Vesper

Transfer market: end of negative trend The 67th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report analyses from an economic perspective transfer operations carried out by big-5 league clubs during the last decade. It notably shows that the declining trend in investments after the health crisis has stopped. During the last transfer window, clubs from the five major European leagues spent 2% more than in the previous summer. The study also shows that the pandemic has reinforced the domination of English Premier League clubs on the transfer market. The percentage of spending of the latter in comparison to the total big-5 league clubs’ transfer expenditure has increased from 35% between January 2012 and January 2020 to over 45% for the three post-COVID transfer windows. The percentage of investments of the ten clubs having spent the most has also increased between these periods (from 33% to 35% per transfer window on average), as that of the ten most expensive transfers in comparison to the total (from 30% to 33%). All the indicators show a trend towards a concentration of spending from the richest clubs, in particular the wealthiest Premier League ones. Six English teams are at the top of the rankings for the most negative post-pandemic net transfer spending, with Manchester United (-€217 million) ahead of Chelsea (-€205 M) and Arsenal (-€194 M). Since the COVID crisis, English top division clubs recorded a total deficit of almost two billion euro in transfer operations. Conversely, Spanish Liga teams registered a positive net balance (+€200 million). Within the context of a general crisis, the English Premier League is the only competition where a majority of clubs invest massively on the transfer market. This allowed many teams from the other big-5 leagues, and, in a cascade effect, further down, to limit the impact of the health crisis and shows the importance of a global transfer system as it currently exists. At the same time, the dependence of a growing number of clubs even within the wealthiest leagues on transfer incomes highlights the weakness of the current professional football economic system. The survival of more and more teams pivots indeed on the profits generated through the transfer of their best players. This situation is both financially dangerous and sportingly limiting. FULL REPORT

those stats are way off (as I fully documented above) we are at +£53m or so, counting all outlays minus all income fees for sales and loans, if Tino Anjorin is sold (a £17m buy option in his loan agreement) in January, we are +£70m

wow, dodgy shit I was wondering why that deal did not happen that SO fucked Sarri, as he was counting on Kostic coming in stats-wise (all-round stats, not just scoring) Kostic had one of the best years on the planet, and for a meh club.

