Chelsea have signed the France centre-back Maxence Lacroix from Crystal Palace on a six-year contract running until 2032, in a deal worth a reported £51m to £52m.
Lacroix, 26, arrives as one of the Premier League's most dependable defenders. He started 35 of Palace's 38 league matches in each of his two seasons at Selhurst Park, 70 in total, and played more than 3,000 minutes in both campaigns. Chelsea's announcement described him as "one of the fastest and best aerial defenders in the Premier League".
He joined Palace from Wolfsburg in 2024 for an initial £15.5m, won the FA Cup in 2025 and then the Conference League, the club's first major European trophy, at the end of last season, appearing 14 times in that run. He also played three times for France at the World Cup this summer, including the third-place play-off defeat by England.
The signing speaks to a defence that creaked. Levi Colwill missed almost all of last season with an anterior cruciate ligament injury, leaving Wesley Fofana and Trevoh Chalobah as the main central pairing, and Chelsea finished 10th on 52 points without a trophy. Lacroix is the first player the club have signed for a fee aged 26 or over since the summer of 2022, a deliberate turn towards experience under Xabi Alonso, whose arrival has coincided with the hierarchy conceding that its recruitment model needed to change. Co-owner Behdad Eghbali has said Chelsea would "tweak" an approach built on young players. Moves for Danny Welbeck and Jordan Henderson are also close.