Vesper

so strange to hear live fans, lol

sooooo close by Reece

hardware already!

come on you Blues!!!

well shit, Chilwell is going to be out for several weeks still the heel injury

good omen we kicked Shitty's arse in the women's Charity Shield

I never said Thiago Alcântara would be a bad buy now, his style/methods of game play and his position do not toss up warning signs. I always judge players when it come to age on individual, very holistic bases 1. quality of play they maintain (Silva is a go) 2. cost (as a free, he is a go) 3 what is out future-forward prognosis for that particular position versus immediate needs (Silva is a perfect bridge player there) as soon as we were linked I said do it, instantly (and I am sure shocked some people here when I did so, but I have more than laid out my rationale) at the same time, Koulibaly fails my tests, as he is far too expensive for his age (the dead money rule), and is already showing signs of age-related deterioration of play (I watched him a LOT this past season) He can likely rebound for a couple years or so, 3 max, but not enough to justify £70m or so,.as after 2 more years, he is then in a season where he turns 32yo in January 2023. Unlike Silva, KK is far more reliant on his pace and physicality. age-related deterioration of play <<< of all my calls, this area I have been extremely accurate in for dozens and dozens of big name players, especially so for (and I was very contrarian in regards to most of the press) for Real Madrid and Barca key players, including Hazard (he may, may rebound, but those 11 years at Lille and us he was just POUNDED on due to his style of play and far too often being the main focal point)

we still do not know who are going to be our DMF's, not that I expect Rice to come in this window and Verratti was their normal CMF assuming Havertz is a done deal before next weekend I am down to only 4 wants new GKer <<<<< HAS to happen this year Rice (next year it looks like) <<< we need him atm far more at DMF than CB (as I think CB migration will take a couple years with him if we go that route) Skriniar (he probably will be sold this year, but probably not happening for us, unless we get REALLY lucky on selling players) << the not happening means Upamecano (who I prefer over Skriniar anyway) next year (we have the X-Man coming in 2 or so years up the food chain so do not need BOTH Skriniar and Upemecano, even I am not THAT greedy, roflmaoooooooooooo Camavinga for Rice's double pivot partner (unless Ampadu explodes in the next 2 years, which would be sooooooooooo sweet) IF Rice is moved to CB, then we need another DMF as well, a real cruncher type, like Denis Zakaria (ideal) or maybe even Aurélien Tchouaméni (if he keeps progressing at Monaco) or perhaps Leander Dendoncker (who I have always rated going back to 2014/15 and REALLY was sold on when he overall bullied Manure for Anderlecht back in spring 2017 (fucking Rashford 107th minute extra time Old Trafford goal was the only reason Manure snuck through in the EL)

he coped damn well with Bayern, etc this season, I don't think West Ham or Brighton, or Arse, or NUFC or Everton, etc etc are going to punk him, and I expect he will fare decently against Shitty and the Bindippers as well I do not think anyone expects him to be a 35 to 39yo Maldini.(Maldini at 35yo came in 3rd behind Pavel Nedved and Thierry Henry in the 2003 Ballon d'Or on the 22nd of December 2003, and was a month away from turning 41yo , (and still a starter) when he retired in 2009, as a 31 year long one club man, 5 times European Cup/CL winner and 3 times world champion) Maldini was the UEFA European Defender of the Year at 38yo (was actually 39 when he was awarded it it), which is just madness.

Silva would have been a PERFECT partner for Terry back in the day. Can you imagine having Silva coming in as a 23 yo old back in summer of 2007? (2007-08 was .Ricardo Carvalho's last decent year for us, and eve then he was injured)

