OhForAGreavsie

I'm not a superstitious man myself, but if people want to delude themselves about magic fairies in the sky that's their right. I therefore hope that the baptism was a wonderful experience for Willian and I wish him well.

A few weeks ago Crystal Palace were rumoured to want Reece as a replacement if they should sell Wan-Bissaka. I've also read of the possibility that we could buy the Palace lad and send Reece in the other direction as part of the deal. Those ideas were always non-starters for me, but anyone who saw last night's U21 international would question them too. While I agree that it would be stupid to judge on one game only, based solely on last night's display, Wan-Bissaka isn't in Reece's league. In fact on that outing Wan-Bissaka isn't even in Jay Dasilva's League. The young right back may be a better defender than Jay, but our LB looked so far ahead of Wan-Bissaka in possession that the prospect of spending £50m on the Palace player must really alarm ManU fans. Again, to be clear, all this is based on last night's effort alone. Even excluding the OG, which might raise concerns about W-B's one footedness but which could happen to anyone, the Palace player looked poor.

Like. Three if we count midfield where he did well for Wigan. So well, that a strand of Wigan fan opinion believes Reece is wasted at RB. Of course the main thing which ever prevented Reece being selected at RB for CFC development sides, was that he's so brilliant at CB. To be fair we must remember that Reece played CB in a back three for our age group sides, not a back four. Even so, I still believe he can play CB at Premier League level.

Depends primarily on the number, or rather percentage, of competitive appearances and the ranking of the national team. For young players this can be overridden by the judgement of a government sanctioned, FA appointed, panel of experts. A permit can be granted if they assess a player to have outstanding potential. I may be misremembering, but I think we got Oscar's permit on outstanding potential.

In fact he had the medical yesterday. If news of the outcome has been made public I haven't seen it. Martel, who also attracted interest from Aston Villa and Fulham, is one of a number of good young players whose contact expires at the end of this month, and who will probably be leaving.

Reading your posts is like transfer p**n for football fans who haven't seen a quality player in years. You read about a party where all the beautiful people are but you don't want to get drawn in because you know this never ends well for the hero. Still, you can't help your nature and you dig into the post. Soon your mind's eye sees the hero rocking the west stand to the rythmn of perfect football and, though you fight it, the hope grows. You get lost in it. Hope and our hero are never friends for long however. The soft focus fades, the camera pans out, and you see poor little Stamford scanning the internet for news of Ross Barclay's fitness. He knows his boys are not going to take the 7 points they need from games against Sheffield United, Crystal Palace and wolves without Ross, and without those points there will be no Europa League football next season. You bend your mind back to the names on the screen and you're only too willing to get lost again.

I like Aouar too but, if I had to choose I'd go for Ndombele. That said I wouldn't be averse to taking both of them, especially if I couldn't get Saul as my Aouar alternative. I prefer the Spaniard's extra physicality because I think we'd achieve a better balance that way. I'm taking nothing away from Aouar however. He's a terrific player.

I doubt there's anyone left who still believes that there's anything fair about uefa's FFP regulations. It's one thing to accept that less wealthy clubs can't spend as much as the monster clubs. It's another thing altogether to say that they are not even allowed to. Yet that is exactly the situation with FFP. Real can't be punished because the regulations allow them to spend more than almost every other club so they won't have broken any rules. Even if this spending took them close to the limit, they still have time to complete some sales and balance the books a bit.

No prizes for guessing who would be the weak link in that quartet.

I haven't fact checked myself but I think I remember someone suggesting exactly that earlier in the thread. That if Ola had been a Torino player, instead of being on loan there, Chelsea would have tried to buy him. Either way, good luck to the lad.

Good luck Ola and well done Cobham. Cobham can't promise to make youngsters into Chelsea calibre professionals, it can only promise to make them the best they can be. Every time a Cobham graduate gets a good job it's a feather in the cap for the academy. It was completely revamped in 2007 after the old setup was condemned by Jose, saying there was no one at all in the system who could possibly help him. The first class of 8 year olds from 2007 are now aged 19/20, and the six year olds are aged 17/18. We've had to be patient but we've reached the stage where we can begin to judge the new academy. I think they're doing OK.

Surprised you'd go to even that much.

I thought the world, including Chelsea, had moved on from Bailey. Sounds like agent puff to me. Perhaps one working for Laverkusen.

That would have been a better winter market for sure. The only defence I'll offer for the club is in regard to the Gonzalo signing. There they seem to have been deferring to the manager's wishes.

If it's true that he's off to Munich then that's a big disappointment for us. We need to talk about Bayern however. Bayern are the unrivalled team in one of the world's most powerful economies. As a result their titanic sponsorship income helps keep their overall revenue near the top of the football rich list. They are an attractive destination for the world's great players and routinely have the pick of all the best young talent in Germany at little or no cost. Given this I think we must ask, are Bayern the biggest underachievers in European football? Being dominant domestically is no challenge for them, but what do they achieve in European competition? Nowhere near enough given their resources and advantages. Their fans are being short-changed.