What Saul Niguez can bring to Chelsea https://theathletic.com/2800400/2021/09/01/what-saul-niguez-can-bring-Chelsea-premier-league/ Saul Niguez’s last-gasp move from Atletico Madrid to Chelsea offers the 26-year-old an opportunity to re-energise a career that had been stalling over the last few years, especially if he now gets a chance to play his favoured central midfield role. Chelsea confirmed Saul had joined on a season-long loan at 11.45 pm on Tuesday, after the Premier League club had been granted permission to complete the deal after the 11 pm deadline. Chelsea have paid around a €5 million (£4.3 million) loan fee and are understood to have an option to buy him for €35 million (£30 million) next summer. It is a move which suits all parties. Saul has spent almost his entire career at Atletico, and took a full part in the celebrations as Diego Simeone’s team won the La Liga title last season, but he had not played a key role in their success. Atletico were happy too, using the room freed up in their wage bill to dramatically re-sign Antoine Griezmann from Barcelona as the window drew to a close. When he broke into Atletico’s senior side as a teenager in the 2014-15 season, Saul seemed ready-made as a complete midfielder who could run, pass, tackle and score. A stunning bicycle-kick goal in a 4-0 derby win over Real Madrid at the Estadio Vicente Calderon in February 2015 was followed in the next two seasons by Champions League knockout-phase goals against Bayern Munich, Leicester City and Real Madrid. Over time, his relationship with coach Simeone did not always run smoothly, and he has slipped down the pecking order at Atletico in the last two years. Last season, the first-choice midfield three was Koke, Marcos Llorente and Thomas Lemar, while 2021 Copa America winner Rodrigo De Paul has arrived this summer from Udinese for €35 million (£30 million) and immediately leapfrogged him too. Saul himself also had clearly decided that he could do with a change of scene, although his move to Chelsea went right to the wire. The Athletic broke the news on Tuesday afternoon that Chelsea were actively pursuing the player, who had also been closely linked with Manchester United earlier in the summer. When physically flying and full of confidence, Saul has shown over his career that he can be one of the very best midfielders around. While that was not always the case last season, a careful look at his numbers from that campaign point to what he might be able to offer Thomas Tuchel’s European champions over the coming campaign. Although injury affected his start to 2020-21, a bigger problem for Saul was Simeone’s decision to change Atletico from his regular 4-4-2 to a more frequent back three — either a 3-5-2 or a 3-4-3 (as a box midfield four) — or play in a 4-3-3. In each formation, Saul would be able to play across any of the roles in that central midfield area, highlighting his versatility to play within different systems. He can play in more of a holding role or as the more advanced midfielder — although would often prefer to be on the left of central midfield, on his favoured left foot. He also often featured for Simeone as the left wing-back, either starting matches there or switching mid-game. While Chelsea’s Tuchel often prefers a similar three-man back line, Saul has been signed to play in midfield. That is where he clearly prefers to play, and his feeling that he was being used out of position was a major reason he was happy to leave Atletico. Looking at Saul’s smarterscout profile — which gives players a rating from zero to 99, relating to either how often they perform a given stylistic action or how effective they are compared with other players in their position — when used in a central midfield role, you can see how neat and tidy he is in the centre of the park. He is a competent playmaker, and we can see how he chooses to play simple, short passes to a nearby team-mate when building the attack (link-up play volume rating: 73 out of 99), rather than play longer, searching balls upfield (progressive passing: 19 out of 99). Earlier in his Atletico career, he quite often came up with big goals on important occasions — most recently a scrambled winner in the Champions League last 16 first leg against Liverpool in February last year. However, he has never been prolific over his career and his numbers for last season (two goals and one assist in 41 appearances) were not those of a midfielder offering a regular attacking threat. He is, however, more of a box-to-box midfielder who likes to get forward and support the attack where he can. Look at receptions in the opposition box in the chart above, where he gets a 96 out of 99 rating. His 18.1 touches in the attacking third per 90 minutes placed him in the top 25 per cent of central midfielders in La Liga last season. Above all, the Spaniard has real defensive tenacity, as you would expect for everyone playing under Simeone. He is very active out of possession and looks to regularly get close to his man to make a defensive action (defending intensity rating: 75 out of 99). The actions that he does make (ie, tackles, blocks, clearances) are also one of the most frequent among his peers (disrupting opposition moves: 87 out of 99) — with his tally of 4.2 tackles and interceptions per 90 minutes putting him in the top 10 per cent for midfielders in La Liga last season. A point to note, though, is that his ability to successfully stop the opposition with those defensive actions is not the strongest (defending impact: 35 out of 99), as he does not invariably regain possession or prevent the opposition from progressing further. Finally, not only did Saul contest a high volume of headers last season (aerial duels quantity: 97/99) but his ability in the air is very strong, as shown by his duel ratings. Smarterscout’s duel ratings adjust for how good a player is one-v-one, taking into account the quality of the opponent they faced in those duels. For example, you’d be likely to get more credit for winning a header against Karim Benzema of Real Madrid than Barcelona’s Ansu Fati. Saul’s rating of 76/99 in open play and 94/99 from set-play aerial duels suggests that he rarely loses out when competing for a header — an impressive trait considering that at 6ft tall he does not exactly tower over opposition players. The challenge for Tuchel now, and for Saul himself, is to find a role within the Chelsea set-up where he can thrive. The last few years have been difficult for him personally, and he bravely spoke during last season about how he knew he was not reaching the levels of which he was capable. An ankle injury to N’Golo Kante may now offer him an immediate route into the Chelsea team and, while competition for places at Stamford Bridge is also very tough, the change of scene and playing for a coach who really believes in him could help him rediscover the form that a few years ago had him widely viewed as one of Europe’s top midfielders.

David Squires on … Cristiano loyalty, Daniel Levy and transfer silly season Our resident cartoonist on the thrill of transfer deadline day, PSG (the absolute LADS) and Michy Batshuayi in a cape

Duncan Castles, what a plonker. He said over and over that Aurelien Tchouameni was in the bag for Manure. So many of these frauds exposed this window need to be stricken from ALL sites.

