Vesper

only downside is that opposing fans will have a bloody field day with his real full name Obite Evan Ndicka O bite N dicka lolol

oh wow, I thought he renewed after they won the Europa League well then HELL YES he is more than decent, have followed him for years great height (1.92m) pace and technical skills

no idea why we did a FIVE YEAR contract 🤬

well for fullbacks these are the main option on my board left and some will soon be off the board LB Maxwel Cornet (can play winger too, thus would perhaps allow us, IF we simply cannot pull Bowen, to perhaps stop worrying a bit that other winger, seems a no brainer to me, and he is EPL-proven) Borna Sosa David Raum Robin Gosens Filip Kostic RB Benjamin Pavard (can play CB in a pinch) Matty Cash (hard pull) Denzel Dumfries (Inter need cash badly) Ridle Baku (can also play winger, like Cornet)

we need a left footed CB unless we think Colwill is a lock starter already (KK is a natural RCB) sooo we either just bomb RB Leipzig with £70-80m and pull Gvardiol now (next summer a bigger club will take him from us I fear, when his RC is only around £43m ie €50m) or we dump £50-60m on Presnel Kimpembe (PSG wants £60m, and Presnel just said he is open to 'exploring other options', BUT that was after Juve now have joined the race for him, and he is BFF with Pogba, they are thick as thieves, so eeeeek) or we roll for Evan Ndicka, who would be in the £40m to 45m range or so (maybe £35m if we, LOLOL, play hardball) or super dice roll Attila Szalai for around £20-25m or so Pau is a left footer as well (and yes, I am NOT sold on him in the EPL)

Chelsea are ready to fork out €50 million to land Pau Torres after they faced a setback in pursuit of Jules Kounde. http://www.thehardtackle.com/transfer-news/2022/07/25/Chelsea-ready-to-shell-out-e50-million-for-pau-torres/ According to Calcio Mercato Web, Premier League giants Chelsea have earmarked Villarreal star Pau Torres as an alternative for Sevilla ace Jules Kounde this summer. The Blues are in the market for a centre-back following the summer exits of Andreas Christensen and Antonio Rudiger.This left Thomas Tuchel with the largely unproven Trevoh Chalobah and Malang Sarr as Thiago Silva’s partners. The Brazilian himself is 37 and entering the final phase of his career. but..................................................... BARCELONA SUBMIT PAU TORRES ENQUIRY http://www.thehardtackle.com/transfer-news/2022/07/24/barcelona-submit-pau-torres-enquiry/ lever number three inbound, roflmaooooooooooooooooo 🤣

another super upside CF off the board now, off to Bayern we could not buy him if we wanted to (thanks Brexit!)

yes, but they went from the best RB on the planet (Kimmich, who moved to DMF) to him, so of course he looks poor in comparison, and their other fullback is WC Davies

and many missing from that list

our official first team roster at the moment eeeeeeeeeeeek the 100% for sure stays Edouard Mendy Trevoh Chalobah (shaky AF for months, I am rapidly losing confidence, a huge key to watch) Thiago Silva Ben Chilwell Reece James Mateo Kovacic Mason Mount Kai Havertz Raheem Sterling Kalidou Koulibaly Conor Gallagher Levi Colwill (super pressure on the lad atm) Armando Broja (I assume he stays, and there is insane pressure on the lad more than likely) the rest it's an overall shitshow (many who were supposed to be sold, and donkey dregs Bakayoko is still in flux, out on loan, which may end prematurely, which fucks us even more so) utter dregs in bold and we are weak at DMF as it stands with Jorginho and the oft injured Kante Kepa Arrizabalaga (needs to go due to huge salary plus he cannot be happy playing backup, he is starting quality for many, many teams) Marcus Bettinelli (has looked so poor when he plays) Ethan Ampadu (not at ALL sold on him, but we may need him, eeeeek) Malang Sarr get the hell off my team!!!! NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW Matt Miazga (a joke he is still here) Emerson (what a flop) Marcos Alonso (needs to go, likely stays as it stands, arrrf) Abdul-Rahman Baba why the fuck is he still here????? César Azpilicueta (needs to go, likely stays as it stands, arrrf) Jorginho (he is so shit defensively) N'Golo Kanté (father time is rapidly catching up, as I warned for last 2 years or so) Ruben Loftus-Cheek (needs to go, he does next to nothing, a bust when all is measured) Billy Gilmour (likely loaned out, I am not sold on him atm) Ross Barkley (drunkard) Kenedy dogshit player Hakim Ziyech (needs to go, I was against this buy, and have been proven correct) Christian Pulisic do or die season Callum Hudson-Odoi (needs to go, we were crazy to turn down, in hindsight, £40m from Bayern) Timo Werner (what a trainwreck of a flop) Michy Batshuayi doghshit deluxe, massive bust, horrid buy

I for one am not rioting over Kounde at all its the utter lack of other much needed signings we have missed out on an insane amount of class, quality players and the positions are truly drying up, as I have been meticulously keeping a running tally of for all of you

That is likely the only way it will happen, BUT will we dump £70-80m or so on a 20yo 1.85m CB with a total of only 29 Big 5 league games under his belt?

