EPL Transfer Spotlight: Chelsea’s Benoit Badiashile

Ukrainian winger Mykhailo Mudryk has hogged most of Chelsea’s transfer-news headlines after his signing for a whopping transfer fee of almost £90mil. Yet Mudryk isn’t the only new face in the dressing room at Stamford Bridge.

Benoit Badiashile has joined from Monaco for £35mil on a long-term contract of 7 1/2 years. Let’s take a closer look at the French international.

Background

Badiashile is a 21 year-old defender who has featured for Monaco since 2018, having progressed through their youth setup to reach the senior team, where he was coached by Thierry Henry. This has given him both Champions League and Europa League experience. He has also been part of a talented French national team, with 2 caps to his name already.

At 6’4”, Badiashile is a huge, powerful presence in the heart of defence, but he also balances his physicality with technical proficiency and mature decision-making. He’s left-footed and positions as the left-sided centre half; comfortable in both three and four man defences. While at Monaco he also occasionally provided cover at left fullback.

Fantasy Prospects

Chelsea has quite a few issues among its defensive corps, with Wesley Fofana, Ben Chilwell and Reece James all on the sidelines through injury, and Kalidou Koulibaly struggling for consistency. This has propelled Badiashile into Potter’s setup alongside Thiago Silva straight from the off.

Badiashile has enjoyed a strong start so far, making the S-XI against Crystal Palace and Liverpool and keeping clean sheets in both. He even collected two bonus points against the Eagles. In Fantrax he registered returns of 16.5 and 18.5 in those two matches, meaning he’d have reached double figures even without the cleanies. His height means he’s a threat from set pieces too, and he did win multiple headers in the Reds’ box, one of which forced Alisson into a smart save.

Badiashile is moderately priced at £5.0mil in FPL, where he is very much a differential at less than 1% ownership. In Fantrax he is a cut-rate $2.43. With Chelsea’s run of upcoming fixtures looking quite favorable (FUL, whu, SOU, tot, LEE, lei, EVE, AVL, wol) and his competitors for starts either out-of-form or injured, Badiashile could be a prudent pickup for your fantasy teams. This is particularly true in Fantrax, where his bargain price and ability to collect phantoms makes him especially attractive.

What are your thoughts on Chelsea’s new boy? Are you tempted to bring him in?

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