Ace Chil-ed out over Blues move
BEN CHILWELL is tempted by a move to Chelsea later this summer but has not yet demanded to quit Leicester.
The left-back is wanted by Frank Lampard, who aims to put his own stamp on his Stamford Bridge line-up.
There have been claims Chilwell, 23 (right), has already told Foxes boss Brendan Rodgers he wants to go.
Pals of the England defender have denied this but admit his future could still be reviewed this summer.
The star, who has 11 caps, is under contract at the King Power Stadium until 2024.
Lampard wants to make him one of his first new signings, after being hamstrung by a transfer ban last summer.
But Leicester rate
Chilwell as being even better than Harry Maguire, who they sold to Manchester United last summer for a world-record fee of £80m for a defender.
The Foxes previously banked a then-record £60m fee for Riyad Mahrez from Manchester City in 2018.
It remains to be seen if Chelsea will offer enough in the financial fallout from the coronavirus crisis.
Rodgers’ former Celtic left-back Kieran Tierney has been flagged as a possible replacement for Chilwell but the Scot is understood to be happy to remain at Arsenal.
■ SHANE LONG, 33, has signed a two-year deal to stay at Southampton. “I’m just delighted to get it done,” he said.
■
ANDY COLE says he will be thankful to make it to 50 after opening up about his health battle.
The former Manchester United striker has been self-isolating during the coronavirus pandemic and revealed the huge mental and physical toll that has taken.
“I try not to look too far ahead and take it day by day,” said Cole, 48, who had a life-saving kidney transplant in 2017.
“I remember I recently had one of my sombre days with my daughter, who has been unbelievable.
“She said to me, ‘Dad, you’re going to live forever.’ I’ll always remember that, because I kept saying to her, ‘Look, if I make 50, I’ll be happy.’
“I’m a year and a bit away from 50 and if I make it? Man, considering what I’ve been through, I’ll be made up.
“My biggest fear is that one day I wake up and my kidneys pack up. I don’t care about anything else, that’s my biggest fear. I’ve said to myself ‘if it packs up, how are you going to do it
■ again, mentally? How are you going through it again?’ That’s my biggest fear.”
Cole revealed how his daily physical and psychological battles have been compounded by his need to shield during the Covid-19 crisis and subsequent lockdown.
“It’s been really, really hard,” he said. “Last week was one of my toughest ones. The week before I had my daughter here, who’s been shielding as well.
“That was the first time I’d been able to socialise with someone for nine weeks, so that week made things a whole lot better for me. But this week, after she left, has been really tough.”
Cole has launched the Andy Cole Fund, in conjunction with Kidney Research UK, to raise money for research into improving kidney transplants and patient wellbeing.
Three million people in the UK have kidney disease and 36 per cent of people on the kidney to go