Panic

Bayer Leverkusen aren't in a position where they can tell Chelsea to pay 100m or fuck off. The player has 2 years left on his deal, and he will not be signing an extension. We can use the same logic the opposite way. If Leverkusen will sell him for 100m, why woudn't they accept a bid of 90m? The player is going to leave anyways, it's just a matter of when not if. The reality is that this transfer is more complex than you are making it out to be. We don't know how Leverkusen are evaluating the situation they are in and the same applies to Chelsea.

I have read a few of your posts outside of the ones I replied to. I can somewhat understand why you believe I was just repeating points you already made. Allow me to try to clarify my points in a more concise and comprehensible way. 1. I believe that a "US style budget cap" requires revenue sharing. We both agree that revenue sharing is not very likely or possible, hence I do believe you should not refer to a budget cap as "US style" if you're not proposing revenue sharing. 2. A salary/budget cap that allows clubs to " spend up to the cap figure, as long as it can do so without falling into unsustainable debt." Is substantively no different from current FFP rules. This is because current FFP rules are more strict than a salary/budget cap and will prevent the vast majority of clubs from spending more money before a salary/budget cap does.(Unless you are advocating for creating a cap well below what the top clubs are currently spending.) In other words, a salary cap only prevents the top clubs from spending more. FFP prevents clubs from unsustainable debt. 3. The conclusion then is that you can't fairly bridge the gap between the less successful and more successful clubs without revenue sharing. Clubs will either never be able to compete, or we will regularly see clubs ruined when an ambitious owner comes in and spends beyond the clubs means.

I should probably clarify my point. I consider revenue sharing to be an integral part of the US style salary cap. So a salary cap is just FFP imo. I don't think FFP is the only thing that is stopping a club like Walsall from competing. With a salary cap, Jeff Bezos could buy Walsall and spend multiple billions to improve the club. But he never would. Why? He would never see a return on his investment as Walsall isn't a big enough market. Look at Chelsea, P.S.G, and Man City. All are worth well over a billion dollars. If Abramovich were to sell Chelsea today, he would probably make over double on what he invested. Walsall would never provide such a return. Walsall is such an obvious example that almost no one with any business sense would ever try to create a footballing powerhouse out of that club. So what about the less obvious clubs? What happens to Newcastle if they have an owner who comes in and invests £500million, doesn't see results, and decides to give up? The club would be financially ruined. This is who FFP is supposed to protect. A salary cap without revenue sharing doesn't make sense imo. I do agree that full revenue sharing doesn't make sense for football. But even within a division there are too many complications. Clubs have a huge incentive to push back against truly fair FFP because of relegation, for example.

What sports are you referring to? If you are referring to the NFL or NBA then all teams would have an equal amount of money to spend on salary. For example, each NFL team had $198.2 million to spend in the 19/20 season. They don't have to spend this, but they don't get to keep the unspent cash(This is because of revenue sharing). There are some more details, but the NFL cap allows the "poor" teams to match the spending of the rich teams. Under an NFL style salary cap, Walsall FC could financially match Barcelona.

GET FUCKING IN BATMAN

The problem with your suggestion is that what is "obvious" can vary. Two people can look at the same real-time footage and come to a different conclusion. As a result, frame by frame analysis is needed to bring precision, which results in less variation in calls. I would also like you to consider two scenarios. In the first, a player is standing 20cm offside; we can determine this to be offside without using a frame by frame analysis. Perfect. Now let's consider a scenario where a player is sprinting to make a run behind the defense.It is reasonable for a sprinting player run 20cm offside, the same distance as the static attacker, yet you would need to look frame by frame to determine whether he is offside. In both scenarios we have players offside by the same margin yet different calls would be made. Is this a desirable outcome? I don't think so, maybe you do? In my opinion, the most compelling argument against VAR is that the margin of error can by quite high because of how quickly players move. If a player is running at full sprint they can cover ~40cm in between frames. There are various factors that can decrease or increase this margin of error, such as a having a moving attacker vs a static defender, or a moving attacker and moving defender, etc. If you change the way VAR works, it needs to be done by including margin of errors, if we can accurately determine them.

What exactly is a clear and obvious offside call, though? How many centimeters can the attacker stray away from the last defender? If you don't come up with a concrete limit, then you leave offside decisions open to interpretation which would see a huge variation in what is allowed or disallowed. That would not be good for the game.

