Vesper

Why clubs are struggling to sell ‘lame duck’ players https://theathletic.com/2100563/2020/09/30/why-clubs-are-struggling-to-sell-lame-duck-players/ For executives up and down the country, there is never an easy time to sell a player who has fallen out of favour but this summer the task became a whole lot harder than usual. Previously, fringe players could still get moves despite missing out on regular football. “Stocking fillers,” one leading agent calls them. Managers looking to pad out squads could take a chance on a signing if the price was right. But tightened finances and the increased frequency of matches mean clubs can no longer afford to risk buying a gift that doesn’t work, no matter how low the cost. “The market is saying, ‘If you’ve not played or had unsuccessful loans, you aren’t getting a new club’,” the agent adds. “There are no stocking fillers anymore.” Players fitting that description can be found at nearly every club in the Premier League. They have provided meaningful contributions in the past but are now stuck on the sidelines due to a change in circumstances and, usually, are earning the kind of wages that make departures complicated. At Arsenal, for example, there are Matteo Guendouzi, Lucas Torreira and Mesut Ozil. Danny Rose firmly occupies that category for Tottenham Hotspur, with team-mate Dele Alli in danger of heading the same way. Chelsea have Danny Drinkwater, Tiemoue Bakayoko and, soon, Kepa Arrizabalaga on the books but out of the picture. Manchester United have a glut, chiefly Chris Smalling, Phil Jones, Marcos Rojo, Andreas Pereira, Sergio Romero and Diogo Dalot. At Liverpool, Xherdan Shaqiri could be put in the same bracket. Manchester City? Oleksandr Zinchenko. The issue is no different outside the division’s elite. Take Newcastle United, who are struggling to offload DeAndre Yedlin, Henri Saivet and Christian Atsu. Leicester have long-standing difficulties shifting Islam Slimani and Adrien Silva. At Crystal Palace, you’ve got Christian Benteke and Connor Wickham. At West Ham United, Jack Wilshere and Felipe Anderson. Fraser Forster is among Southampton’s top earners but hasn’t played for the club in 16 months. “You want your value in the dressing room,” says an intermediary with Premier League clients. But millions of pounds every month are being paid to players who have no prospect of starting matches regularly. And the disparities in salaries compared to further down the pyramid, or abroad, can mean a locked state of limbo. “It is so hard to shift players out,” says a sporting director. “Automatically people think, ‘His club don’t want him? Must be something wrong with him’. No, we just want to freshen up our squad. They become lame ducks so quickly it is frightening.” Each player has his own story and each club their own solution. But there are some general trends. Sam Rush spent four years as Derby County chief executive when the club challenged for promotion to the Premier League and is now a director at sports agency 366 Group. “There is a time when the relationship between player and club comes to an end, often that is the result of changing managers,” Rush says. “A player may come in as a chosen player for one manager, but then a new manager comes in with his own ideas and style, he the player doesn’t fit in.” It is no coincidence that Liverpool, where Jurgen Klopp is entering his sixth season, have far fewer players up for sale than Manchester United, where Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has made signings in three transfer windows. Rush adds: “If a player is good enough for your club under a previous manager then you would believe from a corporate perspective that he can be found another club. But it may be he finds another club with only a portion of the wages recovered. If you have a number of options you can demand the fullest recovery. If you have limited options the acquiring team, even on a temporary basis is in a position of strength. I have to say the pay-off has to be the last resort. “You are constantly balancing the quality of the player, he will have an intrinsic value. To leave someone on the books, not playing, is going to severely affect their value — alongside the fact they’re not contributing to your team. Very few footballers are satisfied to take their money and not play. And those who are, that is a result of various circumstances to that point. The vast majority want to play.” Those players whose contracts have three or more years to run are invariably sent out on loan to try to create a sale market for the following window. There may be a loan fee and subsidised wages, although it is rare for their parent club to receive 100 per cent of his salary. Smalling is an example of this approach working well, with Roma now keen to sign the defender permanently after his temporary spell with them last season. This summer it is set to be Pereira, under contract until 2023, heading out to Italy from Old Trafford on loan. The midfielder is yet to make a match-day squad this season but 25 starts across all competitions in 2019-20 convinced Lazio to make an approach. Lazio are paying Pereira’s wages in full and have an option to buy worth €27 million. That would be a good deal for United, but sources say “obligations” to buy are the only clauses truly worth their weight on such contracts. The crunch comes if the would-be buying club are not able to match the player’s current wages. Say a player earns £100,000 per week but their new club can only afford to pay him £75,000 per week. Talks will be held over the missing £25,000. Each negotiation will be different but it is usual for the selling club to make a proposal to the player for them to cover 60-70 per cent of the gap. In that instance, it is costing the club some money to sell the player, but that would be offset by a transfer fee. The cash is paid to the player either in a