OhForAGreavsie

I like Malcolm too but of course we don’t know that the club has not made a move for him. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn’t. What we do know from yesterday’s press conference is that Antonio would like to add to his squad in January, and that he expects that the club will be trying to get it done.

That's a fair comment I think.

OK, we are clearly stuck with different points of view here so before responding to the meat of your post, may I try to clear up our factual disparity? Wikipedia says Dembele was born in February 2003. That would make him 14 currently. Is this a Wiki error, or are you just being approximate when you say he is 15? Who says Islam did OK at first? Personally I never once saw him play well for our development sides and I watch way more youth football than most around here. Although I accept that two people can see the same performance and assess it differently, my suspicion is that many people’s good impression of Feruz came from reading that he had scored some goals, not from actually watching him play. I never saw videos of Feruz playing youth games in Scotland so I can’t comment on the comparison you make between his apparent level then and Dembele’s now. It’s impossible for me to believe you can be right however. Dembele’s videos demonstrate fabulous touch, incredible body control, wonderful dribbling technique, tremendous weight of pass, uncoachable awareness of space and a mature understanding of when to move the ball and when to carry it. Feruz has none of that so, while he may have been effective against weaker opposition, he simply could never have looked as good doing it as Dembele does. Put any 20 year old on a pitch full of junior school kids and he will score a load of goals but will he necessarily look like a great player while doing so? There is a difference between finite quality and simply being able to outperform your opponents. Karamoko Dembele is an extremely high quality footballer while Islam Feruz was not one, is not one, and never could have looked like one.

You mean the player about whom I said, within 20 minutes of kick-off in the first game I saw him play for the youth team, that he was crap, and that whoever recruited him should be seriously questioned? I once had a post deleted and was threatened with a ban from WAGNH for saying what I am about to say now, but I don't think the people around here are as insecure about themselves as the person who reacted so strongly to the comment on that occasion. Anyone who watched Feruz and thought he was a good player, knows less about football than they think they do. Celtc's younger Dembele on the other hand is outstanding. There is no comparison whatsoever between him and Feruz. Take the two to a pitch, station each of them alone in one half, i.e. eliminate any question about the quality of the opposition, have coaches play a variety of deliveries to them both and, within 5 minutes, it will be clear which is a genuine article. The world's top clubs will be queuing up for Karamoko Dembele. Indeed, if we only knew it, they already are. By the way, I believe Dembele is currently 14, not 15.

Including two at Celtic alone. 😊 I’m talking about Karamoko. He’ll be 15 in February. Genius level ability.

Wrong Dembele. We need the other one as soon as he's old enough to be transferred. Problem is, I'd bet that one of Barca, City or Real have probably already secured first dibs on him. Top, top level talent that kid.

Thank you all for good wishes and a very merry Christmas to all TalkChelsea members who are celebrating the festival.

Malcolm over Fekir every time.

Having made so many mistakes in our transfer business, we desperately need a spell of getting it right. It’s tougher than it seems though. Last summer I felt Danilo was poor and should not be pursued, but I would have been satisfied if we’d signed Bernado. City fans now agree about Danilo but, less predictably, they are disappointed with Bernado too. They are not calling him crap, which what they’re saying about Danilo, but they do complain about weak decision making and poor end product. City have made so many good choices that the poor ones don’t show, don’t really damage their prospects. We are in exactly the opposite situation. Zaha has failed once at a club with title ambitions and, for me, has not shown enough to wipe out the concerns caused by that failure.

What is an SJW? Edit: Just looked it up, and thank you @El P.I think I remember someone here explaining it to me previously. I’ll try harder to remember in future.

Their nationality has nothing to do with it. Bad decisions happen but are highlighted anyway. There is an anti English tone to some posts which, in my view, betray the same bias, in the opposite direction, of which they accuse others. Ali is a red card waiting to happen. He is a limited player who makes the most of what ability he does have to produce some effective domestic performances. At international level however his lack of quality is regularly exposed.

