Simon1991

I can't remember seeing another central defender with that much composure on the ball, he is simply outstanding. If only we had signed him a few years before.

You did not say that yourself, but fair to assume this is something the club values and one of the reasons we're after him. I tried to look for that stat on whoscored but could not find it, do you have a link you could share? When he was playing at Bordeaux, he was what, 19/20? A defender is never a finished product at that age and mistakes happen. Azpi, TS, AC, they all made mistakes at some point and that does make them bad defenders automatically. I have not watched those games against Barca and Real so i don't know. Maybe he just had bad games and the few games you've seen of him did not put him in a good light. Who knows. I'll be honest i have not seen him enough to have a clear opinion of him. What baffles me though is that a few fans who have in all likelihood seen a maximum of 5 games draw definite conclusions on his level and whether he is good enough for Chelsea, especially when the main argument is that he's a dwarf when it's clear that the person issuing that judgment has a personal and footballing fixation on height. He has great vertical leap from what i can see and statistically wins a lot of aerial duels. He is also built as a tank so i am unsure why his height worries some of our fan base. I will definitely put a lot more faith in Man City and Chelsea recruitment teams than the opinion of a few fans who are quick to pretend they know all about a player (not aiming at you, more of a general observation). The fact that Sevilla rejected close to 55M for him is telling also. They get to see him firsthand, so trust me if he was a bad player he'd be sealed and delivered for much less than 55 bricks.

@Magic Lamps, care to illustrate or give examples? And just NO, you can't praise a CB for being progressive with his runs and passing while at the same time blame him if a pass is intercepted or if he looses it, you can't have it both ways.

Such as? I'll wait for your answer, but my first impression is that you're just blowing hot air.

Come on, don't play the smartass. If you're not trying to convey any message message on Mount, why would you post this stat here? Actually and to answer your question, YES. Christensen's games, 200, 0 goals Chalobah's games 2, 1 goal If you went to Christensen's topic and said something like this, you have to admit the underlying message is negative or at least that's the way other members will interpret your post, especially if they already know your stance on that player (in this case that Mount does not assist enough from open play).

For god's sake @NikkiCFC, will you stop? I thought you had finally come to peace with Mount's input. Willian recorded 3 assists last year against Fulham, so, he's better too?

He was being sarcastic, just saying.

Ah, ok then.

Shitty post after shitty post. This will be my last answer to you. There is a clear distinction between being a fan and making the best decision career wise (not saying he did though). Look at the recent examples of Bates and Livramento, who went to Leeds/southampton respectively. Safe to assume they're Chelsea fans and not leeds and southamton fans, right? I'll let you connect the dots by yourself.

Do your research before posting bullshit, please? There has been plenty of documentation regarding why his 2017 transfer has fallen out, namely disagreements between the club and Raiola. Just go watch the youtube video where he visits Stamford bridge when he was like 14-15, and tell me straight in the face that he is not a Chelsea fan. Yeah so? You can have a favorite club and still cheer for a different club in a different country.

And honestly, the negativity around here is getting tiring, the fan base will never be happy about anything it seems. We are rumoured to sign one of the hottest CB prospects, he's weak, and a "dwarf" to some. We are rumoured to sign a striker in his prime which destroyed the Serie A last year and the year before, and we are apparently signing a Torres bis. Please let the board do their job and trust it is the best decision they can possibly make. We fans can never have the full picture, so we have no other choice than trust the process. And it's not like we're Spurs or Arsenal for fuck's sake, our board has shown us times and times that they are competent.

What's the matter with you? Everybody knows he was a Chelsea fan growing up. You don't change the team you support just like you freaking change socks.

No, just Vesper and R2D2 doing Vesper and R2D2 stuff.

I don't think the issue they're having is cash flow related (they just received this huge loan), but rather has to do with FFP compliance. They can register the profit on Hakimi's sales in this year's 2020 financials if they sell before July 1st. They bought him last year for around €40M on a five years contract, so his current book value is €32M. If they sell him for €80M they can register a €48M profit this year and balance their books. I have not followed Inter's financial situation but assuming they registered losses the previous 2 seasons, this could allow them to book a profit this year overall and just be FFP compliant. Whomever they buy in July to replace Hakimi can be amortized on their books for the next 4/5 seasons. Assuming they buy someone for around €20M, that player would only have a €4/5M (+wages, let's say total of €8M) impact on their 2021 books and the seasons after that. So that's a €8M versus €48M, a huge €40M swing. Hope that helps clarify a little bit.

But you don't know that Marina fucked it up on the previous italian travails as you call them. That is completely speculative and that is what i am pointing out. I would recommend you go back to what you posted. To say that italian clubs have Marina on a leash is just... i'll let you decide what word you want to put there.

Thanks @Clockwork i was about to say something. Can people stop to just go crazy over thin air? What is this, seriously? Deals go or fall through for hundreds of different reasons. There is just nothing to base this on. And @R2D2 why are you ALWAYS so angry, all the time? What's the matter with you haha.

They know jackshit. 50% disparity on CHO's salary alone. Then they're reporting the exact same number for Kante at 144k, when at the time of his new contract, he reportedly was earning 290K gross and this was also reported by some of the most reliable Chelsea journos.

