Who is Paul Winstanley and why Chelsea want Brighton's transfer expert and ex-Man City player

The two clubs have conducted plenty of business over the summer since the Blues were taken over by their new American owner Todd Boehly.

First Chelsea paid more than £60m to sign Albion's player of the year Marc Cucurella and a few weeks later they returned to prise away the Seagulls head coach Graham Potter.

Albion received more than £20m in compensation for Potter and his management team and replaced him with Italian Roberto De Zerbi. The two teams will meet this Saturday at the Amex Stadium in the Premier League.

It has not been all one way traffic however as Albion brought in promising young defender Levi Colwill on loan from Chelsea and also picked up midfielder Billy Gilmour late in the summer window for £9m.

The move for Winstanley will though be another blow for Brighton as they look to rebuild following the loss of Potter and also their technical director, Dan Ashworth, who was poached by Newcastle recently.

It is reported that Chelsea want Winstanley to work with the current Monaco technical director Laurence Stewart and Joe Shields, who is due to arrive as co-director of recruitment from Southampton. Winstanley could also team up again with Potter’s recruitment analyst Kyle Macalauy.

Chelsea may also look to appoint a new chief executive and a football operations manager as part of their restructure – Paul Barber anyone?

Who is Winstanley

Winstanley was a footballer at Manchester City between 1991 and 2000.

After his playing career, he moved to Wigan Athletic in 2003 and became their performance analyst manager. His work with Wigan helped them gain promotion to the Premier League and also saw them reach the League Cup final 2005-06.

In 2008 he took the head of analysis role at Derby County and stayed there for six seasons.

In 2014, he then made the move to the south coast with Brighton and joined a progressive team led by chairman and owner Tony Bloom and chief executive Barber. His work as talent identification manager and head of recruitment helped Brighton reach the Premier League for the first time in their history and he has worked behind the scenes during a period where Brighton have made some of the most successful signings in their history.

Player such as Pascal Gross, Joel Veltman, Adam Webster, Alexis Mac Allister, Moises Caicedo and Leo Trossard have all arrived during his time and continue to be key players for the first team. The likes of Yves Bissouma, Dan Burn and Marc Cucurella also arrived in that period and went on to make huge profits for the club as they moved to Tottenham, Newcastle and Chelsea respectively.

Winstanley is a low-profile but highly-respected figure within football and losing him to Chelsea would represent another blow to Brighton's talented off-field team.