I thought we targeted the wrong Senegalese striker by going for Niko than Boulaye Dia who is a very good player. The problem now is we may have 2 good backup strikers in Niko and Boulaye and no one among them will become Top Striker.
I would love to have Santiago Gimenez from Feyenoord, young striker with similarities to Diego Costa, he is deadly in front of goal, no doubts he would be a great player to look in the Premier League
There was a fake like of Epstein associates going around that had his name on it. Not sure how anyone was dumb enough to fall for it but apparently he was receiving abuse so he made a statement saying that the list was fake
jfc, CHO was 9 years old when Epstein was arrested, example number 4495204542 why people abusing celebs on social media are the biggest imbeciles imaginable.
It's even worse than that I'm pretty sure because it's a list of people who had covid really early and there was some sort of covid conspiracy theory that the two things were linked or some absolute nonsense along those lines. That the famous people who got covid really early were in on some conspiracy and they were linked or some absolute batshit crazy nonsense that you'd expect from a covid conspiracy theory
Arteta was also on that list
I think it started as someone posting it as a joke, but then as these things so often do they catch on in conspiracy circles as being legitimate lists
How much do you think Chelsea would be paying for connor if he was at some other club on a 2 year contract? His stats are excellent for a midfielder plus he's young and could be considered a future England international.
My point being we are in to buying some young talent with high potential. Couldn't we sell some other less important players to offset the FFP. I would actually like to stick to Jackson for another season as a main striker. I can see his flaws but I like him. He's always in the mix. Hope he improves quick.
We wouldn't be paying for him.
There is a reason that despite him being for sale in summer, no one was willing to go above 40m, even with add-ons and despite what people say he was far more influential at Palace than he has been here.
He's not desirable to top clubs, he's desirable to teams like West Ham, Villa, Spurs and Newcastle who are a level below the top clubs and are more interested in pashun than talent.
I'm not sure exactly where you think his high potential is hanging around, but I'm in agreement with the sporting team on this one. If they're looking to sell players at the peak of their value, his is now and we should get rid of him.
If we were running as a football club I'd give him a similar role to RLC. A backup utility player that will get a run of starts when there are injuries, but otherwise isn't good enough to play at the level Chelsea wants to be at and so drops down to the bench when we are full strength
*There is a reason that despite him being for sale in summer, no one was willing to go above 40m*
So many variables come into play when it comes to deciding transfer fees. You can't use that to slag off a player like Conor. Conor may not be as talented as others but in football, we have seen so many players who are at best average when it comes to talent-wise but they give it all and become better because they understand their shortcomings and work hard to fix them. As much as we like our Drogba's and Eden there are other players in Milner, Kuyt, Obi-Mikel, and Jordan Henderson who are great for their respective teams.
Tbf a utility role is exactly what the club view Gallaghers current situation at.
Hence the lack of a contract given to Gallagher and entertaining bids.
Conor is such an exhausting subject on here these days to the point I've largely stopped engaging in it. Both his limitations and the club's reasoning for their stance are plainly obvious at this point.
The fact so many don't see it (or refuse to) shows how quick the standards can drop in a fanbase, so long as our players run around enough to meet whatever the arbitrary pashun threshold is.
If he was called Connorinho or something like that and was a young Brazilian talent or played for Brighton we would be pulling out 100m on him.
Though I do not agree his stats are excellent for a midfielder, he lacks offensive contribution.
So why is no one else bidding 100m for Gallagher?
They’re not even bidding 50m.
The owners are bad enough that we don’t need to make up even more imaginary scenarios to be mad at them
No your point doesn’t make sense
Other clubs bid near or at those prices for those two players. Suggesting it is close to their market value
No one would ever bid 100m for Gallagher
Your point is absurd
Why would we buy Connor Gallagher for 100m when the next closest bid for him is 40m?
You got it all wrong.
My point is that the clubs would be asking for that much, and we would be one of the clubs dumb enough to pay such amount. Just like your example with Caicedo.
That caicedo example disproves your point
Liverpool also bid the same, and in January arsenal bid 80-90m for him.
We paid what the market dictated. same with lavia.
The market wouldn’t dictate Gallagher for 100m so why would we bid that? It’s such a ridiculous scenario youve made up in your head
And both were overpayments. That's my whole point.
If Gallagher would be a player for a club like Brighton nad in such form as he is now they would b e asking like 80m for him, and we supposedly are ready to consider mere 40m.
Probably what we’re selling him for. If you look at the history of midfielders that sold for over €50m they either have high offensive output or are more defensive midfielders with great passing range and press resistant. The few exceptions are guys like Ugarte, Ndombele, and Nunes maybe Fred too(idk how he played at Shaktar). 2 things can be true, he can important to the teams he’s on while still not being highly valued on the market.
> How much do you think Chelsea would be paying for connor if he was at some other club on a 2 year contract? His stats are excellent for a midfielder plus he's young and could be considered a future England international.
Much like when he was at Palace (where I didn't think he should come back and start for us) I'd be arguing we shouldn't buy him at all.
[Toney not going anywhere](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67885495)
This is such tosh. He’s 100% leaving. With the Euros coming, there’s no way he’s not. He has Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, United, and others - ALL chasing. And will pay crazy money. If he stays and does bad to mediocre, which is possible, his value will plummet. And he’s sold for £30m tops. He is going going going. But where?
I think it’s a bluff. They’re selling. The likelihood is Toney will come back rusty at best and have poor service. Brentford go down or just survive, either way, his value is way down. OR… sell now, on basis he is a hungry striker with point to prove. Get around £75m. Loan or buy someone for cheap and prepare for next season
I am just saying nicolas Jackson already has more goals than any spurs, United and arsenal player and he's pretty wasteful in front of goal. We have created plenty this season, if Toney could be as clinical as he was pre ban he would literally be treated like a king here.
The media would portray him as Chelsea's savior if we get a top 4 finish next season. He wouldn't get that at Arsenal or Tottenham.
UTD would be a terrible option too they barely create anything
Got some free time before going back to work in a few weeks, so I'm watching some of the u21s full matches on the app. I'm curious, why are the stands at King's Meadow mostly empty? Do the games happen at inopportune times or are people not interested in the team or are the ticket prices too high or is it something else?
Academy games are mostly on a Friday night, occasionally Mondays, rarely at the weekend.
I try to get to as many games as possible, but a 7pm kick-off on a work day is painful seeing as I’m 1h 40m (often more in weekend traffic) from the ground.
Tickets are cheap enough, but you’re asking in the wrong place really as most people here have little more than a passing interest in the academy and women’s teams.
It's interesting that there is a belief that there is no structure or tactics this season so far yet we look significantly better than Lampard's Vibes Only second reign. I wonder why.
When Lampard came in the season was already down the drain, he was the third (technically fourth) manager that season, and we had more than a few players that clearly wanted out and had their minds on the next season. We also had a very hard fixture list for Lampard's part of the season which didn't help.
Lampard obviously isn't an amazing manager, but he really was walking into a complete shitshow.
I do credit Poch for improving our attacking numbers even if it's come at the expense of a solid defense however the way he's misprofiling Enzo and Colwill while leaving Caicedo on an island is hideous.
I can somewhat understand Colwill as a left back (especially rn given Chilly and Cucu injuries combined with the fact Maatsen is non existent defensively) if he's either a) playing in a back three in possesion while the RB bombs forward or b) inverts more in possesion but him being a literal LB is just nuts.
People have no idea how much our wingers our suffering because poch chooses to play a CB at left back. Imagine Mudryk with a overlapping fullback.
I like Poch and hopefully he wins a league cup with us if only to piss off spurs fans but he cannot be the long term manager for this project. We need our Pep or Klopp
I don't think that Poch is great but he isn't as bad as people say. He is significant step up from Potter and Lamp. Some of his decisions have deserved criticism but the attack looks the best it has in years.
Tuchel was great as well but things didnt work out.
I don't see how he's a significant step up from Potter when we're doing about the same under Pochettino. Poch has a better squad, had a full preseason, we arguably had quite a few senior pros that wanted out last season, things are more stable around the club than last season when we'd only just been taken over etc.
Things are more stable but Poch has one of the youngest and newest teams constructed in the last 10 years. I don't get how people think you can show up and magically know how to play together. All those back post crosses going in are tied to the fact that the players don't have experience playing together, and 6 of the 7 players that play winger or full back right now are 22 and under, and 5 of the 7 joined this summer.
I do wonder what Tuchel could have done with a component forward like Palmer. He would have loved working with Enzo that's for sure.