What I really meant by that is that we had nothing to judge that year in terms of CL performance, i could have just placed "no CL" as well. He has scored more goals and has had a bigger impact in PL, but what i am trying to say is that in some of those games in which he did not dominate, he was absolutely not set up in the right conditions to do so. How can we expect him to shine against atletico for instance, when he had to play with Azpi as a left winger and Ramirez/Luiz in the middle of the park? Also, you can't really compare Neymar's contributions with Hazard during those seasons, IMO. Neymar got to play in an extremely prolific offensive systems along with Messi/Suarez when Hazard was too often the only real offensive weapon (c.f example above vs atletico). You can technically compare those numbers, but it's a skewed comparison. I think it's fair to assume that Neymar in our system would have struggled just the same, and that Hazard would have shone in that Barcelona, but it's foot fiction and we'll never know. I can certainly understand why some people would say that, but i think it fails to take the context of those performances into account. That's actually why i took the time to go over all those elimination games individually. Looking at each individual performances, he had some good performances and some ok ones, but those were games where the team as whole struggled a lot, or where we were exclusively set-up to defend. You could say, yeah but that exactly why he needed him to step up, fair enough, but baring Messi/Ronaldo, who's done that on a regular basis, and who has done it in team similar to the Chelsea ones? Neymar? Saw his games against City when his team struggled, or against Bayern last year? What did he achieve? Lewandoski/Bale? Yes they're clutcher than Hazard I agree, but they also both play/played in very well oiled offensive systems, contrary to Hazard.

I strongly disagree. It is something we often hear that Eden never showed anything in CL when it mattered. I really hate this narrative, I really do. This one is really a good example of how the opinion of a few can gain traction and add to the narrative; to finally be accepted by a larger portion of the fanbase and external fans. As it often does, it completely lacked context. When i look back at all those matches, I don't know, I really struggle to understand how Eden got so much stick for the team's shortcomings. 2013-2014: Hazard scores the 1-1 away at PSG during the quarter finals (good game overall). Second leg, comes off injured at the 18th minute. Did not play in the first leg at Atletico (0-0). Played well in the return leg, and Mourinho expected him to single handedly carry the team forward. We played an awfully defensive 4-2-3-1 that day with Ramires-Luiz in a double pivot, Azpi/Willian on the wings and Torres upfront. He was expected to do it all by himself as too often with Mourinho, against one of the best defenses of Europe. This one is to blame on Mourinho, not Hazard who actually looked very lively in that game, and like the only man capable of making something happen. 2014-2015: He did alright in Paris (1-1), and was our best player on the pitch during the second leg (2-2). Had a good game overall and scored his penalty to make it 2-1. This one was a close contest between two good teams, not sure how we can blame him for anything that year. 2015-2016: We were battered collectively by the PSG that year, who were vastly superior to us as a team. Hazard was ok during those games, nothing special. Worth ,mentioning that this was during his worst season at Chelsea, where he had constant niggling injuries and could not find his form. 2016-2017: No CL 2017-2018: Played as a false 9 against Barcelona (not his best position we all know that). Did not have the best game, but gave the assist for Willian. Second leg he had a good game IMO. Barca was just a different class that day with Messi on fire (and a shit Courtois). 2018-2019: King of the Europa league and shone in the final to bid his goodbye. I mean for me, he could have done better in 2015-2016 and arguably in 2017-2018. The former was a shitty season for him he we got beaten by a collectively better team, and same thing for the latter. Barcelona in 2018 was just the better team but Eden had decent games those years. The other years he was actually good, and it's really harsh to hold him accountable for the defeats without looking at this bigger picture. In 2014 you could put prime Messi in that team he would also have done jackshit.

What a player we have in our hands.. Kante was gigantic, but my man of the man goes to Kai, he simply bossed it!!

The other day i was looking at Werner's xG and below are the results for his last seasons. 2020/2021: 6 goals (xG 11.63) 2019/2020: 28 goals (xG 20.80) 2018/2019: 16 goals (xG 15.49) 2017/2018: 13 goals (xG 13.39) 2016/2017: 21 goals (xG 12.61) He's been extremely unlucky at times, he touched the woodwork 5 times this season (!), and very clumsy in some situations, but he never lost the energy and the hunger which is why i think he deserves our patience. We can hopefully expect him to go back to his old goalscoring standards. I truly hope he does, the fanbase won't stand two seasons like this in a row.

Regarding a potential Hazard return to his garden, my heart would say yes, but my brain would say no 😪. Can't see him being a good fit into the press intense team Tuchel is trying to implement. Looks like Eden is already way past his peak and it's heartbreaking honestly.

You really can't see how Mount is a different class from Willian now, can you? Funny how everything just boils down to goals and assist with you, when there is so much more to this game than just that. What about the defence breaking pass before the assist, what about a progressive run that opened up some space for a teammate? Look i agree that he can be wasteful at times and still has aspects of his game to improve on, but that's exactly what he's been doing the last few years, and he does bring a lot to the table when he plays. I don't know, I am just having a hard time reconciling with the fact some of our fans can't recognize quality when it's there for everyone to see. At least it's good to know that the people whose judgment actually matters can see it. I imagine there's not much point in debating further, we just see too different things.

@NikkiCFC can you please stop cherry picking stats to support your agenda? Through balls, really? Kovacic/Jorgi up there, i guess they're highly creative players then. Just to add my grain of salt to this debate, which i am not sure why we're having in the first place but moving on. To the people who don't rate Mount, i am just going to say this. Forget about our opinion of Mount as fan, forget about the POTY. How do you explain ALL his coaches rate him so much? Lampard, Tuchel, Southgate, all the pundits, undroppable in their eyes, why is that? Undroppable in the eyes of the people who know about this game. Please go ahead and explain why that is.

Yes, and arguably James/Rudiger, but definitely something lacking from our other midfielders!