8 out of 10 as we spent £100m, and (provided Anjorin is purchased in January) brought in around £170m Obviously DMF and CB went a-begging, BUT Saul can help the MF immensely, and we got super lucky with the rise of Trevoh. We can by a CB next year. Rom and Saul are massive players, both in quality, and filling in a need. We still need to somehow loan out or sell the 5 dregs (4 if you leave RLC in the main side mix) especially Barkley and Sarr. Not worried much about Musonda and Baker.

they are reluctant to go anywhere no superpower football nation so holds onto their best players like Italy does the only clubs atm who have any of their top 25 (MV) players and are not in Italy are PSG and us and I want to take all 3 of the top who are still there, those are my 3 top targets for next summer I would so settle for Barella, Chiesa and then forget Bastoni (as Inter will not sell them BOTH in the same window) and I guess go for the dwarf, it Tuchel and board think Kounde is their man, plus Aurélien Tchouaméni (although I also think we are still obsessed with Rice) We are already (if Anjorin is purchased in January) £70m in the black, and STILL have more players to sell in the coming windows, at least £130m worth or so, inclusive of the 5 dregs we are stuck with plus those ones out on loan) and that is NOT counting possible sales like CHO, or Ziyech, Puli (obviously Chiesa in would mean we sell at least one winger) Alonso, or Kepa, etc so a possible £200m war chest or even much higher if we dump 26 man squad players Barella, Chiesa, Kounte, Tcho would cost around £290m (plus we might buy Saul perm, which might mean no Barella just yet, until we see what happens with Kante and Jorginho down the road, I can wait for Barella another year (so 2023) if that all happens) Chiesa will be INSANELY hard to pull, as will Barella, but we need to shoot for the moon. The last one I would add to the target mix is, as always, Theo for LB, once we dump Alonso. Now that Spinazzola is likely done as top notch player (and he is 30 next season anyway) plus with Nuno Mendes now at PSG, Theo is it for LB's of true quality atm. We obviously do not rate Gosens, nor Raphaël Guerreiro (and he turns 29yo next season). # Player Age Nat. club Market value 1 Federico Chiesa Right Winger 23 £63.00m 2 Nicolò Barella Central Midfield 24 £58.50m 3 Gianluigi Donnarumma Goalkeeper 22 £58.50m 4 Alessandro Bastoni Centre-Back 22 £54.00m 5 Marco Verratti Central Midfield 28 £49.50m 6 Lorenzo Insigne Left Winger 30 £43.20m 7 Jorginho Defensive Midfield 29 £40.50m 8 Lorenzo Pellegrini Central Midfield 25 £36.00m 9 Nicolò Zaniolo Attacking Midfield 22 £36.00m 10 Ciro Immobile Centre-Forward 31 £34.20m 11 Andrea Belotti Centre-Forward 27 £31.50m 12 Domenico Berardi Right Winger 27 £31.50m 13 Manuel Locatelli Defensive Midfield 23 £31.50m 14 Moise Kean Centre-Forward 21 £31.50m 15 Matteo Politano Right Winger 28 £27.00m 16 Gianluca Mancini Centre-Back 25 £27.00m 17 Sandro Tonali Defensive Midfield 21 £24.30m 18 Leonardo Spinazzola Left-Back 28 £23.40m 19 Alessio Romagnoli Centre-Back 26 £22.50m 20 Davide Calabria Right-Back 24 £22.50m 21 Giovanni Di Lorenzo Right-Back 28 £21.60m 22 Manuel Lazzari Right Midfield 27 £18.90m 23 Alessio Cragno Goalkeeper 27 £18.00m 24 Alex Meret Goalkeeper 24 £18.00m 25 Gaetano Castrovilli Central Midfield 24 £18.00m

not if given half a chance we simply did not have the time yet to make a great announcement video yet perhaps they do it today look at our kit videos the past several seasons they are so so so good as good as the kits are bad (well some were good)

Buffon was awesome, and LOLOLOLL at Bats if his play was as good as his theatre and social media, we would have had THREE Ballon d'Or candidates, roflmaoooooooo

did you expect them to toss together a BAFTA winner in 25 minutes? lolol that loan almost collapsed 15 times in last 2 days

I see what the fuckers did they put some of the transfers under Chelsea U23's and they still have Rom down as cosying £8m more than he actually did (£95.5m, as it was 97.5m minus that 2m solidarity payment we got back) our actual outlays are so simple to remember £100m on the nose in terms of trans fee, that solidarity kick back, and the £4.5m loan cost of Saul https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fc-Chelsea-u23/transfers/verein/9250/saison_id/2021 maybe £3m in unlisted loan rev so call it £38m in U23 revenue counting sales then total rev from sales and loans from Sr team is around £115m or so, counting loan fees (pure guess) not listed, plus sales so that is £153m total for both parts of the club so far minus £100m spent net yields in the black for £53m or so plus we still have those 5 Sr players to sort (some will stay) RLC, Sarr, Barkley (ugh), Baker, and Musonda and not all windows are closed to sell or loan PLUS Faustino Anjorin is not included in any of that he is on loan or soon will be to Lokomotiv Moscow and the deal includes a January 2022 buy option for 20m euros (£17m pounds) with a £34m buyback clause so that £53m net could well be £70m in the black come January and again, those 5 Sr players could still all (RLC unlikely) or partially go out super business