Abso-bloody-lutely! City are a genuinely good team. Finishing behind them will be disappointing of course, but not a disgrace. In the long run, we, and the rest of their would be challengers, have to up our game, or get used to watching them lift the Premier League trophy. In the short term however, none of the challenging group can be described as great. Second place is right there and certainly doable.

Do you really know that we have not tried to sign Arana? I do agree with you though about the scouting of Kennedy. It was obvious even from his YouTube highlight videos that he wasn’t good enough.

Well your initial reply to me, here reads as a defence of Antonio from some criticism you think I'm making but, not you've put me straight on that, all misunderstandings are cleared up. Phew!

Even if I had been addressing you, you’d still have misunderstood since my comment was neither an accusation of courting popularity, nor a criticism of Antonio’s flexible tactics, but appology accepted. Thank you. Do people really accuse each other of posting for popularity? Amazing.

Wrong on two counts! First, there was no accusation. I simply said that, having read the post to which I replied, I knew it would be popular. That is not at all the same as saying it was posted for popularity. Second, it was not your post to which I replied!!

Not really sure what you’re saying here, or maybe I should say it does not seem you know what I’m saying. I did the post at halftime in the CLFC game vs Spurs (4-1 Blues) and made a few edits after posting. Maybe the latest version is better expressed.

I read this post in a comment where @Jason had quoted it and, knowing the attitude of many posters on this topic, expected it to attract plenty of likes. Unsurpringly, it has done but this does not stop it being wrong, and it is wrong. Antonio cuts his clothes to suit his cloth. Give him the 13/14 squad and he’d produce a different game plan. As his predecessors did with the squads at their disposal. By the way, there was a post yesterday expressing exasperation with Antonio’s defensive tactics so, as usual, not everyone sees things the same way. The boss is doing what he can with what he’s got. Meanwhile, I love what he’s saying about building for the future. Let’s hope Roman backs him with patience and transfer activity.

What? Also, if the team ISN’T going nowhere, then where is it going?

Second best. James Peter Greaves.

I would say: - You should of course never, never, never judge a player based on a highlight but, wow, what a sumptuous bit of play in this gif.

You should of course never, never, never judge a player based on a highlight but, wow, what a sumptuous bit of play in this gif.

Thanks Skipper. Its not often that I find my point of view so different to yours. I wonder if you share my take that those voting for awards are not always particularly diligent in the way they approach the task. There would be an awful lot of football to watch in order to fully validate the vote they cast. Whether or not anyone actually watches all that football is doubtful but it can’t be doubted that these ‘voted’ awards are very susceptible to hype, profile and ‘flavour of the monthism. I can’t, and won’t, attempt to dismiss Sanches’s Golden Boy award because I didn’t do the due diligence either. I did watch the Euros however and posted at the time to offer the opinion that his displays there were being overrated. Someone has to win Young Player of The Tournament but the fact it was Sanches reflected his being a part of the Portugal squad, and having been expensively signed by Bayern earlier that summer, as much as it did his actual displays. Sometimes a player underperforms because he’s at the wrong club, at the wrong time and sometimes it’s because he’s not up to it. If this player is as good as he was initially assessed to be, then I’ve failed to spot it. Let’s hope for the young man’s sake that I am in error.

No, it was a great decision by Sanches. HIs limited ability means he was always going to be found out because people were going to see past the hype sooner or later. He was very wise to cash in while he could. Had he stayed in Portugal, he would have ended up at a mid table side, with a lot less money in the bank. The mistake was Bayern's. They offered him the equivalent of a guaranteed winning ticket on the lottery, and he took it. Well played son.

Only those impressed by a few flashy touches and/or Bayern's transfer policy, ever thought anything of this smoke and mirrors player. His selection as young player of the last Euros was ridiculous; watch the all touches videos. Some people assessed his preseason display against us as outstanding. That was ridiculous as well; watch that video too. I can't believe professional football people, with access to hundreds of hours of video, and hundreds of pages of scouting reports, could have been taken in to the same degree. In other words, I hope rumours of our interest in this player was all paper talk. I hope too that we've heard the last of the, "Why didn't we sign Sanches?", talk.