OhForAGreavsie

I understand your take on this but on your specific suggestion, I never want to see Sarr play for Chelsea again. We can rely on him doing well, looking good, even great sometimes, and then delivering moments of absolute disaster. Very bad for my blood pressure and for our win/draw/lose ratios.

No matter what non-Chelsea types may say or think I will never regret that Roman Abramovich was Chelsea's owner. I am gutted he was forced out and will always respect what he has done for this club on and off the pitch. That said, I am optimistic about the takeover because I think there are many things which can be done better than they were under Roman. This provides 'easy' opportunities for the new stewards to hit the ground running and take the club forward. Smarter transfer activity is one such opportunity. We will have to play it smart however. We are not at the top of food chain so, for example, if Bayern want Dembele and satisfy him that he will play, then that is a free agent deal we will not be able to complete. Roman tried to circumvent this problem by throwing money at it. Either by offering big transfer fees while the player was still in contract, by putting big agent's fees on the table, or by paying very big contracts of course. The new people in charge are going to have discipline themselves to avoid the same behaviour, and do so for one crucially important reason. It seems to me that Roman often failed to read the runes when the bigger clubs held back from matching his transfer offers, He was satisfied with winning the battle but didn't realise that this was sometimes because the others weren't actually fighting. As a result he often paid expensively for players no one else at Chelsea's level wanted. Many here didn't agree with me when I said that Liverpool's, "We can't afford Timo Werner.", statement was just an excuse. They mostly still don't agree, but an excuse is what it was. If Pool had rated Timo highly enough they'd have paid up and they'd have got him. Watch them fall over themselves to shovel money into Dortmund's account if Bellingham is available this summer. (I know he said he won't be moving and that's good news in my book because we will probably never get him but we certainly wouldn't get him this year.) The change of stewardship brings fresh, perhaps more patient, eyes to many areas of the operation and I'm not unhappy about that.

Looks to be the future of major transfers. Some clubs, notably Bayern of course, have been working this way for a long time. Now it seems the top players have bought into the idea of running down their contracts then helping themselves to much of the money which would otherwise have been paid as a transfer fee. An inevitable development really. The only surprise is that it has taken this long. Perhaps practises, legalities, and costs around insuring players against carear ending injuries have been an impediment. With players now easily able to afford the premiums to extend the cover to take future potential earnings into account they no longer run the risk of losing out financially if they let value of the club's insurance policy run down along with their contracts. Just speculating here and I could be wildly wrong of course.

The Telegraph didn't just make this up. Someone told them something which they based this story on even if they are mischaracterising it as they tend to do.

I'd like to seal this useless, lying, bunch of cretinous politicians into a spaceship and chuck it in the general direction of the Andromeda galaxy. Now I know some of you will feel this is cruel but, even though Andromeda is hurtling towards us at unimaginable speeds, it will still take my little capsule about 4.7 billion years to make the trip. This should be plenty of time for any intelligent life in that galaxy to go extinct and so be spared the pain of having to deal with the morons from Earth. I do not believe anything which emanates from that bunch of ****s so I will wait for the club statement.

Agreed. I'm in no hurry to disbelieve that this problem is what caused his withdrawal on Saturday but it would be nice to know if this also happened when he was at Gladbach. If it did then that would be interesting corroboration.

I don't see any point in whining at the bloke. He did what he did and whether he had played or not, he is the past. Let it, and him, go. He was at the club for a long time but, for whatever reason, we were unable to get him to fall in love with Chelsea. If we are ready to wise then, instead of competing to throw the most cutting insult at Andreas, we should recognise that there is a lesson to be learned and try to learn it. In any case, Chris is not the first to do this. At least not in my opinion. Although Frank gave him cover, I believe that Willian feigned injury to avoid playing in the 2020 FA Cup Final. Remember that Arsenal had to win that game to qualify for Europe and, since he was about to join them, Willian would have damaged his sporting and financial potential if he had helped Chelsea defeat them. Obviously I can't rule out the possibility that Frank spoke the truth about Willian being injured, or that manager and player agreed between them that it was best for Willian to sit the game out, my own feeling is that Willian made that decision himself. If Chris returns to The Bridge to play against us I won't be wasting any energy to boo him. If I manage to get any noise out of my gob it'll be used to support my team not to motivate an opponent to try even harder against us.