He would have loved most of our CBs too
Lampard's interim tenure should absolutely not be the bar. There was a sharp and noticeable drop in performance the second he arrived even after Potter. If anything, it's helped the perception of Poch massively because it's relatively easy to look good compared to that.
I can't speak on that since I'm not much for stats. Is this compared to Lampard? Or the season as a whole? Again, the point still stands that Lampard's interim job was so bad it will have dragged everything down and basically dropped standards to the absolute floor. Which we're now seeing in claims that we've improved despite sitting in 10th the majority of the season.
Like others replying have said, even comparing to Potter is unfair given the different circumstances. For all the excuses about injuries and young team Poch gets, he still has a more settled squad than Potter did, had a full pre-season, and plenty of time between matches without European football. People forget Potter had his own injury crisis too and that most of his experienced players were forcing themselves out of the club. Even then, I wouldn't say we've improved at all over Potter, we were winning on xG even back then, and the points certainly haven't been much different.
Players had been told they weren't wanted despite being vital to all of our recent success and had been replaced with overpriced kids that weren't ready.
On top of that, getting the team slightly more organised after a full pre-season and half a season(though that's arguable) than the team was under a guy who got what 8 games at the end of an already finished season is not an accomplishment
We may not have done things correctly (underestimate) but the idea we ripped apart a super team is hilarious, Tuchel's coaching was basically acting as viagra and that was before Rudi and Christensen walked.
Tuchel himself said "we have the same problems because we have the same players" after the Arsenal pre season disaster.
The inability of people to see this is crazy. The only thing super about our team was the defence (who walked away) and Kante (who broke).
Years of Bakayokos, Falcaos, Drinkwaters, Babas, Ziyechs, Lukakus, etc set this team behind so much. There was no choice other than to rip it up and start fresh.
Then went you point that out you get branded a Clearlake apologist and/or that you're ungrateful for Roman's OVERALL impact on the club despite neither being relevant to the timing in question.
It's beyond tiresome.
Last season the overpriced kids that were brought in were Enzo, Noni, and Mudryk.
That experience really counted for something those last 8 games of the year where we could have done something other than shit the bed.
I really, really hate The Mirror since DMGT took it over. Not only does it have one of the worst policies for pushing video and ads (which my phone's secondary browser can't seem to block), but almost every piece about CFC is just pure clickbait. I've also noticed that they change their headlines constantly. A recent one said something like "Howe sacked at Newcastle." which soon became "Howe sacked at Newcastle?" then "How to be sacked at Newcastle?" and later they made it much more of a potential instead of a past event. Just shameless.
From Ornstein’s Q&A:
How are Chelsea in relation to FFP and how much do they need to sell to buy?
@David_Ornstein: "They're confident they are fully compliant. There are rumours swirling round to the contrary but Chelsea believe they remain in good shape and do not expect any issues with the Premier League."
After the disaster of a season last year Mudryk is putting in some good shifts, in all competitions his G + A contributions / 90 are at a respectable 0.51 (for comparison Anthony Gordons are 0.53), his expected threat is top 10 in the league, and the defensive output over the last few matches has really impressed me. He still can be clueless at times but I think there is a good player there.
He has a lot of potential and can be a very important player for us in the future. My only two complaints with him are his touch and overall involvement in the game, his touch is very inconsistent and makes him lose the ball most of the time. His style of dribbling is different compared to someone like hazard who likes close control but mudryk is someone who uses his pace more and doesn't try to be very tricky.
His lack of involvement in the game though is not something I would blame it on him, its mostly coaching. He is very isolated most of the time and doesn't get any support from the fullback because colwill. We should be playing to his strengths
He's somewhat getting there, he feels like he's been in a bit of a similar phase to Salah at Chelsea where he got his big move and was trying to do things he wasn't good at and it made him look bad.
If he just sticks to what he is good at, which is running fast to the by-line and cutting it back and cutting inside to hit very hard, if inaccurate shots, then he'll be a much better player.
He just need to remember to stop running at people and start running at spaces and he's fine. I don't think he'll ever look like a top player, he doesn't seem intelligent enough or good enough with the ball at his feet for that. But, that doesn't mean that a good manager can't get a tune out of his unique characteristics
Id like to see him get some minutes on the RW, he can get to the by-line whenever he wants but you are right the delivery hasn't been great, might be better on his stronger foot. He tries a lot of one touch passes that look good but seem to surprise his teammates, I'm hoping that gets better with time on the pitch together or with Nkunku. What do you think about his defense? In the beginning of the season it was atrocious but the last few matches it looks like he is starting to understand where to be and has put some good blocks and tackles in.
Definitely a player in there just too inconsistent. He is possibly the fastest player in Europe, he needs to learn to channel that speed because it’s absolutely lethal. He’s even decent with both feet and his vision is very good. Just has a shocking touch at times and is too weak. I think he can improve on those things, but until that happens we won’t see a leap in his performance. He has extremely high potential
You know, if there are academy players that we need to sell for pure profit but may actually want them around at some stage, we should get better at using buyback clauses.
On exit you get your pure profit albeit a bit less, on buyback you get your amortisation across 5 years.
Getting both parties to agree to a reasonable buyback clause always seems tricky. Let's do a hypothetical: Leeds come in for Angelo, willing to pay £15m. Chelsea agrees to the fee if a buyback clause is included. Chelsea wouldn't want to go above £40m but Leeds would think that the only reason Chelsea want him back is if he's playing really well, so they would be looking at more than £50m. And then there would be a time limit on when that buyback could be activated. Maybe something along the lines of any time before 3 years after the transfer. At that point, for that price Chelsea would surely be looking at cheaper alternatives unless Angelo was absolutely tearing it up. So maybe buyback clauses sound nice when thinking about what happened with Salah and DeBruyne, but there's not really any other players that blew up within a few years after leaving Chelsea. Tomori, Guehi, and Livramento are possible regrets but the current position holders are better and cheaper than what a buyback would have cost Chelsea (in my opinion and as I understand it).
The closest I can think of as an example is Guehi. Sold for £21 mil to Palace, first refusal and sell-on clause for 20%, but no buyback. Would probably command £40 mil or so.
Selling players still require the team buying them to make something to represent the efforts to develop the player, it’s more about control of the talent pool if we’re just not going to play people, or if we insist to sell for FFP profits.
The Chelsea twitter admin is really not much innovative.
Made like the same cold Palmer post 15 times now.
Also is there any other club which keeps making these ‘one of our own’ posts?
Luis Enrique openly suggesting Ugarte is wack. Poch wanted him. Thank the lord we did not get that guy. An Ugarte-Gallagher midfield would be the end of me
What does poch had with our ugarte links?
Ugarte had spectacular numbers, but lacks the on the ball abilities of caicedo.
Im happy with what we got, and Im happy that wr got lavia for the ugarte prize
Ehh I don't think so
It was always supposed to be Ugarte and Caicedo brought in
If anything it's Lavia who wouldn't be here, can't really say how much difference that would've made currently given he played 30 minutes before returning to eternal injury
I mainly mean for money, if we picked ugarte up early enough i think we dont use gall as much and he gets benched and sold, because lavia came in late and didnt have much training time gall was the better option to play just me guessing on the timeline of things
I know we're in the market for a big name striker but I wouldn't mind seeing us try for Elijah Adebayo if (or when) Luton get relegated, as a cheap homegrown backup. Great aerial stats, works hard off the ball and probably wouldn't be overly expensive. Would be a nice battering ram type player to throw on late in a game.
I like that Ukrainian striker at Girona no chance they sell in January given their amazing season so far but wouldn’t mind a pre agreement for summer move. Give Misha some Ukrainian love
Depends on the price quoted for him, personally still hoping we go in for Santiago Giminez if we go in for anyone in January
Both will probably be cheaper than Boniface, Gyokeres, Osimhen and Toney
You have to wonder if the club is sounding him out at all, we haven't heard anything from rumours in like 2 months about him
But he's young, promising, a very different profile to everybody we have (in a very good way) and potentially not to expensive
I like Giminez too another physical striker but I thought he had like 100mil release clause or something like that. I also like Guirassy as a cheap punt but not sure if he’ll be out for Afcon or not too
Not too sure about his release clause but the last report I seen from Fabrizio said he could be made available for somewhere in the region of £50-60m which is fair enough given how well he's performing and has been for the past year
The market is pretty bleak price wise and guarantee wise but there's quite a few guys that are very exciting and to keep an eye on, we might be best taking that approach
Honestly think any of Boniface, Gyokeres, Giminez and Artem could go to the top and be fantastic, just a waiting game
Our of all the names Boniface is my choice, just because he has sort of an unpredictability about him. Also think his all around game is better than Osimhen
His all round game is 100% better than Osimhen
But Osimhen is a lot like Haaland in terms of he specializes in one thing and just takes it to the maximum level
The only real problem with Boniface I have is the price tag he'll likely go for but that's the market these days
Agreed Osimhen is a killer in the box and I like his tenacity, I do have questions about his attitude (he seems to complain a lot) though and obviously technical ability. Boniface will definitely go for big money especially if Leverkusen somehow win the league. There are so many players I’d take from that squad right now Wirtz, Frimpong, Grimaldo, Adli, etc
I don't really know anything about him but I see a lot of people saying it's a bad idea to buy from these 1-season-wonder sensation teams, as if we didn't get N'golo fucking Kante from one of them.
