Report: Chelsea target sporting director who helped unearth Erling Haaland

Chelsea target RB Salzburg’s Christoph Freund for sporting director role

According to Telegraph (Subscription Required), Chelsea are targeting RB Salzburg’s Christoph Freund for their vacant sporting director role. Freund will travel to Stamford Bridge on Wednesday to watch Salzburg take on the Blues in the Champions League.

Chelsea owners are willing to hire a sporting director ahead of the Qatar World Cup. There is a discussion among club officials about whether to appoint a data-driven director like Freund or go for someone who can manage multiple departments at Cobham, like former director Michael Emenalo. Incidentally, Emenalo is currently out of job and available for hire.

They will also take the word of new manager Graham Potter before finalising a name. The Englishman has already brought recruitment specialist Kyle Macauley with him from Brighton and Hove Albion. Former Liverpool director Michael Edwards is also considered, but it remains to be seen whether he joins by November, knowing that he wants to take a sabbatical.

Chelsea already have a data department, on which the new owners lent heavily to sign players during the summer transfer window.

Freund, who has been at Salzburg since 2015, claimed to have unearthed superstar striker Erling Haaland from Molde. The Norway international did extremely well at the Austrian club before he was sold to Borussia Dortmund at a whopping profit.

A time of change at Chelsea

Freund has also overseen the unearthing of the likes of Dayot Upamecano, Patson Daka and recently Benjamin Sesko at Salzburg. He could be the man to finally replace former the now-departed director Marina Granovskaia, who left in the summer as part of a personnel change brought about by the installation of our new owners.

Owner Todd Boehly replaced Bruce Buck as the chairman and Granovskaia as the interim sporting director at the club. The former stepped down from his role at the club and the latter followed suit.

It is clear that the 45-year-old is an experienced and talented person to take that sporting director role at such a big club like Chelsea. It is up to the Blues to decide on a name by November.

Incidentally, the players Freund has brought to Salzburg will play Chelsea on Wednesday. They did well against AC Milan and hope to do something similar against the Blues.

More Chelsea News:

• Chelsea are tipped to sign Brighton star Leandro Trossard in January
• No talks yet from Chelsea to approach Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo in January
• How Chelsea were beaten by Liverpool for the signing of Steven Bajcetic

This will be Potter’s first game in the dugout at Chelsea boss. Expectations will be high from the Englishman and hopefully, he sets up a team to win. After our shock loss against Dinamo Zagreb on matchday 1, we cannot afford to target anything other than three points later tonight.