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So why didn’t Sevilla concede five goals every game in past years? Or did Koundè got eaten alive weakly base? How we won CL with Azpi playing CB under 1.8 M? This is not weightlifting, this is football.. Height and weight can be compensated with other skills.

£110m is substantially more than the release clause but it doesn't mean they will sell. These fuckers think it's cool not to make nearly double off a player out of some misguided sense of boastful resilience.

Oh cmon, that's some bullshit gossip (and I even don't like Ziyech)

Kounde has the Reece James type build. He isn't getting bullied out of anything. How many times has James surprised a hulking CF with his strength and had them back off? I counted plenty last season, and Kounde plays very much the same way. Looks incredible on the ball. The best I've seen from all these "ball playing" CB's we've ever been linked to. Exciting transfer.

The comparisions with the Conte window I find the most amusing, that summer we literally did what people want us to do now (spend for spending sake).

Personally I think there's a lot more to come from our attacking players, in particular those we brought last season. Werner and Havertz have already put up very impressive numbers in Germany, and the hope is this can be reflected given time. If anybody wants to question the quality of the Bundesliga then what is the point of going after Haaland. Ziyech too I think there is more to come from him. People will question his stats have come in the Dutch league but he's also done pretty well in Europe before joining. I actually think he could be someone who has the potential to unlock the

That's the pre-Barca Griezmann. the current one has been useless for ages and has not done anything of not for years. He also is already relatively old, not a genetic freak and showing signs of physical decline. Absolute has-been, probably one of Atletico's best ever sales.

We did not really learn anything new from this, did we. Most of the dregs are still shit, Tammy Zouma probably gonna be sold, RLC hustling for his new dawn.... interesting tho my prediction of TT trying him in the pivot looks on the money so far. Teamwise, we still defend well as a unit but lack individual quality without Thiago, AC and Azpi. Timo's pace is still dangerous but his finsihing is as shit as ever. Similarly the full team is wasteful as fuck (Ziyech, tammy wtf was that lol) We look further ahead in fitness than i though tho. maybe we do stand a chance vs Villare

They can feck off for £20m. White went for £50m. Zouma is worth at least £30m. Isn't he also categorised as HG? Can't remember if he just missed out or not.

20M for Zouma but want 100M for Rice, fucking jokers

Wow are people are actually talking about DD being in the team based on a few minutes v a Championship side in pre season? dear me.

Pogba is as overrated as they come, the media eat from his hand, if not for the likes of Souness and Keane they would likely kiss his ass non stop. How this dude is seen as world class is beyond my understanding.

Once Kounde is a success here, at least the bubble of Vesper and her lists of players will burst at last

So our most likely team this season will be: Think that’s a team that will be extremely dominant with the ball as well as extremely athletic and pacey. But we’ll still have to worry about goals. Getting so few from all 3 CM’s will continue to be an issue.

Or are we taking advantage of the current climate? Whatever your thoughts are of Kounde, there is no doubting how highly rated he is by Sevilla and in a normal situation without Covid, I would expect them to be holding out for as close to, if not in full, his release clause. If we are able to buy him for a good amount underneath this clause and he has ranked highly among long term defensive targets then it probably does make sense to do this now. If Zouma, a player who has been nothing more than a backup under Tuchel, helps drive the price down even further then it probably makes the deal

When so many teams are pressing high up and hardly any top team plays a CB like Zouma regularly. For the longest time, we have been trying to do away with hoofball too. Sarri's 4-3-3 and Tuchel's 3-4-3 play out of the back and the latter won the Champions League without really breaking a sweat. I don't see Zouma getting minutes under Tuchel other than being thrown on when closing out games. Firmly the 5th choice CB under him at the moment.

Reading the replies to any of Romano’s tweets regarding Koundé today and they’re filled with angry Real Madrid supporters who are annoyed that they aren’t replacing Varane with him. They all want him in their team and they’re the ones watching La Liga every week and know how talented he is. If he’s good enough to be considered for Real Madrid he’s good enough for Chelsea.

What a mistake.. do not back this signing at all.

Aside from his size isn't Koundé supposed to be really good? He's the same height as Azpilicueta (1.78m) so obviously a back-3 can successfully have one CB who's not all that great in the air. He's also taller than Reece James who many were campaigning to play at RCB in case the club signed Hakimi as wing-back, so why's Kounde's size all of a sudden some huge problem? I could see some problems with having two fun-sized defenders in the back line (Koundé together with Azpi/James) but having just one smaller player is a non-issue, as long as the other two are good and strong enough to compe

Zouma is always like this when people decide to run at him and they're tricky/fast. It is the reason he is most likely to be sold. His game is best suited to physical football.

@MoroccanBlue will have his own ideas in response to this but I base my opinion on the players' characteristics. On that basis I have preferred Mando's Chelsea chances over Tammy's since the former was playing development football and I said so here at the time. Will Broja get the nod from TT? I can't say of course but I'm convinced he has a better chance than Tammy.