There are only so many tears a single forum can shed.

Chelsea's allocation of tickets for the Women's FA Cup Final against Manchester City on Sunday have sold out but some are still available direct from Wembley. Anyone who fancies getting along to support the women as they try to secure their second successive league and cup double can get tickets using the link below or from the stadium box office on the day. If you do decide to pay on the day it's worth double checking availability before you travel. The game kicks off at 2:30pm, Sunday 15th May. https://www.wembleystadium.com/tickets/

Agreed but they all have to be good enough for the designated role and I don't believe that Dest is. Nor do we know if his pre-injury form was temporary or represented him settling into his level for us. They achieved an undesirable, and unsustainable, level of importance because our attacking players are not potent enough. If Chilly returns at a high level and our WBs are once again carrying the burden of our attacking threat, then we will have messed up our recruitment. If so we'll continue to suffer the inconsistent performances that have plagued us. Our wing backs need to be an addition to our attackers, our coup de gras, not the main thrust. Reece and Chilly fit and flying for the entire season will not take us to a title challenge. Led by those two, we may have been top for a while but we did not belong there. The fact that they have been so important to our attack just highlights the problem, it doesn't solve it. In the end this is what we disagree about. I believe Dest's maximum is below our requirements. If he joins I'll be hoping that you are right. If it turns out that you are don't worry, I won't forget that I was wrong. 🙂

Dest is not good enough for Chelsea. This reads to me like it was written and planted by his agent. If the new owners begin their stewardship with such a poor signing it will be a very bad sign.

Oh, you mean at The Bridge on Saturday. Because you wrote that you saw him on Sunday I thought that you meant at Kingsmeadow for the Man Utd game. Yes I did see that he was there on Saturday.

I'm weary of this potential loan. On the one hand, if Ian isn't a regular there it will be a misstep in his development. On the other, if he starts, he's certain to fall in love with the place which would reduce the chance that he would return to Cobham with 100% enthusiasm to be a Blue. A successful loan with BVB could amount to little more than an invitation to run down his contract and pick his next destination. Whatever happens he must not be loaned to Dortmund unless he signs a multi year extension first. If he's not prepared to commit, and it's decided that another loan is the correct step for him, then let's organise a positive, but less attractive, one in England.

Unseen Extra coverage of the title winning performance against Man Utd on Sunday.

I was told definitively he was there on Sunday but did not see him myself. Instead I watched the game with Beth England's parents who I had not met before. Very nice people. Would have liked to have spoken to Boehly but that was because I'd have had a lot to say about CFCW. Where did you catch up with him; in the bar?

Perhaps not but if not I don't think it will be because the players are too similar.

The news you've seen probably is an update and what I saw, and what I saw was that the agreement is close but not yet completed. Either way, I think Adeyemi and Timo are very different players. Certainly sufficiently different that BVB could accommodate them both in the same lineup. You see it differently?

They only relate to when players can be registered with new clubs, not when they can sign for them.

Even though everybody knows the situation it still seems unnecessarily tactless by Real to leak these details now. Anyway, thanks for everything Toni and good luck.

I'll let Todd know where he can find you. 🙂

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I agree. The danger is there but his game looks tighter than Timo's to me. I'm not inviting people to take anymore meaning than just what I say here but, I see more similarities with Thierry Henry than with Timo. On balance, I'm with those who say that he's worth a look at the right price.

Well ******* well stop it then! 😀

BVB have this so well set up. Season after season they snap up the cream of the young talents. I wanted us to take Bellingham, they got him. I wanted us to take Adeyemi, they got him. Have to hand it to 'em. They are the best at this.

Emma Hayes & Erin Cuthbert on yesterday's title winning victory over Man Utd.