lump sum or spread out over a series of months. The player is actually losing out on a portion of the money they would get seeing the contract through at their old club, but they accept that is the price of regular action. Some players insist on the contract being honoured. Sources say Ikechi Anya turned down numerous proposed transfers away from Derby County over two recent seasons to instead collect his full £27,500 per week while playing under-23s football. “Fundamentally it is down to the player,” says the agent. “If the player is prepared to sit there and not play, they can do that. It’s their contract entitlement. The question is where you go after that.” An inevitable consequence for any player deciding on that route is that their career could be over. Anya hasn’t played since his Derby deal expired this summer. A similar strand runs through talks with players who are entering their contract’s final year. Negotiations over cancelling the remaining months to set up a free transfer usually take place. “There is a general acceptance clubs will have to pay you to tear up the contract and get out,” says another Premier League agent. “Most clubs are pretty sensible because they recognise it is better to save 80 per cent of the salary than have the player sat there on 100 per cent, not featuring.” Manchester United greased Alexis Sanchez’s free transfer to Inter Milan in this way — paying a multi-million pound “golden goodbye” — and The Athletic has been told of a player at the other end of the spectrum who this summer had one year left on his £30,000 per week contract but wanted to join a club where the wage ceiling was £6,000 per week. An agreement was reached that saw the player get 80 per cent of his money due from the selling club and he moved on a free transfer. Directors will sign off on those terms but it is the responsibility of agents to find a suitable transfer. Commonly, intermediaries work on a “dual representation” basis, for their player and the selling club, with their fees covered by both in a 50/50 split. The sporting director adds: “You leave it to the agent. But if I have a good friend at another club, a manager who needs a player in that position, I’ll call them to put the wheels in motion.” Often, players up for sale are kept separate from their club’s first-team group. Occasionally this is to force a player’s view on moving, or the terms they will accept, but there is another motivation too. “You can read it two ways,” says an agent. “It can be a harsh way of pushing the player out. But usually the manager just doesn’t want them in the group, because a disaffected player has a knock-on effect on other people. It feels like a dirty tactic, but it’s just practical.” The sporting director continues: “It might cost £500,000 a year in wages for a player, but the value to morale is priceless. “When you have chief execs who are accountants, they see things in black and white. They want that money back. They don’t see how the player could be messing up the dynamic of the whole group. Deep down, players are all good guys, but when you say, ‘You are not part of our plans’, even the most sensible have a hit to their egos, and their families do too. It becomes difficult, untidy.” Jack Rodwell was banished from Sunderland’s first-team as the club looked for ways to offload his £70,000-a-week wages, and Danny Rose has found himself in the same situation. Genoa are in talks to take the England full-back to Italy, but cannot meet Rose’s £60,000 per week wages so negotiations are taking place over Tottenham’s contribution. Deciding an appropriate figure can be delicate. In January 2013, Wolverhampton Wanderers received bids for Jamie O’Hara and Roger Johnson from clubs who each offered to pay £15,000 of their £25,000 a week wages. Wolves were in turmoil in the Championship and neither O’Hara nor Johnson were playing for them, but chief executive Jez Moxey demanded their full contracts be covered. In the end, the pair stayed and Wolves were relegated for a second year running. When Johnson eventually left for Charlton Athletic in February 2015, Wolves paid up the rest of his contract minus a £1,000-per-week contribution from the Londoners. Establishing an appropriate wage structure in the first place can ease eventual exits. Manchester United have an issue in that a number of their players up for sale are on more than £100,000 per week, which shrinks the pool of possible destinations unless pay-offs are granted. In recent years, United offered the likes of Jones and Rojo new deals to protect their transfer value, the irony being their wages were beyond the salary structures of clubs who would be interested in signing them. Callum Hudson-Odoi leveraged interest from Bayern Munich in negotiations with Chelsea to extract a contract worth £180,000 per week but he does not currently start for head coach Frank Lampard. Hudson-Odoi scored against West Bromwich Albion but such a salary makes the chances of any departure remote anyway. The Athletic has been told of other players, including Tammy Abraham, now using Hudson-Odoi’s deal as a gauge in their own talks with the club. Sporting directors have become prominent in football and managing that squad balance is a key job description. The good ones have an ability to take a long-term view and realise value can be added even if it means taking a short-term financial hit. “The one thing with footballers, you constantly make mistakes, that’s a fact,” says the sporting director. “Alexis Sanchez was one of the best strikers in the world. But sometimes, even at that level, it just doesn’t work out. Look at Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford though, they have paid for that mistake 10 times over in the end. Sending Sanchez out cost Man United money but gave them the space to come through. What are they worth now? You have to sit back and see that.”