Do you have inside info that says Tuchel wants a ST more than anything? Am sure the club have tried or are trying to sign a big-name ST but at this point, it's hard to tell what exactly are they doing. I mean, if we could afford the deal now, one would imagine we would have put in some sort of bid by now. The club could obviously be negotiating quietly and all that but based on recent reports, there doesn't seem to be any inkling that that's happening. If we're relying on selling players to raise funds, then we certainly haven't raised enough and it doesn't look like we'll have enough tim

Rudiger played exactly half PL minutes last season. With him we conceded 10, without him 26 goals. You may argue it is because he started playing under TT in 3atb but remember that also he and Zouma in pairing kept always clean sheets under Lampard who for some reason barely used them together. Rudi did not play in 7 of our 9 PL losses last season. Even under Tuchel that freak game against WBA happened without him. We also argued that Jorginho mistake against Arsenal in home loss would not happened if Rudi was there in Zouma place. So he is very, very important. And now when Zouma leave apart

If Rudiger isn't going to extend, it would be best if we sell him now.

Rudigar has only had few very good months of football in 4 seasons at Chelsea, he is certainly not worth it.

Absolutely not worth 100m. But if we can somehow get that price down to between 60-75 I’d say he’s worth it. PL proven, only 22, homegrown, and a potential captain like personality. He could lock down a spot in our XI for a decade. We’ve got to have a player or multiple players that are of interest to WH as a makeweight.

NO to Niklas Süle. A giant made of glass.

What do you mean? His calmness on the ball was good, alongside his vision to pick a pass. His control of the ball in pressure moments was there.. Either you didn't watch the game or you have never played before. I can't pinpoint which one it is because if you had you would see he did well. If he can do this week in and week out as he did at Leicester, I would not be mad if he was squad player, and if not at least his value will go up a little bit.

I guess it's close to what you both suggested. @Jype @Superblue_1986

While i agree there's question marks over his suitability to the PL calling him bang average is just wrong on many levels.

Haha just saw a mate in the crowd That was a good game

All this with Bettinelli still to come. Exciting times ahead.

Regardless of if he will be a success or not, its quite the stretch comparing buying the top rated defender of la liga with the likes of Drinkwater and Bakayoko.

Conte didn't get "found out" until he started sulking and half arsing the job. We were second going into the second half of the season, all be it miles behind City.

I mentioned on the forum a few days ago that in the Premier League, the six of Werner, Havertz, Ziyech, Pulisic, Mount and CHO scored 24 goals between them. An average of 4 each. I just cannot see how they don't improve on that number this coming season. Even if they could double that outlay to an average of 8 each which I don't think is unreasonable considering Pulisic scored 9 in his first season and Havertz and Werner have multiple double digit scoring seasons in Germany, then we'll be in better shape. One other possibility that hasn't been mentioned much regarding Haaland is whether

If Haaland and Lewandowski are both unattainable, I'd rather not buy any attacking players. I trust Havertz, Werner, Pulisic, Ziyech all to improve their goal records from last season and Broja is a wild card who can stay as a backup striker. It's definitely a gamble, but I'd rather go with that than buy some second rate striking option like Danny Ings who'd no doubt be part of the 'deadwood loan brigade' sooner rather than later. As for other areas, I'm not really sure. At some point I'd love to see Declan Rice in midfield but like I wrote a few days ago maybe the time for that deal is n

Look at this way, in 6 months time we can look back at these last few pages and either laugh, cry, or dish out big fat “I told you so’s”.

Don’t think anyone’s worried about Varane on his own. People just wonder why United, who already finished above us somewhat comfortably, are plugging the few holes they had in their team whilst we haven’t yet. Is Varane as amazing as lots of people are hyping up? No. But he’s way better than Lindelof.

- United scored the 2nd most goals in the league and had the 3rd best conversion rate. They are now adding Sancho who's been a proven goal creator for 3 seasons now. - We were 13th in goals scored and had the 16th best conversion rate since Tuchel's appointment. We added no one to reinforce our attack/midfield. This isn't about being 'closed minded'. It is about assessing risk. It isn't being closed minded to think United, based on the statistics/facts above, are in a less riskier situation than we are.

I'm not saying that if Billy stayed that we would not have needed a DM, we were still linked with midfielders last summer and in January too. With all due respect Gallagher is average and not on our level. You're under the impression that we are fine with three midfielders but in a full season, with Club World Cup coming up, we need the luxury to be able to rotate. We only have Kante that's a ball winning midfielder, we need someone with the same skillset as a back up. The reason why Billy didn't get game time is because it's a huge stepdown to use him instead of Jorgi, Kova or Kante, we

I love how people are so closed minded to the prospect of our attacking signings improving in their second season but (going by the mass sucking off of United cause of their "great business") also seem convinced Sancho who is signed from the same league is going to smash it straight away.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CRvbGY7Arbl/?utm_medium=copy_link

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-9821921/The-smoking-gun-emails-prove-Manchester-City-did-cheat-Premier-League-FFP-rules.html# Shock emails that could prove Manchester City DID cheat: Fresh evidence appears to show Premier League champions had millions funnelled into the club by Abu Dhabi to help inflate their income Just move these cunts to League 1.

With Rom, multiple reasons. 1. The traditional fox in the box striker is dying out at successful clubs, it's no coincidence teams with more fluent interchangeable systems are becoming more and more successful, City won the league playing false 9, Liverpool won the league and UCL doing the same, likewise us UCL. Bayern and United improving ten fold after selling/dropping Gomes and RVN respectively examples further back (not to mention United's own improvement since selling Lukaku). 2. He has a very very big history of disappearing in big games, Havertz and Werner's contributions en ro