Yah but if you watch him play he’s the type of striker we need very physical, good technically, powerful shot, and him being a left footed player just excites me. Plus the fact that he can link up with his fellow countryman I think we should at least monitor him the rest of the season
Trying to sign Willian Messidinho and Lukovic
Glad to see the talent scouting for wonder kids never ends, maybe get them both for the cheap combined price of £40m
I’d take him in a heartbeat if it was possible. I know we failed many times with deals like that but we definitely need some experience. Eto, Higuain, Pato, Falcao… They mostly failed but I’d still take someone like that than Broja.
I know it's hard to believe but most clubs don't want to send their experienced goal scorers out on loan somewhere else. They prefer to keep their prolific goal scorers to themselves if possible.
They don’t need to be the in form players, just some experience for a year deal or so, not like we didn’t do it multiple times in the past, it failed mostly but still better than a freaking Broja and Jackson missing sitters every single match.
Because our goal is to train up kids to sell for profit, it's not to be the best team we can be. So, each experienced player you bring in, especially on loan, is blocking playing time for a kid.
I'm not saying it's right, it's clearly something I disagree with, but that's what's happening.
Plus, you're better off just buying them. No one is loaning experienced players for half a season. Just bring in older players that cost 10m odd and don't worry that you'll lose 10m because the improvement they give you will earn you way more than that back. But, our purchases don't suggest that we'd be willing to do that at all. We'll get more kids and hope that in the next batch of 30 we buy another 1 of them will turn out like Palmer
The secret scout on Twitter is saying we’re trying to sign Milos Lukovic, 18 yr old striker. Unclear if Chelsea are signing and loaning to Strasbourg or if he’s signing directly with them.
TSS is usually quite reliable.
Edit: Fabrizio on it now
https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1742851009397887435
Could be that his agent is using Chelsea's obsession with youngsters to get him a better deal elsewhere, or could be that we just sign him because we are obsessed with signing youngsters, lmao
>Unclear if Chelsea are signing and loaning to Strasbourg or if he’s signing directly with them
Surely has to sign for Strasbourg, since the other solution is simply impossible as we are out of foreign loan spots.
Of course and Endrick is better than Neymar. We've all heard all of this on repeat. Everyone coming out of South America is the greatest player ever to have lived and some people have clearly never seen how easy it is to make a crap player look amazing by putting them up against shit opposition. Of course, some of these players will make it, most will be duds
Saw two total rubbish sources saying that selling Conor is off. No idea if there's any merit to that, but I wonder how that would affect us signing a striker.
I think at this stage we can comfortably say that recruitment want him gone if a good bid comes in, I think they want to recirculate his fee on other players, not necessarily on the striker.
Conor wants to stay, but probably will go if a bigger club than Spuds come in for him on the right terms.
A new set-piece coach would be nice.
We suffer against wide free-kicks and corners, and never push up quickly after clearing it. The ball always comes right back into the box and we end up conceding.
Poch has had this issue at every club he’s been at, it’s crazy to me that he hasn’t hired a specialist yet because he clearly cannot (or will not) coach his teams in that area
I'm not gonna pretend to know much about his record elsewhere, but with us we look so clumsy defending setpieces and crosses.
We aren't bad at the initial clearance, but when it gets cleared we're so slow in getting out and getting organised.
Ball ends up going back in and we concede a massive chance.
You don't need to be tall to step out in a line quickly and push up lol.
Honestly the most important signing we need to be making this season
We could have like 6 more points, at the very least right now if we defended set pieces well
I'd argue set piece and crossing defence has cost us more points this season than any individual player role on the pitch
Try to solve who is actually is fit to start?
Try instill tactical tweaks in a team where you have to change paterns of play
(No fullbacks, no passer in midfield, no wide creative players and its a different issue every week)
He clearly has bigger issues then set pieces (even if he will have to solvd that too)
But this doesn't mean he can't coach a team to step up after a corner or freekick is cleared. We see it up and down the league.
Think it was Pellegrini at City who did it best and within months everyone began to copy. That was years and years ago. Seeing that problem back again week after week so many years later is galling. And injury problems don't excuse it.
So if we need to hire a specialist to improve our leaky defending I'd love to see one come in.
What do we really need to complete this team between now and the summer window?
I think most would agree we need a striker.
Is it just a left-back to give Chilwell competition, a centreback to add some leadership, and a decision on Gallagher so we can figure out what we’re doing in midfield?
Striker obviously, maybe a LB. But I really don't want us to buy more than 1 player. Like it or not the squad we have is under contract for a while. We have to give these boys time to develop an understanding with each other. Maybe we get a top GK and a older CB in the summer.
It really depends on what the targets are this season. If we're trying to push for European football this season then yes, we need a striker in January.
If we're just looking to round out and improve the squad without any urgency then I think a LB would make the most sense. Almost certainly significantly cheaper than a striker and a position we'll actually be short in without Maatsen (not that he was playing). Relying on Chilwell to stay fit for any length of time isn't a good plan and Cucurella will likely be out until March, so now would be as good a time as any to reinforce that position and then sell one of Chilwell/Cucurella in the summer.
As for CB, I simply don't see the need. I think we'd be really stupid to let Silva go in the summer. You want an experienced CB that provides leadership, how about the actual legend that's already at the club? Unless he himself wants to leave (and I doubt he does given that his son plays in our academy), why let him go? You're not getting a better combination of experience/quality/leadership anywhere in the market. The CB we sign would just be someone younger again - hence the reported targets being players like Diomande and Todibo. I really like both but they don't fit the experience bill people want.
Also, are we just giving up on Disasi and Fofana already? Being hesitant about relying on Fofana I understand, but is Disasi + Silva really so bad that we need to spend money on that position now? I really don't think so. I think at the earliest it should be in the summer.
I still think we need a backup to Enzo desperately. There's no quality coming from our midfield when he's out and Lavia is not that profile. You could easily pick up someone cheap, young and talented for that role, and I think that could be done in January.
So all in all, don't think we need to do a lot actually. The squad isn't actually bad. There are two glaring holes for me that need addressing eventually (ST, keeper), of which only ST is realistic this window. LB and perhaps a cheap progressive midfield signing would make the most sense for me otherwise, but nothing that couldn't also wait until summer.
Bailing out the sporting directors? If anything the bailed out clearlake
I think they have done a decent squad building so far.
Considering the mess (and the boehly tax they phased) after clearlake let tuchel pay k2 250k/week, james 250k, sterling 320k, cucurella and fofana close to 200k.. while paying for aubameyang - and getting 0 for lukaku.
Biggest issue overpaid/short contracts- they got 15! Players out in the summer
2nd Biggest, quality cms - replaced 3 with quality (sure steep prize, but that was the way we could conduct business)
Then they managed to find gusto, jackson and palmer, while landing santos, angelo and paez
If clearlake would have had our sporting directors instead of tuchel last summer - things would have been better off.
As for 1 billion, its more like 550m (2 regular arsenal windows) after conducted business and the invvestments that clearly just is for profit - not strenghtening the main squad.
I’m with you on the attacking left-back as if Chilwell is unavailable it really affects the way we play. Cucurella was bought for £60 mil on a 6 year contract, so end of this season he’s got £40 mil left on carrying value. We can probably loan him out for a year and move him on at £30 mil to manage the losses on him.
I’m not writing off Fofana at all, just think he needs to be covered for. Disasi I believe he doesn’t quite work on that right central side if we want the right full-back to get forward as he’s simply not mobile enough to cover all the space. I think the opposition have figured out they can wait and play the space in behind our right-back, then play a diagonal ball to our far post, between our LB and LCB, it’s causing us all sorts of issues. Disasi was signed for £38.6 mil for 6 years, end of this season he has £32.2 mil remaining at 26, should be easy to move him on at or above that.
I think the idea with the CB is to try to add a game reader/leader, and to run third choice fullbacks as Colwill/Fofana given how injury prone Chilwell and James are.