win this or Lamp's arse is straight up on the griddle we are starting to accept abject failure far too easy so sick of having to make excuses

Barkley Makes Way & Mount-ing Pressure on Lampard https://theathletic.com/podcast/139-straight-outta-cobham/?episode=46 Host Matt Davies-Adams & The Athletic's Chelsea experts, Simon Johnson, Liam Twomey & Dom Fifield, reconvene following Mason Mount's missed penalty and Chelsea's untimely exit from the Carabao Cup... But has Mount been unfairly criticised? What is Lampard's 'brand of football' and what does Ross Barkley's loan to Villa mean for Loftus-Cheek? Plus, the guys look ahead to the Crystal Palace game - a side poised to exploit Chelsea's weaknesses - and assess new goalkeeper Edouard Mendy's debut too.

Lampard is struggling to find balance between creativity and control in midfield https://theathletic.com/2101981/2020/09/30/frank-lampard-chelsea-midfield-balance-shield/ In July, Frank Lampard outlined what he looks for in a midfielder. “If we feel like we are going to have a lot of control, generally I play with midfield players that can play high, can play on the side, and can do the defensive duties as well.” His words were in direct response to questions about why Jorginho, for so long a stalwart at the base of midfield, had fallen out of favour. Jorginho’s presence in the Chelsea team to begin this season, and against Tottenham Hotspur on Tuesday, is a sign that Lampard still doesn’t have the midfield he wants. N’Golo Kante playing just in front of the defence, as he did for the final stretch of 2019-20, is no longer considered a long-term solution. Billy Gilmour is still sidelined, though recovering well from knee surgery. Declan Rice remains, for now at least, a West Ham United player. Five different central midfield combinations have been trialled in Chelsea’s first five matches of the new campaign, but a true balance between creativity and control is yet to be found. Far from performing badly against Spurs, Jorginho had a trademark game: 120 touches, 102 passes with a 92.2 per cent success rate and even a nerveless penalty in the shootout. There were flashes of the possession interplay with Mateo Kovacic that underpinned some of Chelsea’s best performances without Kante last season, particularly during a first half in which Tottenham offered little resistance. Once the home side ramped up the intensity after the interval, the control the pair had afforded Lampard’s team proved brittle. Between the 46th minute and the 70th, shortly before Kovacic was replaced by Kante, Chelsea’s share of possession dropped to 46 per cent. Tottenham pressed their opponents high and hard, pushing up wing-backs Sergio Reguilon and Serge Aurier to overload Lampard’s back four, and regularly looked to switch the play quickly into crossing positions. It didn’t immediately yield the equaliser, but it did seize them the initiative; during this stretch they had six shot attempts to Chelsea’s one. It was not until the 70th minute when Jose Mourinho brought on Harry Kane for Japhet Tanganga, a striker for a centre-back, that Chelsea came back into the game. Mason Mount, isolated from Jorginho and Kovacic for long spells as a No 10, fluffed two great chances to play Timo Werner clean through on goal either side of Callum Hudson-Odoi blazing a shot over the bar — with an unmarked Tammy Abraham screaming for a pass — after racing into the space vacated by Eric Dier’s perilously timed toilet dash. Wastefulness and poor decision-making in the final third were issues that crippled Chelsea at times last season. Given the quality and extent of the club’s attacking recruitment in this transfer window, it is hard to imagine them having anywhere near as many infuriating experiences up front this time around. More concerning is the apparent ease with which they can still be pushed onto the back foot by increasingly desperate opponents, despite having no shortage of players capable of keeping and passing the ball. Jorginho saw out the 90 minutes but could find no way to effectively slow Tottenham’s pressure, instead picking up a booking for a foul on Tanguy Ndombele to initiate the sequence that led to Erik Lamela’s equaliser — a goal that highlighted, among other things, the ineffectiveness of Chelsea’s midfield shield. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg lines up the free kick just inside the Chelsea half, with Dier a few yards behind him. Werner is alive to the threat of Reguilon advancing on the left flank, with Lampard’s defence staying narrow to deal with Kane and Lucas Moura. Kante is the closest player to Lamela while Emerson Palmieri is higher up, closer to Aurier than the Argentine. The moment Hojbjerg lays the ball back to Dier, things start to go wrong. Abraham, Mount and Hudson-Odoi make no real attempt to pressure the ball while Kante jogs back into midfield, away from Lamela, with Emerson still too far away from the rest of Chelsea’s defence to pick him up. As the ball is flighted out towards Reguilon, both Kante and Emerson are too slow to recognise the threat Lamela poses at the back post. He even has time to take a touch in the penalty area before slotting in the equaliser. Emerson is primarily to blame; he has no business being so much higher up than the rest of the back four when Chelsea are defending a lead late in the game, and he then shows nowhere near enough urgency to recover. But the sequence also underlines Kante’s lack of instincts for tracking opposition runners in his own defensive third. He is the best seek-and-destroy midfielder in the world operating higher up the pitch, but this isn’t really his game. The problem for Lampard is it isn’t really part of Jorginho or Kovacic’s skill sets either. Rice, a defensive midfielder with extensive experience as a centre-back in youth and senior football, is much better equipped to address that particular need. Do not underestimate just how unpalatable it would be for West Ham owners David Gold and David Sullivan to be seen to be selling their prized asset to Chelsea, and to Lampard in particular, but the question will be asked pretty forcefully in the final days of the window. Lampard cannot rely on Chelsea prising Rice out of West Ham. The smart assumption is that he will need to balance his team with what he has. That means finding a midfield configuration that he trusts for the most important matches and sticking with it, and perhaps making other tweaks around the edges; aside from Emerson’s mistake against Tottenham, the regularity with which Lampard’s full-backs find themselves stranded ahead of the ball feels like a systemic flaw. The presence of Edouard Mendy and Thiago Silva should bring a little more stability to Chelsea’s creaky defence, as well as allow Lampard to be more consistent with his selection than last season. But arranging his midfield in a way that maximises his new attacking weapons without leaving his back line exposed might well prove to be the trickier — and ultimately defining — test of his coaching mettle.