The CB landscape atm is bleak, as removing Kounde, Skriniar, and Gvardiol from the board leaves a serious drop-off for both now and 2023 the 4 in bold are the only ones ever considered (now or in the past few years) top class CB's, and ALL 4 have huge issues italics non-bolded are good enough now to come, just not top rated ever more than a few of these will also be gone I am sure, as well Alessandro Bastoni lefty (doesn't want to leave and has regressed a bit, Skriniar leaving and de Virj ageing makes his exit highly unlikely) Pau Torres lefty (not sold on him, Barca or Citeh may well go for him now, this window) José María Giménez (far too often injured and too expensive, plus next summer will be his last window where you get a full sub 30yo season out of him, which is key for the money he would cost) Stefan de Vrij (if he was 25 26, 27, then hell yes, he would be TOP of thsi list, BUT he turns 32yo in the middle of next season, 2023/24) Presnel Kimpembe lefty (not a bold for me, and apparently doesn't want to come here, but I WOULD take him now, for sure) Merih Demiral (decent, solid CB, we should be at least looking at him) Evan Ndicka lefty (decent, solid CB, we should be at least looking at him) Robin Le Normand (decent, solid CB, we should be at least looking at him) Wesley Fofana (2023 and beyond only) Gonçalo Inácio lefty, very young, super technical, huge potential Jurrien Timber (2023 and beyond only) another shorty, but he is now taller than Kounde at least Edmond Tapsoba stagnating a bit, needs to step up Benoît Badiashile lefty. needs to show more, but he is HUGE, 1.94m, and fairly pacey, not much of a motor though Gianluca Mancini doubt he will leave Roma, and he has a crazy temper, way worse than Rudiger's Pierre Kalulu (can play RB too) Nico Elvedi stagnating Manuel Akanji seems soft Matthias Ginter ageing, he turns 30 in middle of next season Roger Ibañez (I know many do not rate him at all, but we shall see what he does this season, he still has bags of talent) Thilo Kehrer overall a meh Odilon Kossounou very young Castello Lukeba lefty very young Maxence Lacroix (ONLY if he massively rebounds from a pretty poor 2021/22) Abdou Diallo lefty (can play LB too) Piero Hincapié lefty very young Adam Webster Max Kilman David Carmo lefty 1.96m Min-jae Kim (likely off to Napoli) Attila Szalai lefty then finally two youth I really like the potential of Armel Bella-Kotchap very young BUT deffo one to watch, massive upside, could be a Rudiger clone Ilya Zabarnyi very very young, huge upside

I see nothing to say we will pull either one next year, assuming than £43m release clause in 2023 is legit, the bigger clubs will likely pull Gvardiol from us and, as we speak, PSG is lumbering towards pulling in Skriniar now

yank baseball is a much better comparison, especially as Boehly is more baseball oriented but overall, yes, agree, yanks almost always purely chase money (until they age a bit, and want a ring), plus teams are MUCH MUCH more fluid in terms of standings a great MLB team can almost instantly go to shit, same for most NBA teams (look at the LA Lakers for massive ups and downs) and also NFL sides they also have no relegation fears at all

are you counting Pavard as a CB (he sucks there btw)? And, as we are likely getting gazumped by Barca over Kounde if we roll with just the CB's we have and add no one new there we are likely in deep shit unless Colwill blows up huge

No idea why people are blaming Boehly for Barca big-footing us it is not his fault they are a bigger club and the players involved preferred them over us it is not rocket science on those players plus Real (the biggest club in the world by far) took Tchou (I blame the old board for that, as we should have bought him last summer for £40-45m) and Bayern took de Ligt, again not Boehly's fault, as they too, are a bigger club than we are atm (and always have been, post WWII) add in PSG (pure money and many players simply want to live in Paris) and Citeh (pure money + Pep) Pool atm is ascendant due to Klopp and damn smart board When Manure sort themselves (a huge if as to time-frame atm) then they shoot up that list (and they are still easily a bigger club than us, even now) these are the only bigger clubs than Chels atm Juve, we can (outside of Italian players) simply out muscle IF we want, even more so for Inter and AC Milan, plus Atletico Madrid, Arse, Dortmund, and Spuds Those are the 15 (by far, massive drop off after those 15, hopefully NUFC are still ages away from joining to make it 16) biggest clubs in global football we have 7 above us and 7 below us it is just the way it is nothing Boehly can do about it atm, it is just going to take time to claw our way up (PSG and Citeh prove you can climb massively up the ladder, as did WE OURSELVES before them) to saying we are on par with all but Barca and Real

they are The No Pull Troll 😂

bigger clubs sunk in the old bovver boots

Real just won the CL and are loading up with talent their brand new 1 billion euro stadium renovation is soon done (completely finished by mid 2023 at the latest) as well Mbappe will be there after his PSG 435 million euro 3 year deal is done (he will sign for RM when he is 26 years old, so they will get 5, 6 peak years out of him) they do not look too 'long gone' to me

looks like we are punked again oh so publicly bitch-slapped other players targeted see this and it sets up a negative framing in their minds about our project

we are in truly dire straights atm and so utterly disappointed that we are going to do stand-by-stand patch-up job on SB fucking Putin 🤬

LOL pure revisionism the Italians used her like wet Russian dish rag for years and she could not even close out Kounde with Sevilla last window

Bowen is all that is truly left to fill that type of player he has pace to burn and is hyper aggressive, plus is EPL proven