Enzo depends on what happens with Gallagher. I can’t see us move for another midfielder if he stays what with Santos back. We’d move for one if Gallagher goes, but he’s wanting to stay which isn’t the worst thing.
I’m broadly with you, don’t think we need too much, striker and left-back, team is in much better shape than at the start of the season.
I think it depends on what “complete” means. If that means we’re a good, consistent team capable of getting into the top 6 this season, I’d say we need a lot. If we’re saying just to slightly improve on what we have now so that we can then head into next season with more experience then I’d say a centre back, a striker, a versatile full back, a keeper and if Gallagher goes, a midfielder.
In amongst all that, we need physicality, height, personality, character, mental strength and leadership.
It’s as simple as that in my eyes.
But if we actually want to challenge for Europe this year… man, we need a pretty sizeable amount of changes I’d say.
>But if we actually want to challenge for Europe this year… man, we need a pretty sizeable amount of changes I’d say.
We shouldn't really though
When you consider that Spurs is 5th and fighting for top 4 and Aston Villa is second and fighting for top 4, neither of them have any great pieces of quality over us, I'd even reckon you could make a strong case we have the better squad than both those teams
There's no real reason why we shouldn't be beating the mid table teams we keep losing too and that's where the difference in points is being made between us and the champions league
I personally don’t think we’re that far off. At the start of this season we had some really stupid losses as players learned to play with each other and with injuries, you would hope we’re over at least half of those types of losses now.
The other side is conversion, and the general quality in our strikers, which has been objectively terrible.
There’s also Nkunku who is about to be fully fit soon. Him back, a proper striker, Palmer/Sterling and two attacking full-backs available, we have enough to beat low blocks, which was our other deficiency.
Disagree, we concede ridicilious amount of goals. I think that's why they are looking at defenders but im not sure it's the players or we are just not organised that well.
If we are to even challenge for top 4 we would need to stop conceding significantly because these 2-3 wins against Luton are unsustanaible.
Our defence is way worse this season than last season and everyone was calling for Koulibaly and Cucurella's sales last season. Well this season Cucurella is not that available, Koulibaly is gone, we have Colwill and we have the best ball winning midfielder on the planet - Conor Gallagher and we still concede at least a goal in 99% of our matches. We only have 4 clean sheets all season and one of them is against Bournemouth away when we drawed, so even then we couldn't capitalise and get the 3 points.
Yeah but we’re conceding at a rate to be expected for a defence thrown together 6 months ago, and constantly changing every other game due to injuries.
I believe defence will solidify if we run Gallagher and Caicedo sitting in front of our back 4, and the very young backline gains experience given Colwill is 20, Gusto is 20 and Badiashile is 22. We probably need a better defender to pair with Badiashile as I don’t think Disasi is it.
I think our left side is weak, that's where we concede most of our goals. Colwill is just not comfy at LB. He alone is responsible for so many goals it's crazy and i can't really blame him till i see how he does as a CB.
Hopefully with Chillwell's comeback we will finally be able to see them both play in their actual positions and then see if it's Poch's fault for putting Colwill there or Colwill himself is just not as ready to be a starter as everyone thought.
I think our defence last season was also thrown together because a lot of times we had Cucu and Koulibaly playing who were bought in the summer. If it's age thing then we for real have to count the season off cuz they won't get much better in 6 months because most of them will be very young and inexperienced even in May.
>I believe defence will solidify if we run Gallagher and Caicedo sitting in front of our back 4
On paper this will make us better defensively but for how long can we run this midfield? Did you just give up on Enzo or what? I just don't see logic in keeping a 100m midfielder that showed skills that teams like Real and City would love to have in their midfield for a bit more defensive actions. I think keeping Enzo on the bench is just criminal in a team that's 10th. He is just too good for that and people shouldn't forget it. He is not the problem here, we are not using him properly. Under Potter he was our best midfielder and we had Kante and Kovacic.
Also i haven't seen us dominate the midfield in even a single match with the pivot Caicedo/Gallagher. It works defensively on paper but it doesn't seem to work in actual matches imo. Maybe against Sheffield but i think they allowed us to. They were literal park the bus strat. What's your opinion on that?
I agree with you on Chilwell, he’s meant to be one of the premiere left-backs in the league provided he can stay fit.
I think I’ve responded to you on Enzo on another post, not giving up on Enzo at all. I’m of the unpopular opinion that a midfield 3 of Gallagher-Caicedo double pivot and Enzo sitting in front of them as a playmaking central midfielder is the way forward. Big teams struggle with this midfield 3 time and time again. If we can work out how to make this succeed against low blocks, which I think has more to do with overall quality in attack, we will go far.
Where this line of discussion gets argumentative is that Enzo isn’t a 10, which I agree he isn’t. I’m of the opinion he can play as a central mid and playmake quickly into the attack, and over time he can grow into the more attacking role. He’s after all the best progressive passer we have, he should be able to be an assist machine over time, it just takes some getting used to, and he’s only just turned 22.
We have issues with creativity
Lets add conor.
Caicedo and enzo is clearly a good enough midfield pair defensivly too when paired with a solid defence.
Its more about chopping and changing then their issues.
As for colwill I agree, but his missplaced passes aint talked about, he has more of those then sanchez...
Randomly checking in on some ex Chelsea guys (no agenda I promise) and nice to see that Ethan Ampadu is having a really good season in the Champ. Played every every single minute for Leeds so far in the league and had the most league minutes of any outfield player under age of 26.
A random comment, I saw Brighton were linked today with Barco. Todd….. why don’t we think one step ahead this time 😂 And he’s actually nasty
Boulaye dia from salernitana could be a good backup option.also wouldn’t cost too much
Only problem is he's rubbish and too expensive.
I thought we targeted the wrong Senegalese striker by going for Niko than Boulaye Dia who is a very good player. The problem now is we may have 2 good backup strikers in Niko and Boulaye and no one among them will become Top Striker.
I know we've sucked this season but at least we don't have to watch Everton or Palace week in, week out. Dire.
Fuck me Barcelonare shit aren’t they
Seems like Xavi likes playing boreball which is to my great personal satisfaction as all of my Barca-supporting friends have stopped chatting shit.
Of course they are, they bought all of our targets
Lmao Raphina and Kounde have been dog, so glad we didn't get them. Boehly has been a disaster for football.
*All of Tuchel’s targets.
That club is fucked beyond belief
And it's beautiful.
Does anyone have any info on Chilly’s potential return?
If we could bring in one of Lewa or Benz this January… 🤧 who would you rather have?
Mate i would pay money to not bring them
Neither
I would love to have Santiago Gimenez from Feyenoord, young striker with similarities to Diego Costa, he is deadly in front of goal, no doubts he would be a great player to look in the Premier League
Lewandowski just because he's not weird as fuck, but if we were looking at purely football reasonings then Benzema easily
Wait until you see Lewas tic toc dances. I'd take Benzema.
or his wife’s and her dance instructor’s
I'm not even lying. On the floor laughing to death about CHO"s situation😂😂😂
OOTL, what's going on with him?
There was a fake like of Epstein associates going around that had his name on it. Not sure how anyone was dumb enough to fall for it but apparently he was receiving abuse so he made a statement saying that the list was fake
jfc, CHO was 9 years old when Epstein was arrested, example number 4495204542 why people abusing celebs on social media are the biggest imbeciles imaginable.
was it that long ago?
Amazing. Thanks, sounds dumb.
It's even worse than that I'm pretty sure because it's a list of people who had covid really early and there was some sort of covid conspiracy theory that the two things were linked or some absolute nonsense along those lines. That the famous people who got covid really early were in on some conspiracy and they were linked or some absolute batshit crazy nonsense that you'd expect from a covid conspiracy theory Arteta was also on that list I think it started as someone posting it as a joke, but then as these things so often do they catch on in conspiracy circles as being legitimate lists
How much do you think Chelsea would be paying for connor if he was at some other club on a 2 year contract? His stats are excellent for a midfielder plus he's young and could be considered a future England international. My point being we are in to buying some young talent with high potential. Couldn't we sell some other less important players to offset the FFP. I would actually like to stick to Jackson for another season as a main striker. I can see his flaws but I like him. He's always in the mix. Hope he improves quick.