not really talking about the perma dregs that revenue stream is easy to see I am talking about the big name flops and the clearly not up to it ones who have played loads

Chelsea transfer roundup as Frank Lampard makes Ruben Loftus-Cheek decision Chelsea have made a wealth of signings this summer but Frank Lampard now needs to make some decisions on players who could leave the club https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/chelsea-transfer-news-rumours-gossip-22764758 Frank Lampard has confirmed Ruben Loftus-Cheek is set for a loan exit. The Chelsea boss has admitted midfielder Loftus-Cheek is likely to leave the club in the coming days. The England international has played just 60 minutes of Premier League action so far this season, and his first team opportunities are set to be limited. "I’m very open with Ruben," he said. "We’ve had a couple of conversations in the last week. He’s fit as a fiddle and can play week in, week out. He needs to play. "He would have been playing earlier if it wasn’t for lockdown and restart. There’s a possibility Ruben may go out [on loan] to play games, I think that would be great for him. We hold him in very high regard here and it could be a good option for him.

I have been saying to sell Kante, for very valid reasons (and playing him as the sole holder is semi madness) BUT rolling with Jorginho as our starting DMF in a 3 man midfield is going to help destroy us our offense looks beyond dogshit with him slowing us down to a walking pace and he is dross defensively all these buys and DMF is still a huge issue all the unsaleable SHIT (and ultra expensive) buys are catching up to us

roasted like a dodgy coffee bean CB switch looks grim

we just go on and on with players turn down decent (sometimes more than decent) offers loan loan loan then desperation sell for shit PLUS we do out of the blue crap like Barkley late in windows

I am fairly pessimistic at this point and having doubts whether he is even the right buy

