OhForAGreavsie

Is it possible that should read 'are making' instead of 'made'?

Not sure what you mean by this.

I had never seen that stat. It's shocking.

Just to be clear I like Neto. 🙂

I've definitely seen him play left wing, albeit only on Match of The Day.

I sometimes ask people what makes a professional footballer and, when I do, I mean it as a trick question. The answer is that it takes a contract with a club which people are prepared to pay to watch play. That's it. We are the ones who make the people who work in football professionals. It's hard to imagine Lionel Messi playing on a random local authority park somewhere, but that's where he'd be without us.

Sadly no chance of a sell on for us but I read Liverpool will get a slice of the fee.

This has been a truth that somebody should write a book about.

I wouldn't say I've turned on Enzo. I'm waiting for him to impress me, but with reducing expectation that he will. For £106m you would hope for world class, but I'm not seeing that level of performance. Worse, I'm not recognising the potential for it either.

My memory wasn't up to it so I checked with Google and see that Enzo and Moises signed for 8.5 and 8 years respectively. Basing the calculation on those contract lengths*, £100m will more or less cover us for 4 years of their combined amortisation cost. Transfer fees for the other three names you mentioned would take care of most of the rest. That's a stark demonstration of the strategy being followed, though we're not going to be able to sell £200m worth of academy talent to get us out of trouble every summer. A reality which won't be helped by the now alarmingly regular loss of our best academy talents for little or no transfer/compensation fees. Although I have never seen either of the lads we have lost to City and Liverpool this summer play, it's disappointing to read that they are both regarded as extremely high level prospects. We have to work on solving that situation. *These 2 deals were done before the five-year amortisation cap was imposed.

I said to someone at a game last season, can't remember which one, that I doubted if Levi would be selected with everyone fit.

Sounds a little bit like visiting the Chelsea website these days.

I remember when we used to say that the only way to justify playing in the Europa League was to win it. Now, in these reduced circumstances, I think we have to say the same thing about the Conference League. Anyway it's a part of football now so we have to complete it again.

My take is that Connor deserves something better than normal treatment. His parents trusted his footballing future to Chelsea when he was eight years old. Since then his attachment to the club has only deepened. It is not a crime to have your heart set on playing for Chelsea. He knows it's a business, and that with the size of contract available to him it has to be. The club can make it plain to him that he has only a limited role to play here in future, without displaying public signs of disrespect.

https://www.teamtalk.com/news/Chelsea-transfers-statement-98-million-double-man-city-raid-maresca-rival-job-offer

If this is true do people think we should and will Marc want to come back here?

If Palace want £60m their negotiating position is likely to be that this is the amount they want to net from the transfer. This would push the total transfer fee up to £75. Fine by me if Palace can pull it off.

Reports that we've accepted a bid from Villa for Lukaku. Don't believe for one minute that he will want to go there, so I wonder if Villa are just helping us out with our Napoli negotiations?

That's a reasonable argument, though I prefer a good fee and alternative ways to sure up the right of our attack until reinforcements arrive in summer 2025. Sterling, Nkunku, or Gusto for example.

Love to read this and looking forward to watching the game later.

I'm expecting/hoping that Lavia will be first choice. I see Enzo competing with KDH for minutes. If the latter can bring his Championship form to the Premier League then Enzo is going to have to show more than I feel I've seen from him so far or he is going to struggle.

I commented early last season that I didn't think Noni was right for us. Now, I'm hoping that the Newcastle rumours are correct and come to fruition.

I'm not watching the game but I'm enjoying reading positive comments about him. Think he's a good one.

No, PLEASE no! 🙂

My first smart phone was an iPhone. Never bought another one. That said, when ever I clicked into one of those streams my antivirus software screamed at me so I NEVER view these streams now