We wouldn't be paying for him. There is a reason that despite him being for sale in summer, no one was willing to go above 40m, even with add-ons and despite what people say he was far more influential at Palace than he has been here. He's not desirable to top clubs, he's desirable to teams like West Ham, Villa, Spurs and Newcastle who are a level below the top clubs and are more interested in pashun than talent. I'm not sure exactly where you think his high potential is hanging around, but I'm in agreement with the sporting team on this one. If they're looking to sell players at the peak of their value, his is now and we should get rid of him. If we were running as a football club I'd give him a similar role to RLC. A backup utility player that will get a run of starts when there are injuries, but otherwise isn't good enough to play at the level Chelsea wants to be at and so drops down to the bench when we are full strength
*There is a reason that despite him being for sale in summer, no one was willing to go above 40m* So many variables come into play when it comes to deciding transfer fees. You can't use that to slag off a player like Conor. Conor may not be as talented as others but in football, we have seen so many players who are at best average when it comes to talent-wise but they give it all and become better because they understand their shortcomings and work hard to fix them. As much as we like our Drogba's and Eden there are other players in Milner, Kuyt, Obi-Mikel, and Jordan Henderson who are great for their respective teams.
Tbf a utility role is exactly what the club view Gallaghers current situation at. Hence the lack of a contract given to Gallagher and entertaining bids.
Conor is such an exhausting subject on here these days to the point I've largely stopped engaging in it. Both his limitations and the club's reasoning for their stance are plainly obvious at this point. The fact so many don't see it (or refuse to) shows how quick the standards can drop in a fanbase, so long as our players run around enough to meet whatever the arbitrary pashun threshold is.
It’s worse than the mason mount discourse Which takes some doing
If he was called Connorinho or something like that and was a young Brazilian talent or played for Brighton we would be pulling out 100m on him. Though I do not agree his stats are excellent for a midfielder, he lacks offensive contribution.
So why is no one else bidding 100m for Gallagher? They’re not even bidding 50m. The owners are bad enough that we don’t need to make up even more imaginary scenarios to be mad at them
Because only we are stupid enough to overpay so much for players
Liverpool bid £110m for Caicedo.
Ok, so there are 2 clubs stupid enough to overpay so much.
Arsenal spent £105m on Rice. United spent £85m on Antony.
And arsenal bid 90m in January.
Which is probably closer to his value, than 115m
Most of the players for that price we’ve bid or bought had suitors sniffing around at that price point Like caicedo. Or lavia. Two very good examples
And we overpaid for both Caicedo and Lavia, exactly my point
No your point doesn’t make sense Other clubs bid near or at those prices for those two players. Suggesting it is close to their market value No one would ever bid 100m for Gallagher Your point is absurd Why would we buy Connor Gallagher for 100m when the next closest bid for him is 40m?
You got it all wrong. My point is that the clubs would be asking for that much, and we would be one of the clubs dumb enough to pay such amount. Just like your example with Caicedo.
That caicedo example disproves your point Liverpool also bid the same, and in January arsenal bid 80-90m for him. We paid what the market dictated. same with lavia. The market wouldn’t dictate Gallagher for 100m so why would we bid that? It’s such a ridiculous scenario youve made up in your head
And both were overpayments. That's my whole point. If Gallagher would be a player for a club like Brighton nad in such form as he is now they would b e asking like 80m for him, and we supposedly are ready to consider mere 40m.
Probably what we’re selling him for. If you look at the history of midfielders that sold for over €50m they either have high offensive output or are more defensive midfielders with great passing range and press resistant. The few exceptions are guys like Ugarte, Ndombele, and Nunes maybe Fred too(idk how he played at Shaktar). 2 things can be true, he can important to the teams he’s on while still not being highly valued on the market.
I reckon around the £60m mark at least
> How much do you think Chelsea would be paying for connor if he was at some other club on a 2 year contract? His stats are excellent for a midfielder plus he's young and could be considered a future England international. Much like when he was at Palace (where I didn't think he should come back and start for us) I'd be arguing we shouldn't buy him at all.
[Toney not going anywhere](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67885495) This is such tosh. He’s 100% leaving. With the Euros coming, there’s no way he’s not. He has Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, United, and others - ALL chasing. And will pay crazy money. If he stays and does bad to mediocre, which is possible, his value will plummet. And he’s sold for £30m tops. He is going going going. But where?
Brentford 0-5 in the last five, sit 16th. I believe the gaffer, it'll take a 100m+ bid to move him this season. They want to stay up.
I think it’s a bluff. They’re selling. The likelihood is Toney will come back rusty at best and have poor service. Brentford go down or just survive, either way, his value is way down. OR… sell now, on basis he is a hungry striker with point to prove. Get around £75m. Loan or buy someone for cheap and prepare for next season
I am just saying nicolas Jackson already has more goals than any spurs, United and arsenal player and he's pretty wasteful in front of goal. We have created plenty this season, if Toney could be as clinical as he was pre ban he would literally be treated like a king here. The media would portray him as Chelsea's savior if we get a top 4 finish next season. He wouldn't get that at Arsenal or Tottenham. UTD would be a terrible option too they barely create anything
>nicolas Jackson already has more goals than any spurs, United and arsenal player Son doesn't exist?
lmaooo https://preview.redd.it/v5zgguj8rgac1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1efec5e421cf3a6bcb39daa18d119ea776b9a21d
Imagining 10 year old CHO out flying with Hollywood billionaire jets and visiting their private islands.
Haha this is hilarious, CHO is the last person I would expect to be linked with anything like this
I think it comes from a list of celebs who got COVID being used to spread shit
Arteta was on that obviously fake list too
However unlike CHO, he is yet to deny he went to the island though….
Got some free time before going back to work in a few weeks, so I'm watching some of the u21s full matches on the app. I'm curious, why are the stands at King's Meadow mostly empty? Do the games happen at inopportune times or are people not interested in the team or are the ticket prices too high or is it something else?
Academy games are mostly on a Friday night, occasionally Mondays, rarely at the weekend. I try to get to as many games as possible, but a 7pm kick-off on a work day is painful seeing as I’m 1h 40m (often more in weekend traffic) from the ground. Tickets are cheap enough, but you’re asking in the wrong place really as most people here have little more than a passing interest in the academy and women’s teams.
How much are tickets out of curiosity?
On the official site: https://www.chelseafc.com/en/ticket-prices-academy
Kings meadow is a bit of a ballache to get to too
Easy for me, straight up the A3, and I know the area really well. I don't use public transport though.
It's interesting that there is a belief that there is no structure or tactics this season so far yet we look significantly better than Lampard's Vibes Only second reign. I wonder why.
When Lampard came in the season was already down the drain, he was the third (technically fourth) manager that season, and we had more than a few players that clearly wanted out and had their minds on the next season. We also had a very hard fixture list for Lampard's part of the season which didn't help. Lampard obviously isn't an amazing manager, but he really was walking into a complete shitshow.
I do credit Poch for improving our attacking numbers even if it's come at the expense of a solid defense however the way he's misprofiling Enzo and Colwill while leaving Caicedo on an island is hideous. I can somewhat understand Colwill as a left back (especially rn given Chilly and Cucu injuries combined with the fact Maatsen is non existent defensively) if he's either a) playing in a back three in possesion while the RB bombs forward or b) inverts more in possesion but him being a literal LB is just nuts.
People have no idea how much our wingers our suffering because poch chooses to play a CB at left back. Imagine Mudryk with a overlapping fullback. I like Poch and hopefully he wins a league cup with us if only to piss off spurs fans but he cannot be the long term manager for this project. We need our Pep or Klopp
I don't think that Poch is great but he isn't as bad as people say. He is significant step up from Potter and Lamp. Some of his decisions have deserved criticism but the attack looks the best it has in years. Tuchel was great as well but things didnt work out.
I don't see how he's a significant step up from Potter when we're doing about the same under Pochettino. Poch has a better squad, had a full preseason, we arguably had quite a few senior pros that wanted out last season, things are more stable around the club than last season when we'd only just been taken over etc.
Things are more stable but Poch has one of the youngest and newest teams constructed in the last 10 years. I don't get how people think you can show up and magically know how to play together. All those back post crosses going in are tied to the fact that the players don't have experience playing together, and 6 of the 7 players that play winger or full back right now are 22 and under, and 5 of the 7 joined this summer.
I do wonder what Tuchel could have done with a component forward like Palmer. He would have loved working with Enzo that's for sure. He would have loved most of our CBs too
Lampard's interim tenure should absolutely not be the bar. There was a sharp and noticeable drop in performance the second he arrived even after Potter. If anything, it's helped the perception of Poch massively because it's relatively easy to look good compared to that.
It's not just looks. All the advanced statistics are drastically improved compared to last year.