If we're being fair, Mou brought in a lot of the garbage they have. United spent €466million on players under Mou and he got almost everything he wanted, outside of a CB during his disastrous last season(they already purchased 2 CBs for Mou). In fact, Mou was so confident in his squad that he stated they could compete for the title his first year there, something he didn't believe we could do during his first season in his second spell with us.

Would you say that he doesn't trust Pedro had he gone with Pulisic instead? We can't come to that conclusion based on the single statement he made. His statement only implies that Pedro's massive experience in the CL gave him the edge. We cannot say Lampard didn't trust Pulisic to put in a satisfactory performance.

This is why I said best team possible. Factors such as form and and managing match fitness are somewhat implied. This was to keep the post brief.

But it's not. Lampard's job is to play the best team possible for any given match. Who plays will be influenced by a variety of factors, but it's pretty safe to assume that individual skill plays a huge role in Lampard's decision making. In the case of Mount, it appears that Lampard believes that Mount is the best player available. The result? Mount plays. Now let's consider the case of Pedro or Pulisic replacing an injured Mount. If Lampard believes that Pulsic and Pedro are equal in ability, he has to use another factor to make his decision. In this scenario, it was experience.

Lampard's reasoning in this scenario isn't necessarily contradictory. In the case of Mount and Abraham, he clearly believes they are better players than the alternatives. With Tomori, there isn't another fit CB to play in his position. If Lampard believes Pulisic and Pedro are both equally good, then it would make sense to go with the more experienced player.

Football is growing quite a bit in the states. Any day that I wear a Chelsea shirt, there will be 4-5 random people who acknowledge it. If the sport continues to grow here, the Premier League is going to see even more money go into the league!

Absolute nonsense. 1. Buying a keeper based on their ability to save penalties is absolute nonsense. 2. Jan Oblak has a better penalty save percentage than David de Gea, Manuel Neuer, Thibaut Courtois,Keylor Navas, Gianluigi Buffon, ter-Stegen and Alison. Here is the data(from transfermarkt.co.uk) on how many penalties each goalkeeper has saved and how many they have faced. Jan Oblak 12/33=36% Manuel Neuer 18/52=34% Keylor Navas 14/42=33% Gianluigi Buffon 31/101=30% Alisson 4/14=28% David de Gea 11/44=25% ter-Stegen 9/37=24% Thibaut Courtois 5/31=16% So I guess none of those keepers would be good enough, eh?

I agree with the first statement. Azpi needs more composure on the ball, but I don't think he will need to become profcient at playing combinations with our winger. He will need to press high and run more, but that will suit his skill set as he has high amounts of stamina.

Uh,what? Azpi is not a slow player. He might not be on the same level as Kyle Walker or Hector Bellerin, but he's no slouch. An attack minded LB and a more defensive minded RB is exactly how Sarri set up his Napoli side. It seems very strange that you are suggesting that Hysaj is very attack minded. In the games that I have seen, and in every analysis of Napoli and Hysaj that I have seen, not once has someone described Hysaj as a very attack minded RB. I am very curious as to how you have come to this conclusion. When I think of an attack minded RB, I think of players like Dani Alves or Kyle Walker when he played for Tottenham. Hysaj plays a more supporting role. On occasion, he does get forward, but he does not constantly attack. This is due to how focused Napoli are on their left hand side, where an attack minded LB is necessary. The RB does not needed to be very attacked minded because Callejon is the type of player to attack the space behind opposing defensive lines, rather use skill and pace to combine with other players to move the ball through opposing teams. He is able to do this because Napoli drag oppoising teams to the opposite side of the pitch. That's not to say that Napoli don't use the right hand side at all, or that Hysaj doesn't get foward at all, but to suggest that a very attack minded RB is needed seems widely inaccurate. With that being said, this doesn't mean that Azpi is ideally suited for the role, or that he doesn't need to adapt. But given his history and skill-set, it's very reasonable to believe that he can be successful as a RB for Sarri. Azpi is an intelligent player, and with the right coaching I'm sure he will be able to perform at a very high level as a RB.

