evening of deadline day, with the Blues on the hunt for a new defensive midfielder, reports surfaced that they had bid £43million for the Mexican midfielder.

However, with Ajax already having lost Lisandro Martinez and Antony to Manchester United, they were unwilling to let their other star asset leave the Johan Cruyff Arena, much to Alvarez's disappointment.

As a result, the Blues turned their interests elsewhere and signed 25-year old Denis Zakaria from Juventus on loan with a £30million option-to-buy.

Despite this signing that has excited many Blues fans, Rice and Alvarez remain of serious interest to the club with Jorginho and N'Golo Kante's deals expiring in June of next year, so hopefully some deals can be struck for the two targets going into the new year.