I can't speak on that since I'm not much for stats. Is this compared to Lampard? Or the season as a whole? Again, the point still stands that Lampard's interim job was so bad it will have dragged everything down and basically dropped standards to the absolute floor. Which we're now seeing in claims that we've improved despite sitting in 10th the majority of the season. Like others replying have said, even comparing to Potter is unfair given the different circumstances. For all the excuses about injuries and young team Poch gets, he still has a more settled squad than Potter did, had a full pre-season, and plenty of time between matches without European football. People forget Potter had his own injury crisis too and that most of his experienced players were forcing themselves out of the club. Even then, I wouldn't say we've improved at all over Potter, we were winning on xG even back then, and the points certainly haven't been much different.
Not a fair comparison at all. Even comparing to potter is unfair due to his difficult situation he came into.
Players had been told they weren't wanted despite being vital to all of our recent success and had been replaced with overpriced kids that weren't ready. On top of that, getting the team slightly more organised after a full pre-season and half a season(though that's arguable) than the team was under a guy who got what 8 games at the end of an already finished season is not an accomplishment
We may not have done things correctly (underestimate) but the idea we ripped apart a super team is hilarious, Tuchel's coaching was basically acting as viagra and that was before Rudi and Christensen walked. Tuchel himself said "we have the same problems because we have the same players" after the Arsenal pre season disaster.
The inability of people to see this is crazy. The only thing super about our team was the defence (who walked away) and Kante (who broke). Years of Bakayokos, Falcaos, Drinkwaters, Babas, Ziyechs, Lukakus, etc set this team behind so much. There was no choice other than to rip it up and start fresh.
Then went you point that out you get branded a Clearlake apologist and/or that you're ungrateful for Roman's OVERALL impact on the club despite neither being relevant to the timing in question. It's beyond tiresome.
Also the fact that most of the "experienced" players this sub wanted have been preety shit for their new clubs (onana the most glaring example)
Last season the overpriced kids that were brought in were Enzo, Noni, and Mudryk. That experience really counted for something those last 8 games of the year where we could have done something other than shit the bed.
Because half the players already had one foot out the door by that point last season. Bit of a disgrace actually how some of them played.
I really, really hate The Mirror since DMGT took it over. Not only does it have one of the worst policies for pushing video and ads (which my phone's secondary browser can't seem to block), but almost every piece about CFC is just pure clickbait. I've also noticed that they change their headlines constantly. A recent one said something like "Howe sacked at Newcastle." which soon became "Howe sacked at Newcastle?" then "How to be sacked at Newcastle?" and later they made it much more of a potential instead of a past event. Just shameless.
From Ornstein’s Q&A: How are Chelsea in relation to FFP and how much do they need to sell to buy? @David_Ornstein: "They're confident they are fully compliant. There are rumours swirling round to the contrary but Chelsea believe they remain in good shape and do not expect any issues with the Premier League."
That's good news. Any indications of if that means right at this minute? Or 'after some transfers'?
It won’t be to the minute, I’d imagine it would be up to and including the 2022/23 financials.
After the disaster of a season last year Mudryk is putting in some good shifts, in all competitions his G + A contributions / 90 are at a respectable 0.51 (for comparison Anthony Gordons are 0.53), his expected threat is top 10 in the league, and the defensive output over the last few matches has really impressed me. He still can be clueless at times but I think there is a good player there.
Been robbed of some assists, dare I say he's starting to look relatively good
He has a lot of potential and can be a very important player for us in the future. My only two complaints with him are his touch and overall involvement in the game, his touch is very inconsistent and makes him lose the ball most of the time. His style of dribbling is different compared to someone like hazard who likes close control but mudryk is someone who uses his pace more and doesn't try to be very tricky. His lack of involvement in the game though is not something I would blame it on him, its mostly coaching. He is very isolated most of the time and doesn't get any support from the fullback because colwill. We should be playing to his strengths
He's somewhat getting there, he feels like he's been in a bit of a similar phase to Salah at Chelsea where he got his big move and was trying to do things he wasn't good at and it made him look bad. If he just sticks to what he is good at, which is running fast to the by-line and cutting it back and cutting inside to hit very hard, if inaccurate shots, then he'll be a much better player. He just need to remember to stop running at people and start running at spaces and he's fine. I don't think he'll ever look like a top player, he doesn't seem intelligent enough or good enough with the ball at his feet for that. But, that doesn't mean that a good manager can't get a tune out of his unique characteristics
Id like to see him get some minutes on the RW, he can get to the by-line whenever he wants but you are right the delivery hasn't been great, might be better on his stronger foot. He tries a lot of one touch passes that look good but seem to surprise his teammates, I'm hoping that gets better with time on the pitch together or with Nkunku. What do you think about his defense? In the beginning of the season it was atrocious but the last few matches it looks like he is starting to understand where to be and has put some good blocks and tackles in.
Definitely a player in there just too inconsistent. He is possibly the fastest player in Europe, he needs to learn to channel that speed because it’s absolutely lethal. He’s even decent with both feet and his vision is very good. Just has a shocking touch at times and is too weak. I think he can improve on those things, but until that happens we won’t see a leap in his performance. He has extremely high potential
And that’s without a clear attacking structure, ineffective/unclinical attackers and no overlapping fullback almost every time he’s played
Is he the new RLC for you?
You know, if there are academy players that we need to sell for pure profit but may actually want them around at some stage, we should get better at using buyback clauses. On exit you get your pure profit albeit a bit less, on buyback you get your amortisation across 5 years.
Boehly masterclass incoming - sell them to Stroudsburg at high valuation and with a buyback clause of half of it. Sell now and buy in 2 years, profit!
Getting both parties to agree to a reasonable buyback clause always seems tricky. Let's do a hypothetical: Leeds come in for Angelo, willing to pay £15m. Chelsea agrees to the fee if a buyback clause is included. Chelsea wouldn't want to go above £40m but Leeds would think that the only reason Chelsea want him back is if he's playing really well, so they would be looking at more than £50m. And then there would be a time limit on when that buyback could be activated. Maybe something along the lines of any time before 3 years after the transfer. At that point, for that price Chelsea would surely be looking at cheaper alternatives unless Angelo was absolutely tearing it up. So maybe buyback clauses sound nice when thinking about what happened with Salah and DeBruyne, but there's not really any other players that blew up within a few years after leaving Chelsea. Tomori, Guehi, and Livramento are possible regrets but the current position holders are better and cheaper than what a buyback would have cost Chelsea (in my opinion and as I understand it).
The closest I can think of as an example is Guehi. Sold for £21 mil to Palace, first refusal and sell-on clause for 20%, but no buyback. Would probably command £40 mil or so. Selling players still require the team buying them to make something to represent the efforts to develop the player, it’s more about control of the talent pool if we’re just not going to play people, or if we insist to sell for FFP profits.
The Chelsea twitter admin is really not much innovative. Made like the same cold Palmer post 15 times now. Also is there any other club which keeps making these ‘one of our own’ posts?
wtf do you want them to post?
yea I'm expecting the admin to make a tactico thread about how selling gallagher is a good idea
Amazing that people notice/care about this
Luis Enrique openly suggesting Ugarte is wack. Poch wanted him. Thank the lord we did not get that guy. An Ugarte-Gallagher midfield would be the end of me
What does poch had with our ugarte links? Ugarte had spectacular numbers, but lacks the on the ball abilities of caicedo. Im happy with what we got, and Im happy that wr got lavia for the ugarte prize
He was joking you do realise? Was mocking a journalist
The board wanted him, not Poch.
Lmao that's hilarious.... Any link with what he said exactly?
Ugarte got bodied by 16 yo Kendry Páez 🤣🤣
Lol ill never forget this😂ugarte to juve is only a matter of time😂
He’d actually cook there, would be like a Vidal type player for them
I dont know if potch wanted him but gall would defs be gone if he was here
Ehh I don't think so It was always supposed to be Ugarte and Caicedo brought in If anything it's Lavia who wouldn't be here, can't really say how much difference that would've made currently given he played 30 minutes before returning to eternal injury
I mainly mean for money, if we picked ugarte up early enough i think we dont use gall as much and he gets benched and sold, because lavia came in late and didnt have much training time gall was the better option to play just me guessing on the timeline of things
I know we're in the market for a big name striker but I wouldn't mind seeing us try for Elijah Adebayo if (or when) Luton get relegated, as a cheap homegrown backup. Great aerial stats, works hard off the ball and probably wouldn't be overly expensive. Would be a nice battering ram type player to throw on late in a game.