WATCH CHELSEA’S FIRST PRE-SEASON FIXTURE LIVE https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2020/08/28/watch-chelsea-s-first-pre-season-fixture-live-?cardIndex=0-5 Frank Lampard’s Blues are in pre-season action this weekend when they take on Brighton on Saturday, with the game set to be shown live on The 5th Stand app and on this website. We travel to the south coast to face the Seagulls at 3pm, with a small number of home fans allowed in to watch the game as part of a government-backed trial to begin the process of allowing supporters back into stadiums. The game will be shown via a single-camera output so may not appear as optimised as other regular streamed games. While Chelsea fans can’t attend, that doesn’t mean you have to miss out! We will be showing the full 90 minutes on our app and website for free and it could mean a first outing in a Blues shirt for Timo Werner and Hakim Ziyech. Other new signings, Ben Chilwell, Malang Sarr and Thiago Silva are unlikely to feature but we could see returning loanee Ethan Ampadu back in a Chelsea shirt. It will be the first time that the Blues take to the pitch since the end of the 2019/20 season, nearly three weeks ago. When is the game? The game is on Saturday, 29 August and kicks off at 3pm (UK time). Can I go to the game? No, Chelsea supporters will not be permitted at the stadium and entry will be denied. How can I watch the game live? The single camera live stream will be available globally and free of charge on The 5th Stand app and the Chelsea website. Click here to download the Chelsea app

3 points 1. you are using genetic freaks for examples (I can make a list but I will spare us all), the vast majority of players are shit by 32, 33yo in terms of top 10 teams on the planet play. Iwill grant that there are 4 positions who age better. Strikers, SOME CB's, Pirlo (another genetic freak btw) type deep-lying registas, and obviously GKers. Trad DMF's, most all wingers, most other types of MFers, and almost all fullbacks are done far sooner 2. we did not have FFP to deal with in the noughties, so 'dead money' buys were ok 3. Silva was a free transfer, Koulibaly will still cost damn near £70m or so, I would wager, and he showed slippage last season

Inter is my favourite Italian team by far and I want Conte THE FUCK OUT he is fucking destroying our long term future CUNT I HATE so many of the players he is polluting the club with wtf asshat deluxe

he is insane Vidal is washed up dogshit, or damn near it and Kolarov is nearing that point in a year or two as well Tonali will be a better player than either, and already is more than ready to start