2 of those 7 games they gave up a total of 7 goals too, 3 against Marseille, and 4 against Lyon he had one clean sheet as a left CB, versus Angers, and one as a right CB, versus Brest

yes, I self deleted if you look up but I went back and looked, he only played 7 games at left CB in France

self delete

erm

madness Gianluigi Donnarumma Marquinhos Sergio Ramos Nuno Mendes Achraf Hakimi Danilo Pereira (DMF is their only real weakness, but they have 3 all about the same level and can play whoever is hot) Marco Verratti Georginio Wijnaldum Neymar Lionel Messi Kylian Mbappé Bench Keylor Navas Sergio Rico Presnel Kimpembe Abdou Diallo Thilo Kehrer Juan Bernat Layvin Kurzawa Colin Dagba Leandro Paredes Idrissa Gueye Rafinha Ander Herrera Julian Draxler Ángel Di María Mauro Icardi

Update 65 sorted we still have 9 players to sort out 5 at Senior Level Lewis Baker Ross Barkley Ruben Loftus-Cheek Charly Musonda Jr. Malang Sarr 4 at Youth (U23 Level) with no future here Sam McClelland George McEachran George Nunn Tariq Uwakwe

you stan someone if you are a massive fan, sometimes to obsessive degree like a Messi stan (which I am NOT) comes from

well, it was VERY clear who we (as in all, as in Tuchel, the board, Marina, Roman, etc) rate and who we are going to 'wait and see' on Rate: Rom, Kounde (who I still see us going for unless we willing to drop £85-90m or so on Bastoni), Saul, and I assume Rice (but we are NOT willing to drop £100m on him atm), plus the forgotten, confirmed (and turned down by Juve) €100m offer for Chiesa (fuck I would love to have him and Barella next summer) plus the fails on Håland and Hakimi Barella simply HAS to be chased next summer, same for Chiesa, and a CB (being it Kounde or Bastoni, or some other one, maybe we even try in January, depending in injuries, etc) I also hope we move for Theo Hernandez (damn shame about Leonardo Spinazzola, I think for sure we would have been signed if not for that horrific, perhaps career ending (or at least a elite level as he is 29yo in March and that shit will take very likely take 2 years or so to completely heal, if it ever does- see RLC for a likely never does) injury Wait and see: Aurélien Tchouaméni (thank fuck manure did not scupper him) Jude Bellingham Maxence Lacroix Sven Botman Ryan Gravenberch Ridle Baku Florian Wirtz Giovanni Reyna Jonathan David Jérémy Doku Dominik Szoboszlai Gabriel Veron Matthijs de Ligt? Didn't Rate (as in didn't even try and buy or turned down if offered): Kylian Mbappé (sigh) Harry Kane Jadon Sancho Sergej Milinković-Savić Raphaël Varane Kingsley Coman Jack Grealish Gabriel Jesus Dayot Upamecano José María Giménez Milan Skriniar Antoine Griezmann Robert Lewandowski Eduardo Camavinga Franck Kessié Youri Tielemans (too expensive valuation by Leicester) David Alaba (his turning 30yo right after this season ends and his singular desire to go to RM scuppered any hope here) Pau Torres Ousmane Dembélé Stefan de Vrij (age, he turns 30 soon) Lorenzo Insigne (age, he turns 31yo right at season's end) Kalidou Koulibaly (age is 31yo next year, he shit away his career at Napoli, a damn shame) Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£100m is madness, IMHO) André Silva Anthony Martial Aymeric Laporte Houssem Aouar Youssef En-Nesyri Gerard Moreno Raphaël Guerreiro Boubacar Kamara Florian Neuhaus Robin Gosens Niklas Süle Denis Zakaria Renato Sanches (thank fuck) Adama Traoré Adrien Rabiot Matthias Ginter Philippe Coutinho Boubakary Soumaré Ben White (thank fuck) Patrik Schick Emerson Royal Yves Bissouma Nordi Mukiele Thilo Kehrer Alessio Romagnoli Max Aarons Ramy Bensebaini Alfonso Pedraza Marc Cucurella Corentin Tolisso

lol, I almost posted that pic with the link

he makes a shedload from all his social media accounts he had over 400,000, moving towards half a million total, live viewers just now on Twitch alone