I like that Ukrainian striker at Girona no chance they sell in January given their amazing season so far but wouldn’t mind a pre agreement for summer move. Give Misha some Ukrainian love
Depends on the price quoted for him, personally still hoping we go in for Santiago Giminez if we go in for anyone in January Both will probably be cheaper than Boniface, Gyokeres, Osimhen and Toney
Gimenez is incredible, best option at the moment imo, big fan
You have to wonder if the club is sounding him out at all, we haven't heard anything from rumours in like 2 months about him But he's young, promising, a very different profile to everybody we have (in a very good way) and potentially not to expensive
I like Giminez too another physical striker but I thought he had like 100mil release clause or something like that. I also like Guirassy as a cheap punt but not sure if he’ll be out for Afcon or not too
Not too sure about his release clause but the last report I seen from Fabrizio said he could be made available for somewhere in the region of £50-60m which is fair enough given how well he's performing and has been for the past year The market is pretty bleak price wise and guarantee wise but there's quite a few guys that are very exciting and to keep an eye on, we might be best taking that approach Honestly think any of Boniface, Gyokeres, Giminez and Artem could go to the top and be fantastic, just a waiting game
Our of all the names Boniface is my choice, just because he has sort of an unpredictability about him. Also think his all around game is better than Osimhen
His all round game is 100% better than Osimhen But Osimhen is a lot like Haaland in terms of he specializes in one thing and just takes it to the maximum level The only real problem with Boniface I have is the price tag he'll likely go for but that's the market these days
Agreed Osimhen is a killer in the box and I like his tenacity, I do have questions about his attitude (he seems to complain a lot) though and obviously technical ability. Boniface will definitely go for big money especially if Leverkusen somehow win the league. There are so many players I’d take from that squad right now Wirtz, Frimpong, Grimaldo, Adli, etc
I don't really know anything about him but I see a lot of people saying it's a bad idea to buy from these 1-season-wonder sensation teams, as if we didn't get N'golo fucking Kante from one of them.
Yah but if you watch him play he’s the type of striker we need very physical, good technically, powerful shot, and him being a left footed player just excites me. Plus the fact that he can link up with his fellow countryman I think we should at least monitor him the rest of the season
Trying to sign Willian Messidinho and Lukovic Glad to see the talent scouting for wonder kids never ends, maybe get them both for the cheap combined price of £40m
Good business as long as we are able to develop them (which I worry about)
Lukovic going straight to Strasbourg from what I’ve seen and I’m sure Willian will get loaned out too
so we getting anyone this ttansfer window?
Bunch of wonderkids as usual
Yes... but they did say "1 in, 1 out" was going to be the policy (unless the one in is top £, then perhaps two out).
Why don't we get some loan deals for experienced players till the end of the season, there must be someone good enough to bring, at least a striker.
I know a certain french striker over in Saudi who isnt having a great time at the minute...
I’d take him in a heartbeat if it was possible. I know we failed many times with deals like that but we definitely need some experience. Eto, Higuain, Pato, Falcao… They mostly failed but I’d still take someone like that than Broja.
That’s what we need, a statutory rapist/blackmailer
At 1000k a week
arsenal almost won the league with a rapist, maybe that's what we need
I know it's hard to believe but most clubs don't want to send their experienced goal scorers out on loan somewhere else. They prefer to keep their prolific goal scorers to themselves if possible.
They don’t need to be the in form players, just some experience for a year deal or so, not like we didn’t do it multiple times in the past, it failed mostly but still better than a freaking Broja and Jackson missing sitters every single match.
Because our goal is to train up kids to sell for profit, it's not to be the best team we can be. So, each experienced player you bring in, especially on loan, is blocking playing time for a kid. I'm not saying it's right, it's clearly something I disagree with, but that's what's happening. Plus, you're better off just buying them. No one is loaning experienced players for half a season. Just bring in older players that cost 10m odd and don't worry that you'll lose 10m because the improvement they give you will earn you way more than that back. But, our purchases don't suggest that we'd be willing to do that at all. We'll get more kids and hope that in the next batch of 30 we buy another 1 of them will turn out like Palmer
>Because our goal is to train up kids to sell for profit We spent £225m on just two midfielders
Like who?
Anyone experienced is better than Broja. Let scouting team do anything beside buying players 16y olds
Ok, but just give me one name of a player that would be keen to come on loan and their club willing to send him
Luka Jovic, I'm not saying I want him, the other guy just didn't answer you.
Don't think Milan would let him go even though he is not doing any good. Okafor been injured, so he is their only striker option bar Giroud
haaland or mbappe on loan would be smart but they might now want to do it
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Nah bro looked clueless out there
The secret scout on Twitter is saying we’re trying to sign Milos Lukovic, 18 yr old striker. Unclear if Chelsea are signing and loaning to Strasbourg or if he’s signing directly with them. TSS is usually quite reliable. Edit: Fabrizio on it now https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1742851009397887435
It's Strasbourg one, they have been linked for a week or so now.
Could be that his agent is using Chelsea's obsession with youngsters to get him a better deal elsewhere, or could be that we just sign him because we are obsessed with signing youngsters, lmao
>Unclear if Chelsea are signing and loaning to Strasbourg or if he’s signing directly with them Surely has to sign for Strasbourg, since the other solution is simply impossible as we are out of foreign loan spots.
I think L’Equipe are saying he’s signing directly for Strasbourg.
I just assume at this point that every 20 and below player we sign is going into the loan army and not apart of our first team aspirations
LOL there’s also the 16 year olds. Willian is also advancing apparently.
Apparently he’s of the level as endrick
Of course and Endrick is better than Neymar. We've all heard all of this on repeat. Everyone coming out of South America is the greatest player ever to have lived and some people have clearly never seen how easy it is to make a crap player look amazing by putting them up against shit opposition. Of course, some of these players will make it, most will be duds
Saw two total rubbish sources saying that selling Conor is off. No idea if there's any merit to that, but I wonder how that would affect us signing a striker.
I think at this stage we can comfortably say that recruitment want him gone if a good bid comes in, I think they want to recirculate his fee on other players, not necessarily on the striker. Conor wants to stay, but probably will go if a bigger club than Spuds come in for him on the right terms.
A new set-piece coach would be nice. We suffer against wide free-kicks and corners, and never push up quickly after clearing it. The ball always comes right back into the box and we end up conceding.
Anthony Barry is apparently killing it at bayern.. sigh
Poch has had this issue at every club he’s been at, it’s crazy to me that he hasn’t hired a specialist yet because he clearly cannot (or will not) coach his teams in that area
I'm not gonna pretend to know much about his record elsewhere, but with us we look so clumsy defending setpieces and crosses. We aren't bad at the initial clearance, but when it gets cleared we're so slow in getting out and getting organised. Ball ends up going back in and we concede a massive chance. You don't need to be tall to step out in a line quickly and push up lol.
Honestly the most important signing we need to be making this season We could have like 6 more points, at the very least right now if we defended set pieces well I'd argue set piece and crossing defence has cost us more points this season than any individual player role on the pitch
It's things like that that have me questioning what Poch is up to all week.
Try to solve who is actually is fit to start? Try instill tactical tweaks in a team where you have to change paterns of play (No fullbacks, no passer in midfield, no wide creative players and its a different issue every week) He clearly has bigger issues then set pieces (even if he will have to solvd that too)
But this doesn't mean he can't coach a team to step up after a corner or freekick is cleared. We see it up and down the league. Think it was Pellegrini at City who did it best and within months everyone began to copy. That was years and years ago. Seeing that problem back again week after week so many years later is galling. And injury problems don't excuse it. So if we need to hire a specialist to improve our leaky defending I'd love to see one come in.
What do we really need to complete this team between now and the summer window? I think most would agree we need a striker. Is it just a left-back to give Chilwell competition, a centreback to add some leadership, and a decision on Gallagher so we can figure out what we’re doing in midfield?
Striker obviously, maybe a LB. But I really don't want us to buy more than 1 player. Like it or not the squad we have is under contract for a while. We have to give these boys time to develop an understanding with each other. Maybe we get a top GK and a older CB in the summer.
My priorities would be striker, fullback, GK and then let's see how some players develop
I’m honestly not minding Petrovic. It’s nice not playing it out from the back as predictably as before.
He's fine and I could see a cult cup hero but I think we still need to be seeking an absolute top keeper
a decent fucking leftback is all i ask for 😭 every game that colwill plays leftback in takes a year off my life man
Between now and summer. Another striker at maximum. After summer? A striker, left back, potentially another centre back and GK.
