Crystal Palace Pursues Loan for Chelsea Defender Axel Disasi

Crystal Palace are pushing to seal a loan deal for Chelsea defender Axel Disasi as new boss Sage hunts for an experienced leader at the heart of his defence.

Reports from Sky Sports News and talkSPORT say Palace are closing in on the 28-year-old, who has been frozen out at Stamford Bridge and has not played for the Blues since January 2025. He was banished to Chelsea’s so‑called “bomb squad” before spending the second half of last season on loan at West Ham United.

Palace’s move has been swift and targeted. Maxence Lacroix’s £52m transfer to Chelsea ripped a hole in the centre of their back line, and the club have zero interest in drifting into the new campaign short of authority at the back.

Manager's Statement

Sage made that need crystal clear on Thursday.

“Yes. We need a player in this department, a player with a lot of games, if possible, in the Premier League,” he said at his press conference. “We need players, but we need a leader and that's why we need to wait a little bit to find a good one.”

The message was blunt: experience, games, leadership. Not potential. Not a project.

Disasi ticks those boxes and knows the division, which explains why Palace have moved so quickly as the window tightens and options shrink.

Sage stopped short of speaking directly about the Frenchman but did not pretend the noise wasn’t growing.

“He's a player from Chelsea, it's difficult for me to speak about a player of another club, but I hear the same noise as you,” he admitted.

Chelsea, stacked with centre-backs and having already spent big this summer, appear ready to move Disasi on again, and Palace see an opportunity to turn another club’s surplus into their own solution.

If the deal crosses the line, a defender once pushed to the fringes at Stamford Bridge could walk straight into a central role in South London — and into the leadership void Lacroix left behind.