Captain, leader, scapegoat: Silva arrives at Chelsea with a point to prove https://theathletic.com/2021586/2020/08/28/thiago-silva-chelsea-move-contract/ Thiago Silva has always been a curious jumble of contradictions. He is a hardman centre-back — a Big Sheriff, to use the endearing Brazilian term — who often plays football as if he is on the verge of tears. He has won 28 trophies but continues to be haunted by a nagging feeling of underachievement. He is, in the words of Brazil manager Tite, a “natural-born leader”, yet his critics will tell you that he goes missing when push comes to shove. It has been especially hard to get a real grip on him in England. We have viewed him principally through two prisms: as a foundational stone of the Paris Saint-Germain project, with all its failures and flightiness, and as a mainstay of the Brazil side during one of the most miserable periods in its entire history. Guilty by association? That might be pushing it, but it is probably fair to say that any evaluation based solely upon Champions League nights and World Cups does him no great favours. Now, aged 35, Silva comes to England. This is not some lifetime ambition fulfilled — he has made it very clear that he wanted to stay in Paris — but it does present him with a series of opportunities: to help guide a young, exciting team; to keep himself in the Brazil conversation until World Cup 2022; to prove, after eight seasons in France, that he could have cut it in any of Europe’s top leagues. And, of course, that PSG were wrong to let him go. From a technical and physical perspective, Silva’s quality has never been in doubt. Since his early years at Juventude and Fluminense, where he earnt the nickname O Monstro, he has been the kind of dominant, assured defender around which managers love to build sides. At AC Milan, he shone alongside Alessandro Nesta and was named as the successor to Franco Baresi — by the legendary defender himself. “It’s difficult to identify where he can still improve,” said Baresi. “He has already proven that he has everything.” It is natural to wonder whether the Baresi prophecy would have been borne out had Silva remained in Italy. But this, in hindsight, was probably the peak of his career, at least in terms of his global reputation. The move to PSG in 2012 made him one of the best-paid players in the world, but it also made his legacy contingent on success in Europe. Silva is a PSG icon by any metric, having captained the side to seven of their nine Ligue 1 titles. But he is also, unavoidably, a symbol of their inability to win the Champions League. A victim of it, too, in some ways. If you were to bullet point the 10 biggest issues with PSG’s efforts in Europe over the last eight years, Silva wouldn’t be among them. Yet a few individual mistakes do stick in the mind — that brainless handball against Chelsea in 2015, for instance — and there have been persistent whispers about his ability to keep a level head when the pressure is ramped up. Silva’s handball against Chelsea (Photo: Paul Gilham/Getty Images) Case in point: the era-defining 6-1 surrender to Barcelona in 2017. Unai Emery is not everyone’s idea of a good manager, but his assessment of Silva’s role in that defeat was quietly damning. “I wanted the team to defend higher,” Emery told France Football. “Thiago Silva is a great player, but I wanted him to be higher and I couldn’t get him to accept that. I wanted him to get out of his comfort zone, to dare to defend higher so that our pressure on the opponent would be more effective. I worked with him to get him to accept this, but I was unsuccessful. And this characteristic of Thiago Silva’s game echoed throughout the team, which under pressure had a natural tendency to back down.” That will ring a bell with anyone who watched him closely during the 2014 World Cup. Nearly all of Brazil’s players appeared to struggle with the responsibility of winning the thing on home soil, but Silva looked utterly overwhelmed. He welled up during every national anthem. When the round-of-16 game against Chile went to penalties, he refused to take the sixth kick and asked to go last, after goalkeeper Julio Cesar. Silva could not even bring himself to watch the shootout. When Brazil won it, he cried his eyes out. Silva, second from left, cannot bear to watch Brazil’s penalty shootout against Chile in 2014 (Photo: Jean Catuffe/Getty Images) Those histrionics chimed with a wider sense of fragility within the squad — later exposed by Germany — and drew criticism from former players and journalists. “The players have to stop crying and focus on playing football,” said 2002 World Cup winner Cafu. “The players are emotionally unstable,” wrote Estado de Minas columnist Antero Greco, presumably with Silva in mind. “They’re crybabies. They have too many tears and not enough smiles. It affects them technically and tactically.” Silva had the good fortune to miss the 7-1 defeat by Germany. But even that came with an addition to his rap sheet: he was suspended after picking up an unnecessary yellow card against Colombia in the previous game. He was stripped of the captaincy in the wake of the World Cup (“I can’t pretend I’m happy. It’s a sad, painful moment, as if they took something away from me”) and worse was to come: he was made a scapegoat for Brazil’s 2015 Copa America exit after giving away a daft late penalty (another handball) against Paraguay. He did not play for his country again for 17 months. Two points are worth making here. The first is that these were Brazil’s car-crash years, a mess of bad decisions and abject leadership from which no one truly emerged unscathed. Neymar, Marcelo, Fernandinho, Filipe Luis, Miranda, Marquinhos… these are players who deserved much better. Silva’s name can be added to that list, and it is telling that his performances picked up markedly when Tite — a coach who actually belongs in this century — took over from Dunga in 2016. Silva has arguably never been more impressive for the Selecao than he was at the Copa America last year. (Photo: Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images) The second is that Silva’s entire career has been built on a quiet determination that can evade a fleeting glance. His emotions may lurk close to the surface, but he is certainly not weak. This, after all, is someone who fought his way back from tuberculosis before establishing himself at Fluminense between 2006 and 2009. The diagnosis came shortly after he joined Dinamo Moscow as a 20-year-old in 2005. He spent six months in a Russian hospital bed and put on 10kg; doctors said he would be lucky to play again. That he came back at all is impressive; that he was widely regarded as one of the best defenders in the world just five years later is remarkable. It was a formative experience and then some; it shaped his personality, made him grow up. “After my illness, I felt stronger, more responsible,” he told Placar magazine in 2014. “Before that, I was just a kid who liked playing football.” Silva celebrates for Fluminense (Photo: Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images) It made him a model professional and a role model. “It has been a pleasure to have a captain with his personality,” Thomas Tuchel said this weekend, and his absence will be felt by the PSG players, too. The example of Marquinhos, who has learnt at his side and is now ready to take on his mantle at the Parc des Princes, is instructive; he calls Silva “an idol” and will forever be indebted to him. Chelsea’s young centre-backs will surely be hoping to tap into his knowhow too. For Brazil, he has settled into the role of elder statesman, setting the standards for the next generation to follow. “Thiago is a leader on and off the pitch,” says Gremio centre-back Pedro Geromel, who was part of Tite’s 2018 World Cup squad with Silva. “I can tell you that he’s a very intelligent person. He was always talking to me, giving me instructions in training, but he is also modest enough to listen to advice. He pushes himself to the limit and always wants to improve. He’s a true professional, really committed. He didn’t start a Champions League final at the age of 35 by chance.” Silva has ambitions to go into coaching when he retires, but he does not see this move as the start of that transition. He dreams of ending his career after Qatar 2022 and, perhaps because he only started playing for Milan at 24, still feels that he has plenty of gas left in the tank. He is coming to Stamford Bridge to make a difference and set an example, not to sit on the bench and pick up a wage. “My physique is not that of a 35-year-old athlete,” he told France Football in November. “I’m paying more and more attention to my body. By being professional and demanding in every area, I hope that I will be able to extend my career. I feel like I’m in my best years.” If he is right, and Frank Lampard can find a way to harness his experience, he might just put some overdue shine on his legacy at the very last.