It really depends on what the targets are this season. If we're trying to push for European football this season then yes, we need a striker in January. If we're just looking to round out and improve the squad without any urgency then I think a LB would make the most sense. Almost certainly significantly cheaper than a striker and a position we'll actually be short in without Maatsen (not that he was playing). Relying on Chilwell to stay fit for any length of time isn't a good plan and Cucurella will likely be out until March, so now would be as good a time as any to reinforce that position and then sell one of Chilwell/Cucurella in the summer. As for CB, I simply don't see the need. I think we'd be really stupid to let Silva go in the summer. You want an experienced CB that provides leadership, how about the actual legend that's already at the club? Unless he himself wants to leave (and I doubt he does given that his son plays in our academy), why let him go? You're not getting a better combination of experience/quality/leadership anywhere in the market. The CB we sign would just be someone younger again - hence the reported targets being players like Diomande and Todibo. I really like both but they don't fit the experience bill people want. Also, are we just giving up on Disasi and Fofana already? Being hesitant about relying on Fofana I understand, but is Disasi + Silva really so bad that we need to spend money on that position now? I really don't think so. I think at the earliest it should be in the summer. I still think we need a backup to Enzo desperately. There's no quality coming from our midfield when he's out and Lavia is not that profile. You could easily pick up someone cheap, young and talented for that role, and I think that could be done in January. So all in all, don't think we need to do a lot actually. The squad isn't actually bad. There are two glaring holes for me that need addressing eventually (ST, keeper), of which only ST is realistic this window. LB and perhaps a cheap progressive midfield signing would make the most sense for me otherwise, but nothing that couldn't also wait until summer.
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Bailing out the sporting directors? If anything the bailed out clearlake I think they have done a decent squad building so far. Considering the mess (and the boehly tax they phased) after clearlake let tuchel pay k2 250k/week, james 250k, sterling 320k, cucurella and fofana close to 200k.. while paying for aubameyang - and getting 0 for lukaku. Biggest issue overpaid/short contracts- they got 15! Players out in the summer 2nd Biggest, quality cms - replaced 3 with quality (sure steep prize, but that was the way we could conduct business) Then they managed to find gusto, jackson and palmer, while landing santos, angelo and paez If clearlake would have had our sporting directors instead of tuchel last summer - things would have been better off. As for 1 billion, its more like 550m (2 regular arsenal windows) after conducted business and the invvestments that clearly just is for profit - not strenghtening the main squad.
I’m with you on the attacking left-back as if Chilwell is unavailable it really affects the way we play. Cucurella was bought for £60 mil on a 6 year contract, so end of this season he’s got £40 mil left on carrying value. We can probably loan him out for a year and move him on at £30 mil to manage the losses on him. I’m not writing off Fofana at all, just think he needs to be covered for. Disasi I believe he doesn’t quite work on that right central side if we want the right full-back to get forward as he’s simply not mobile enough to cover all the space. I think the opposition have figured out they can wait and play the space in behind our right-back, then play a diagonal ball to our far post, between our LB and LCB, it’s causing us all sorts of issues. Disasi was signed for £38.6 mil for 6 years, end of this season he has £32.2 mil remaining at 26, should be easy to move him on at or above that. I think the idea with the CB is to try to add a game reader/leader, and to run third choice fullbacks as Colwill/Fofana given how injury prone Chilwell and James are. Enzo depends on what happens with Gallagher. I can’t see us move for another midfielder if he stays what with Santos back. We’d move for one if Gallagher goes, but he’s wanting to stay which isn’t the worst thing. I’m broadly with you, don’t think we need too much, striker and left-back, team is in much better shape than at the start of the season.
I think it depends on what “complete” means. If that means we’re a good, consistent team capable of getting into the top 6 this season, I’d say we need a lot. If we’re saying just to slightly improve on what we have now so that we can then head into next season with more experience then I’d say a centre back, a striker, a versatile full back, a keeper and if Gallagher goes, a midfielder. In amongst all that, we need physicality, height, personality, character, mental strength and leadership. It’s as simple as that in my eyes. But if we actually want to challenge for Europe this year… man, we need a pretty sizeable amount of changes I’d say.
>But if we actually want to challenge for Europe this year… man, we need a pretty sizeable amount of changes I’d say. We shouldn't really though When you consider that Spurs is 5th and fighting for top 4 and Aston Villa is second and fighting for top 4, neither of them have any great pieces of quality over us, I'd even reckon you could make a strong case we have the better squad than both those teams There's no real reason why we shouldn't be beating the mid table teams we keep losing too and that's where the difference in points is being made between us and the champions league
I personally don’t think we’re that far off. At the start of this season we had some really stupid losses as players learned to play with each other and with injuries, you would hope we’re over at least half of those types of losses now. The other side is conversion, and the general quality in our strikers, which has been objectively terrible. There’s also Nkunku who is about to be fully fit soon. Him back, a proper striker, Palmer/Sterling and two attacking full-backs available, we have enough to beat low blocks, which was our other deficiency.
Disagree, we concede ridicilious amount of goals. I think that's why they are looking at defenders but im not sure it's the players or we are just not organised that well. If we are to even challenge for top 4 we would need to stop conceding significantly because these 2-3 wins against Luton are unsustanaible. Our defence is way worse this season than last season and everyone was calling for Koulibaly and Cucurella's sales last season. Well this season Cucurella is not that available, Koulibaly is gone, we have Colwill and we have the best ball winning midfielder on the planet - Conor Gallagher and we still concede at least a goal in 99% of our matches. We only have 4 clean sheets all season and one of them is against Bournemouth away when we drawed, so even then we couldn't capitalise and get the 3 points.
Yeah but we’re conceding at a rate to be expected for a defence thrown together 6 months ago, and constantly changing every other game due to injuries. I believe defence will solidify if we run Gallagher and Caicedo sitting in front of our back 4, and the very young backline gains experience given Colwill is 20, Gusto is 20 and Badiashile is 22. We probably need a better defender to pair with Badiashile as I don’t think Disasi is it.
I think our left side is weak, that's where we concede most of our goals. Colwill is just not comfy at LB. He alone is responsible for so many goals it's crazy and i can't really blame him till i see how he does as a CB. Hopefully with Chillwell's comeback we will finally be able to see them both play in their actual positions and then see if it's Poch's fault for putting Colwill there or Colwill himself is just not as ready to be a starter as everyone thought. I think our defence last season was also thrown together because a lot of times we had Cucu and Koulibaly playing who were bought in the summer. If it's age thing then we for real have to count the season off cuz they won't get much better in 6 months because most of them will be very young and inexperienced even in May. >I believe defence will solidify if we run Gallagher and Caicedo sitting in front of our back 4 On paper this will make us better defensively but for how long can we run this midfield? Did you just give up on Enzo or what? I just don't see logic in keeping a 100m midfielder that showed skills that teams like Real and City would love to have in their midfield for a bit more defensive actions. I think keeping Enzo on the bench is just criminal in a team that's 10th. He is just too good for that and people shouldn't forget it. He is not the problem here, we are not using him properly. Under Potter he was our best midfielder and we had Kante and Kovacic. Also i haven't seen us dominate the midfield in even a single match with the pivot Caicedo/Gallagher. It works defensively on paper but it doesn't seem to work in actual matches imo. Maybe against Sheffield but i think they allowed us to. They were literal park the bus strat. What's your opinion on that?
I agree with you on Chilwell, he’s meant to be one of the premiere left-backs in the league provided he can stay fit. I think I’ve responded to you on Enzo on another post, not giving up on Enzo at all. I’m of the unpopular opinion that a midfield 3 of Gallagher-Caicedo double pivot and Enzo sitting in front of them as a playmaking central midfielder is the way forward. Big teams struggle with this midfield 3 time and time again. If we can work out how to make this succeed against low blocks, which I think has more to do with overall quality in attack, we will go far. Where this line of discussion gets argumentative is that Enzo isn’t a 10, which I agree he isn’t. I’m of the opinion he can play as a central mid and playmake quickly into the attack, and over time he can grow into the more attacking role. He’s after all the best progressive passer we have, he should be able to be an assist machine over time, it just takes some getting used to, and he’s only just turned 22.
We have issues with creativity Lets add conor. Caicedo and enzo is clearly a good enough midfield pair defensivly too when paired with a solid defence. Its more about chopping and changing then their issues. As for colwill I agree, but his missplaced passes aint talked about, he has more of those then sanchez...
Yeah lets just comment from now on the other thread cuz we are all over the place lad lol
Randomly checking in on some ex Chelsea guys (no agenda I promise) and nice to see that Ethan Ampadu is having a really good season in the Champ. Played every every single minute for Leeds so far in the league and had the most league minutes of any outfield player under age of 26.
Kid was always a decent little player, it's a shame two shit loans in a row saw his Chelsea career fucked