Chelsea request €3m fee to loan out-of-favour star to European giants https://www.caughtoffside.com/2020/09/30/chelsea-request-e3m-fee-to-loan-out-of-favour-star-to-european-giants/ According to Culture PSG via Le Parisien (subscription required), Chelsea have requested a loan fee of €3m during transfer talks with Paris Saint-Germain regarding outcast Tiemoue Bakayoko. As part of Chelsea’s request to take a €3m loan fee for their out-of-favour defensive midfielder, the Blues aren’t demanding a mandatory option to make the deal permanent. Le Parisien report that talks between the two clubs are ongoing, but an agreement hasn’t been reached yet. PSG are instead eyeing a free loan swoop, which includes the option of making the deal permanent. It’s added that PSG believe paying no loan fee is fair considering that they have the platform to really put the 26-year-old in the shop window, if they weren’t to permanently sign the ace themselves. With Bakayoko contracted until 2022, it’s hard to disagree with the French powerhouses’ stance, Chelsea need the midfielder to catch the eye this season if they’re to recoup any money at all. Chelsea signed Bakayoko in the summer of 2017 for £40m, as per BBC Sport. The ace endured a difficult debut season and was subsequently sent out on loan to AC Milan for the following campaign. After a decent spell with the Rossoneri, Bakayoko spent last season on loan at former club Monaco, with the ace making 23 appearances. Le Parisien add that Bakayoko continues to train with Chelsea, with the midfielder awaiting a call from Thomas Tuchel to receive some particular guarantees. Nonetheless, it’s added that PSG are leading the race to sign Bakayoko ahead of Milan and Atletico Madrid, which is unsurprising considering the ace was born in the French capital. Whilst Bakayoko has endured a difficult time since moving to Chelsea, the midfielder is just 26 years old, he’s got plenty of time to re-establish himself as a quality player – he needs regular football though.

assuming Rice is a no go at CB then Milan Skriniar <<< I think people are far too harsh on him, all because Conte insists on a back 3, if this was a year ago, he was on everyone's top 10 list for CB, he is still my 4th option Theo Hernández (conversion from LB, like his smaller brother) <<< my number 2 option, and also would be a superb LB option when Chilwell cannot go other big names, but with major issues Matthijs de Ligt Juve will not sell Kalidou Koulibaly too old for the price David Alaba will not come here, wages are also too high, and I am not sold on him as a CB in the EPL Stefan de Vrij next summer will be too old for the money demanded Marquinhos PSG will not sell Alessandro Bastoni Inter will not sell Lucas Hernández overrated IMHO at CB then the rest Ibrahima Konaté Evan N'Dicka Edmond Tapsoba Jules Koundé Pau Torres Nico Elvedi Nikola Milenkovic Presnel Kimpembe Merih Demiral Felipe (Swap Kante for him and Thomas Partey) Duje Caleta-Car Luiz Felipe Benoît Badiashile Manuel Akanji Axel Disasi Zinho Vanheusden Mohamed Simakan Mohammed Salisu Ferro Ronald Araújo Wesley Fofana << on verge of Leicester move Bafodé Diakité Jhon Lucumí Eduardo Quaresma David Carmo Jean Marcelin Perr Schuurs Josko Gvardiol Robson Bambu Sven Botman Chidozie Awaziem Odilon Kossounou Oumar Solet Tiago Djaló

eeek, he did? not good

another hat trick for Calvert-Lewin I said last season he was going to explode

was me with the hollandaise Harvey Nics was my go-to food hall

How is Gilmour doing with rehab?

letting Barkley go on a free would be utter madness

grrrrrrrr

probably will catch hell for this but hats off to Mou for playing Lampard like a fiddle especially mentally I have the ultimate love/hate relationship with my feelings for Mourinho

2020-21 English Carabao Cup, Fourth Round Brighton & Hove Albion Manchester United http://www.sportnews.to/sports/2020/capital-one-cup-brighton-hove-albion-vs-manchester-united-s4/ https://www.totalsportek.com/manchester-united-matches-stream/

I highly doubt Villa will be relegated and we could have inserted a clause that took the mandatory buy off IF they were

agreed

Agreed

Why do you think I said loan with a mandatory buy clause I understand COVID has fucked up finances this year Aside from that, I question loaning him out this late anyway. Would rather see him playing over the broken RLC all day, all night.

this is BULLSHIT raging atm serves no purpose if you do not want him, sell him! loan plus MANDATORY buy clause next summer