Surprised we got any add-ons with that fee. Simon Johnson and matt law hinting at good add-ons. Not sure what it could be. Maybe if Milan qualify for champions league we get another few million?
We won the champions league under tuchel and went from 9th to 4th. He’s earned the right to say that a player doesn’t fit his system and style of play. Why would we keep a player to maybe make the bench sometimes who could fetch £40m or more? You’re fine selling to Dortmund but not England? His value is at least double selling him in England with the English teams all having more money and English tax. I don’t understand why selling to a midtable English club is problematic but selling to Dortmund is fine.
No manager, particularly at this club, should have final say on transfers. It’s the managers job to use the players he has. Input and requests? Of course but the player sales and acquisitions should be made with longer time horizons in mind (or even with an eye toward next season when we only have 1 CB under contract). I love an Arsenal clowning as much as the next person but they’re a rival and are usually at least a contender for fourth, you don’t strengthen them by selling a proven and talented academy kid at a pandemic discount (you sell them a past it and uninterested Luis).
the club pretty clearly doesn’t rate Tammy either and Tammy won’t sign a new contract unless he’s the no question top striker. He wasn’t signing the extension even when lampard was manager until he had additional assurances. Maybe Tammy stayed 1 more year but this divorce was inevitable. He’s a good striker. Good enough to challenge for top 5 and consistently be in Europa/conference league. He’s not good enough to challenge for the title and he doesn’t want to be the backup. In 2021 players have that choice. £40m+ for a player that won’t play enough to fo anything but hurt his value is good value. Not sure I would call that a pandemic discount. the hill to die on for shitty transfers out recently was guehi, not Tammy IMO.
KDB and salah were terrible decisions when the club had just lost emanalo, didnt replace him and had no one steering the ship. Marina was new in her role as well. Lukaku was unfortunate but the right decision. He was done with loans, proved himself in the premier league and wanted to start. You can’t fault the club for buying Diego costa instead of giving lukaku that chance. 2 titles in 3 years is justification enough for that decision. The bad move was getting outmaneuvered for lukaku after conte won the title and panic buying shitty ass morata
In general I’ve got no major issue with the club’s transfer policy… invest in the academy, sell those guys off for a decent profit, help fund finished players. It sucks when some of those players come good but it’s bound to happen. Fortunately we got a bit of a blessing with the transfer ban and kept Mount in the fold.
Your confidence in Guehi's abilities compared to what Tammy (and I'll believe 40 when it's communicado time) and Fik have already done is weird to me but we're probably just never going to agree on this. The academy at Chelsea is a pretty special thing and it irritates me that the club, after having remembered it during a transfer ban, has seemingly cut off the avenue for those kids to get a meaningful first team role. It's both emotionally frustrating and incredibly inefficient (see Drinkwater, Zappacosta, Barkley, etc.) financially.
we start buying zappacosta clones and I’ll be ready to hit panic but I’m hopeful that we will be buying more quality than quantity. Our issue is that we seem to have lost our ability to sell anyone and our squad is already too big. We needed to buy 3 and sell 8. We’ve sold 0. my guehi love is the same I felt about Reece James at Wigan and many thought that wasn’t justified either. I just got those vibes watching them both in the championship that they could play at chelsea. I watched a lot of derby when Frank was there and fik never stood out like that. He was very impressive at Milan and hopefully he can show more of that. Definitely rooting for him. I just don’t think he hits the levels guehi does. He’s just older right now.
We didn't lose our ability. No one has any money right now except us, City, and PSG. You can't sell to a market that doesn't exist. There's a lot worse problems we could be having. We need more money into the Russian clubs like that one that bought Eto'o, etc.
plenty of players have been bought and sold. Not as much as the pre-covid windows but plenty. The guys we want to sell are just overpaid, absolutely suck, or in some cases both
Sure we’re digging out of some mistakes but it’s not like we’re actively making it worse. You aren’t selling a Ross Barkley for less than pennies on the dollar right now.
Nah the whole thing was tongue-in-cheek and mainly referred to the fact that we overcame selling Saleh/KdB/Lukaku and still won champions league.
The balls to ask for that for zappacosta. I just hope we don’t price out all sales that aren’t youth players this summer. We need to start getting guys like zappacosta off the books and transition this squad.
I feel like chelsea/Roman are pushing this. Some teams keep it normal. Some of this has to be coming from Chelsea or Nike is pitching it and no one at Chelsea steps in to say no.
Fearing the release of the $2,000 training kit. Such a crazy pattern. Also, might have a positive vid test on the squad so the Ireland pre-season is done.
So annoying that the only transfer news seems to be sales of loan army/junior players. The least exciting type of transaction, other than sales like Eden that come around once in a blue moon.
Phillips isn’t a good source but the Instagram page he is copy and pasting into that tweet is. We will see what happens but it will be a game changer for sure if we pull it off.
Don’t care for these signings United are making one bit…they’ve really improved themselves this summer.
Sancho one is very good. varane one is weird. Real Madrid seemed a bit too interested to get rid of him. We will see if he can get back to the top at Manchester United. Definitely a massive upgrade over lindelof even if varane never gets back to his best.
not concerned about his height with 3 ATB but I just don’t know what he looks like in a 4 ATB defense in the premier league. If we get the fee lower I’m fine with it but some of the fees quoted early on seem crazy to me. He’s really good on the ball though and gives us a great outside CB option in the current system.
Apparently Sevilla accepted 30m euro + Davinson Sanchez from Tottenham but the player turned it down. I could see us doing something like that with Zouma if Sevilla has interest in him.
zouma is a lot better than Sanchez so Zouma plus 20-25 should be fine. Not sure he wants to leave though or would want Sevilla but it could if he does. Still not sure he’s a great long term CB for us but he’s a good forget for the current system.
Kounde is very good, just short (though decent in the air). With his ball skills, almost feels more like a compliment to Zouma than a replacement.
Anyway, finally get to watch the squad today against Bournemouth on the 5th stand app (until it crashes at least).