OhForAGreavsie

I knew, and still know, nothing about Nathan, I did not watch Piazon before he was signed but I did see videos of Wallace & Kennedy before they arrived. In both cases I posted to say neither was good enough and should not be signed. My point? Brazilian players might at least have a chance to be successful if we avoid buying bad ones. As for Richarlison, I like what I've seen although I take seriously the note of caution from a Brazilian football watcher who says Richarlison is not that good really. If he lands at Watford it might be a sort of confirmation of that but at least we'll get to see him and make a proper judgment of our own.

I never said we could sign anyone we wanted in the past, but we could get deals over the line for targets. There just seems to be a lot of deals slipping through our hands for multiple reasons as of that late. All comes down to the people doing the negotiations really. Understood. My point is that there were always deals which slipped through our fingers, and others which we completed. We don't know how many deals have fallen through this summer, but a number have been confirmed for sure. Meanwhile, we have still managed to sign four senior players. Right at the beginning of the Roman era we bought Crespo for what was then a heavily inflated fee but Inter would not budge on Vieri, even though we bid more than twice as much for him. We also missed out on Ronaldinho despite offering a higher transfer fee and bigger wages than Barcelona. There are other similar examples down the years, including this year In short, the negotiators may have changed, but the situation has not. We can still get some deals over the line, but not some others. Business as usual over the last 15 summers.

It's a myth that we could ever sign whichever players we wanted. We were always able to pay inflated fees for players other clubs didn't value particularly highly, but there Have always been targets we missed out on. Many, many of them.

Sadly, but plainly, this is the case.

A popular way to snipe at the club but I don't buy into the idea behind it. We can both name a lot of players who were signed but not loaned, but neither of us can name even one who was signed, sent on loan to Arnhem, and subsequently proved good enough to have stayed at Chelsea. The buy to loan policy is necessarily speculative.

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Or, better yet, if we had bought him direct from Zagreb.

I Think he looks better than Charly. It's often said that anyone can look good on YouTube. I don't really buy that, but this kid absolutely does look a first class prospect. He has genuinely top level ball control and great instinct for the timing of his passes. That is quality and it can't be coached. All the big clubs will want this lad.

If we loose Nemanja, we probably loose TheWiz too. That's a blow.

Speaking of Delph. I like him. If he'd be willing to play a squad roll, I'd love to have him here. Assuming his wages could be afforded of course. City pay well.

Duplicate.

No, in the way he expresses himself in that quote, Antonio is not correct. All too often in the past we've done just that, bought expensive players, when excellent players are what we need. The two things are not the same. Excellent players are not always expensive, and expensive ones are most certainly not always excellent. We know what Antonio meant, and what he meant is right, but what he said isn't.

Antonio confirms we bid for Walker.

I read @chelseayouth's ouput avidly. As I've said before, it's must read for me but.... He does tend to be a little too supportive and optimistic about the lads. I love Jed's talent; everybody does, but he flatters to deceive. He produces some nice eye catching runs but not enough genuine end product of standard professional efficiency. I think there's a lot of overestimating going on about what we saw from Jed on Saturday and today.

OK. I hope the reactions won't be hysterical. We all said many times that we would struggle against a good team but there were some additional factors today. Bayern were not a full strength but the group they put out is still a better line up than ours. The difference between this Bayern XI and ours is not as wide as it looked at times. It looked worse than it might have been because we had the wrong personnel and a number of players did not perform well. Cesc would not normally expect a start against Bayern but if he does get one, he will normally produce a better display than he managed today. He was dreadful. I'm not talking about Cesc's play out of possession. That was merely as bad as expected and is why he would not normally have started a game like this. The problem was his play with the ball. It was indecisive, ponderous and inaccurate. Cesc was brilliant for us last season and he will be again in the coming one. Not today though. Bats was very poor, bordering on hopeless. Jed flattered to deceive once again. The quality of Ribbery, the ability to make a positive contribution on the ball even under pressure showed us something we are missing. We all already knew it was missing though so no new reasons for panic today. Bright point 1, Morata showed what he can do to help us by stitching our attacks together more effectively. Bright point 2. The club clearly already has a plan to bolster the squad and it's July 25th.

He will be if Rudiger starts as I expect him to.

He is playing as a striker. Doing that properly sometimes takes you into wide positions.

I already said that about Bayern. By 'full' you mean not youngsters. OK I understand.

Geezer, Rudi, Tiemoue, Pedro, Eden, Alvaro.

Nowhere near.

Not really. We aren't seeing anything from Jed that we haven't seen from him before. What that is has not been enough to get him many minutes in France or in Spain.

Looks like we need to get the kids on. Bayern's kids.

That's may not be Bayern's top lineup but it's a powerful looking side all the same. We on the other hand are a bit patchwork. Should be a good platform for Renato Sanches to show what he's got. Looking forward to seeing what the fuss is all about at last.

Close to the side I selected on WAGNH. I'd have started with Fikayo at RWB. He's more of an RB than an RWB, but I'd have given him a look. Oh, and I had Willy starting for Thibaut.

Interesting. That happened to me too, and all the text went with them.