!Hazard!

United looking abysmal yet again. I wouldn't be surprised if Liverpool and/or Spurs are above them in the table by the end of the season.

PSG will never pay +100 million for such an unmarketable player and neither will Real. Only we way we'll lose Kante is if he wants to leave.

Does he even play for this club anymore? The guy just disappeared

Can he even speak English

As far as I understand, his contract will run out in the summer.

Bring in Sarri

There are dozens of very talented young French midfielders and our board decides to buy this guy...

Need to bring in someone that's proven good with the youth. Considering the lack of spending in the transfer windows, the academy is our only hope for success in the future.

Time to close this thread. There's no coming back now for this guy

Conte wake up! Baka needs to go asap

Bakayoko might be the worst player ever to wear the shirt. Jesus

Recall Mason Mount. Can't be worse than Bakayoko

Fuck me

This business model would make perfect sense if the club would just sit down, decide an identity which to follow on the pitch and integrate as many academy players as possible whilst making good business by getting bargains and selling loanees. Right they have no patience for the manager to develop a squad which forces the manager to ignore the youth and there's still after all these years no clear identity of play. The lack of vision is even more apparent when you look at who have been proposed as the successors of Conte. Allegri, Enrique, Simeone are all completely different managers with different philosophies. I think it all starts with the identity. A clear philosophy from the youth teams to the first team squad would make the transition a lot easier for the academy graduates. Look at City, Pep can just throw kids in the starting XI and they can perform as well because the philosophy is so clear and everyone knows what to do. Recruiting new players also becomes easier when you exactly what type of players the squad needs. For example, buying Morata (ball-playing forward) and Bakayoko (the opposite of a technical midfielder) in the same transfer window makes no sense at all.

Bienvenue. French or French-speaking players generally perform very well at this club.

More like straight swap for Charly Musonda

I thought about this the other day. It would at least be a fun experiment.

Imagine how many unnecessary managerial changes could have been avoided if this ridiculous no-long-contracts-for-over-30yo-players-policy wasn't implemented in the first place. So often we have seen Chelsea managers lose important figures in the squad simply because those players weren't offered longer contracts and thus the managers had to just deal with the fact the squad was getting light on depth, quality and experience. I bet an opposite approach would have also been a lot more cost-effective considering how expensive it is to fire one manager after another and how much money has been spent on finding replacements for the older players whose contracts ran out. But hey let's leave this stuff to the accountants, I'm sure they can make this policy look pretty in their Excel sheets.

ROSS!

Credit where it's due, in case we end up getting Barkley, Emerson and Dzeko it's a great transfer window. I was expecting a lot worse tbh

That goal would not happen if we would play 3-5-2 in this match. Having two wingers/attacking midfielders makes such a big difference

Didn't expect this! Awesome start and what a goal

Is he registered as part of the Roma Champions League team?

Around the time first Carroll rumours started to emerge I thought to myself which forwards would actually be ideal for the role. Mandzukic and Dzeko were the names I came up with so in case this deal happens I would be very delighted. Dzeko has developed a lot since his time at City and he has really become a complete centre-forward who could easily put Morata on the bench for the rest of the season.

I can't believe he still hasn't figured this out.