If the club evaluate him at a higher level, then either Morata or Giroud should go, as one of them is not going to get game time. This is the main reason why I find the striker position so puzzling. From a business perspective, the club is going to suffer from keeping all 3 at the club. I'm not convinced by Morata either, but in his time here, he has shown glimpses of talent. With Batshuayi, he has demonstrated an inability to contribute to the team in any meaningful way. Batshuayi has a very weak hold up game, poor movement, and is extremely selfish. He does have talent, but he is a very raw player and needs games to put it together. This part of your post is extremely confusing. From what I have seen from Higuain and Mertens, neither can be accurately described as poachers in their time with Sarri. In addition, every analysis video that I have watched indicates that Sarri's strikers are much more than poachers. If you have any videos, or something else that supports this statement, please feel free set me straight. I can agree with most of this statement. I'm hoping Morata finds confidence and adapts to the physicality of the league, because if he does, he can be a good striker for us.

My evaluation of the player is probably different from yours, because I don't think Batshuayi has what it takes to succeed here. As a result, I'm of the opinion that he will receive next to zero playing time. It makes sense why a coach would want him here, because of the increased competition, but it does not make sense from an ownership point of view. Why? Because these aren't very young players on cheap wages, and the club has spent a significant amount of money on them. When one of the three fails, it's going to hurt the club. The value of the striker that falls to third choice is going to drop significantly. How many clubs are going to go after Batshuayi if he becomes a third choice striker? And for the clubs that do, what are they going to offer to secure his services? If Batshuayi does make it, either Giroud or Morata are going to be in the aforementioned situation. If it's Morata the club take a massive loss. If it's Giroud, it wouldn't be too significant, but let's be honest, he's not going to fall behind Batshuayi.

Most definitely not. If he doesn't get game time he will be shipped out in January. It's a little puzzling that he is still here. Surely he is behind both Giroud and Morata, so why keep him here and see his value reduced? Surely it would be better to send him out on loan to get game time, or sell him before his value takes a hit while he sits on the bench or even outside of our 18 man squad on match days.

Turnbull was above Hilario the season prior(Turnbull had an appearance in the League Cup and Champions league, whereas Hilario only appeared in the Community Shield.), and in the 2011-12 season Turnbull ended up with more appearances.

When was the last time we had a 3rd choice keeper play for us in a competitive match? It was Henrique Hilario on August 27th, 2011 vs Norwich in the Premier League. There is plenty of criticism that can be launched at the board over transfers, but this isn't one of them.

This is what happens when you buy bang average players. The only clubs interested in these types of players are mid-table level clubs. The problem is that both players are on nice wages and Chelsea will want to recoup most of the money that we paid for them, so no mid-table level club will want to make a move. Spending 25m+ on Drinkwater would be absurd for clubs like Watford, Newcastle, or Crystal Palace. He's just not good enough. Zappacosta is much the same. There are plenty of full-backs at a similar level that could be purchased for a much lower fee.

This transfer has me a bit worried. Christensen was quite good and looked very promising in the first half of the season. The second half of the season, particularly after Feburary, were rough for him, but not bad enough to lose confidence in him. If Rugani comes for the any price near the reported fees, where does that leave Christensen? Surely we aren't spending 50m on a bench player. Christensen has shown that he can play at a high level now, with room to improve in the future. Why bring in another centre-half with a similar skill set and age?

From what I have seen, Sarri's wide players don't play like traditional wingers. They play a little narrow and get forward into the box. They do need skill to operate in tight spaces and pace does help, but I don't think that pace plays a large factor in a player's success in that position. I don't watch Lyon so I know little of Fekir, but from what I understand of Fekir he is very skillful and he does score goals(I assume this means he likes to get forward and makes good runs). Perhaps he could succeed under Sarri in a wide role or perhaps Sarri could make a slight tweak to his system, as he already suggested he is willing to do so.

Fekir in the Mertens role is an interesting idea, but I don't think that is how Sarri wants to line up. I don't follow Napoli all that much, but I believe that playing Mertens as a striker was not Sarri's first choice. In the first 9 games of their 2016/2017 season, Milik and Gabbiadini were preferred. It wasn't until their 10th game of the season that Mertens was selected as a centre-forward. The reason why this is important is because it indicates that Sarri would prefer a more traditional center-forward. It appears that Sarri felt that Mertens was the best option rather than being his first choice. It ended up working out, but I imagine that Sarri will want a natural centre-forward for his first 11.