That's what Wigan's previous first choice right back, as well as Wigan's manager, thought when he turned up for pre-season training last summer. Let's not get carried away and start thinking of Reece as the second coming, but let's not underestimate him either. He's the real deal.

Each to his own. Good luck to Eden. Hope he does brilliantly and turns up at The Bridge with Los Blancos one Champions League night.

I'm sure workarounds can be found but I don't think it's possible the way you described. I think we'd have to register a player before we can complete an outgoing temporary transfer for him. On the other hand, I can't see how FIFA could stop us signing a binding contract now with a player and his club saying that he would be transferred to us in summer 2020.

Deleted because it made me sound an even bigger pratt than usual. Apologies to anyone who read it before I saw sense and hushed it up

And the slow drip, drip of information on this case continues. We can't know definitively whether the Telegraph story about there being no request to delay the implementation of the bans is true. We do know however that none of the earlier reporting has been entirely correct. That suggests there's no reason to put a lot of faith in what the Telegraph said either. It seems Chelsea have played this one close to the chest all the way along. The upshot is that, for now, we're still free to have fun speculating whatever incoming moves we like. That'll be good because the transfer forum has been deathly quiet for a while. Let the fun recommence. :-) UPDATE: it seems CAS has confirmed that we did not (yet )apply for the ban to be suspended. - Well played Telegraph.

It's easy to type out your wish list of outcomes. Negotiating them into reality is a completely different situation. It baffles me how people who have never negotiated a transfer deal in their lives, who have no clue about the facts of the deal, can nevertheless post with such certainty about how much better they could do it. Let's give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you have the qualities to hammer out a better deal than Marina and her team of lawyers. Doing so would entail being prepared to walk away if Real don't stomp up. Would you be prepared to walk away? Bear in mind that Real Madrid are not Chelsea. In recent seasons we've engaged in long, and ultimately unsuccessful, pursuits of a number of players. In the end all of those players were prepared to sign new deals with their existing clubs and give up the opportunity to join Chelsea. That would not have been the case if the buying club had been Real Madrid. Eden is never going to turn his back on Madrid and sign a new deal with us. As negotiator, you know the implications of that fact. Are you still prepared to walk away from the table? If the report is accurate and Marina has negotiated £88.8m guaranteed, plus up to £41.2m in add-ons, then her bosses are more likely to give her a bonus than they are to give her the bullet.

This is my problem. I didn't manage to get past denial months ago, and I still haven't if I'm honest. I still cling to the belief that I've had since day one. Namely that there will be no ban. If you thought I was confused before, imagine what happens when you throw in the Telegraphs's claim that the appeal has gone to CAS minus a suspension request? I could give a long list of speculations and questions about that, but I'll limit myself to just this:- If not asking CAS for a suspension is tactical then, fine, I can see that. Otherwise, what makes us so confident that we can't do any useful business this summer when several good solutions appear still to be up for grabs?

Thanks again Vesper. That Goal.com statement certainly has logic on its side. Given fifa's refusal to suspend the ban, it would make sense for them to provide the written reasons immediately. Otherwise they run the risk of imposing a ban which is later overturned and therefore opens the governing body to possible compensation claims. On the other hand there has been no acknowledgement from either side that the grounds have been confirmed. I'd have thought fifa at least would be transparent about that. So, if the deadline for involving CAS has passed without the appeal being made, that leaves Chelsea in a very dishonest position. Just come clean folks, and get on to dealing with the mess.

P.S. I've looked at the timelines of the similar cases involving the big three Spanish clubs. The gaps between fifa notifying their decision on each club's appeal and then sending the written reasons for that decision were; Barcelona 44 days, Real 153 days, Atletico 153 days. The two Madrid clubs then filed their appeals to CAS 10 days later, while Barca took 26 days. (Perhaps the regulation has changed since 2016, or perhaps it is 21 'working' days.) It would be a significant change to fifa's M.O. if they posted the grounds for rejecting our appeal on the same day as they published the decision itself.

Thanks Vesper. I'd have thought that if these facts were well known, media outlets would be making definitive statements about the situation. As it is, we are still reading hedged comments pending a final resolution. As recently as this morning, there is a new article on WAGNH talking about "if" the ban is upheld. I confess that I don't recognise the author as one of their regulars, but WAGNH are usually pretty rigourous when it comes to factual statements penned by their writers. (As opposed to fan posts.) In an earlier comment you referenced a tweet from sports lawyer, and Chelsea fan, Jake Cohen. In that tweet he afirmed that the deadline for an appeal to CAS falls twenty-one days after the reasons for the decision, as opposed to simply the decision itself, are confirmed in writing by fifa. Jake is always diligent about the accuracy of his output so I give credence to his further tweet that this written confirmation usually follows "quite a bit" after the initial notification of fifa's decision. I grant that 'usually' does not mean 'always', but it's not unreasonable to assume that the usual process was followed. If so, that would mean the written reasons were not sent on the same day the decision was notified. (8th May.) CFC may therefore still have time to go to CAS, or might yet be waiting for the written grounds. Certainly this would explain why, as late as 29th May, the club was reportedly maintaining its stance that it would appeal. The upshot of all of this? I'm confused.