Explained: Why Chelsea can afford to spend big this summer https://theathletic.com/2025309/2020/08/28/chelsea-transfer-accounts-abramovich-chilwell-havertz-silva/ A little more than 17 years since he silently swept into Stamford Bridge and transformed English football forever, Roman Abramovich is dominating the transfer market again. Chelsea committed over £85 million to acquire Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner either side of the coronavirus shutdown, and £50 million more this week to take Ben Chilwell from Leicester City. Thiago Silva will also be a Chelsea player next season and an imminent club-record deal for Bayer Leverkusen sensation Kai Havertz will push the total outlay on transfer fees well north of the £200 million mark, and Frank Lampard still wants a new starting goalkeeper. Contrary to popular belief, Abramovich’s financial commitment to Chelsea did not waver even as a stand-off with the UK government curtailed his ability to watch his team at Stamford Bridge; the club’s most recent accounts show he contributed £247 million of his personal wealth to help cover costs during the year ending June 30, 2019. But even so, it is startling to watch this latest spending spree while other elite clubs respond to the lingering financial consequences of the pandemic by shelving their grand transfer plans and tightening their belts. As one agent who has dealt with the club tells The Athletic: “This is Chelsea flexing their muscles, showing they mean business.” But how can they commit to spending on a scale that their rivals won’t even countenance in this climate? Chelsea posted a pre-tax loss of £101.8 million in their 2018-19 accounts, the largest recorded by the club since 2005 when Abramovich was bankrolling the transfers that first lifted them to the top of the Premier League. UEFA’s embattled Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations stipulate that clubs are only permitted to lose a total of €30 million (about £25.5 million) over the course of any three-year monitoring period, meaning another significant loss in the 2019-20 accounts might make it very difficult to remain compliant. But there are a few things to note. Buried deep within the lengthy document, Chelsea stated that a total of £115.4 million from player sales had already been banked for the next financial year — primarily due to the high-profile departures of Eden Hazard to Real Madrid and Alvaro Morata to Atletico Madrid. That income, coupled with the fact that transfer spending in 2019-20 consisted only of £40 million to make Mateo Kovacic’s loan move permanent, should ensure a very healthy profit on player trading in the most recent set of accounts submitted to UEFA. All new signings made in this transfer window are officially registered no earlier than July 1, meaning the costs associated with signing Werner, Ziyech, Chilwell, Thiago Silva, Havertz and anyone else who might follow will be included in the 2020-21 accounts. There is also the fact that UEFA has already indicated that it is prepared to give clubs some wiggle room with regard to FFP compliance in light of the financial fallout of the pandemic, with extra financial support from club owners to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Abramovich’s net worth has remained relatively stable in 2020 — it stands at £9.5 billion according to the Forbes billionaire tracker, making him the 152nd wealthiest individual in the world — and his presence has given Chelsea a level of financial security that many other elite clubs simply cannot count on from their owners. No staff were furloughed or made redundant at Stamford Bridge or Cobham during the shutdown and while talks were held with the first-team squad about the possibility of wage deferrals or cuts, ultimately neither happened. Chelsea also went to great lengths and considerable expense to ensure they made a meaningful contribution to tackling the public health crisis in England; the Millennium Hotel and Copthorne Hotel outside Stamford Bridge were made available to NHS staff and key workers, while the club’s medical staff were granted permission to bolster frontline health services if they wished to do so. Abramovich also matched the £200,000 raised by the club’s supporters to donate to national domestic abuse charity Refuge, in response to a spike in violent incidents during the lockdown. These actions are relevant to Chelsea’s subsequent transfer spending because there can be no accusations of moral or ethical inconsistency; Abramovich did not lay off 55 club employees before bankrolling well-remunerated new additions to his first-team squad, as Arsenal have done. There is no need to feel inhibited in the transfer market by the fear of appearing to put his own interests above those who work for him. “What we’ve seen under COVID is the importance of social capital — how clubs are behaving when people are losing their jobs,” Dr Rob Wilson, football finance expert at Sheffield Hallam University, tells The Athletic. “There was a big backlash against Arsenal laying off 55 people and then going out and signing Willian to a fairly hefty contract, and that narrative is pervading football now. Communities are expecting their clubs to behave in a more responsible way, which I think is playing on the minds of some of the top teams in the Premier League. “I wouldn’t say for one minute that Chelsea went out and did the community work in order to allow them to spend on transfers, but one of the indirect benefits of behaving in a socially responsible way is that they have the latitude to be a bit more aggressive now. Fans want to see it as well.” Chelsea have felt freer than most of their rivals to attack this transfer window — a window they long ago identified as a key opportunity to re-mould and upgrade the team, but one that has only become more favourable to a buyer with deep pockets as clubs throughout Europe attempt to absorb the financial blow of matches played behind closed doors or with heavily-reduced attendances for the foreseeable future. “They have a window now that they can exploit to freshen things up, and it’s essentially a buyer’s market out there,” the agent adds. “Clubs may not admit it publicly all the time, but so many of them have been really stretched by COVID and lockdown and playing behind closed doors. Most can’t really resist for long if Chelsea come calling with a blank chequebook. They have to be pragmatic in the end.” Despite their initial insistence that Chilwell should command close to the £80 million that Manchester United paid for Harry Maguire in the summer of 2019, Leicester ultimately felt compelled to settle for a £50 million fee more in line with Chelsea’s valuation of the player. RB Leipzig made it known to Werner that realising the full value of his £54 million release clause in this window was in the club’s best financial interests even once Liverpool made it clear they were out of the race to sign him, further swaying his thoughts towards a move to Stamford Bridge. Abramovich is spending more in this transfer window partly because he recognises that his money can get him more in this market than it ordinarily would. In normal circumstances, Havertz would have his pick of elite suitors across Europe and Leverkusen could realistically hope to spark a bidding war; instead, the path has rapidly cleared for Chelsea to sign one of Europe’s most coveted young attacking talents — arguably the first time they have been able to do so since acquiring Eden Hazard from Lille in the summer of 2012. Marina Granovskaia’s bigger challenge will be to find new homes for the players Lampard does not want and some of the loanees who have run their course, and to trim a wage bill that rose to £285.6 million in 2018-19, or 63.9 per cent of the club’s turnover. Even if she succeeds, it is highly unlikely she will be able to bring in the kind of money from sales that Chelsea are committed to spending on their priority targets. When the transfer deadline passes on October 5, Chelsea’s final net spend is likely to be considerable — but it’s important to remember that net spend is not the way that clubs themselves account for transfer activity. The transfer fee paid for any new signing is instead written off over the full length of the player’s contract — a standard accounting process known as amortisation — and added to their annual salary to determine their cost on the books. Werner, for example, will not go down as a £54 million expense in the 2020-21 accounts; his transfer fee is spread across the five years of his contract, so the first £10.8 million of it is added to his annual salary of £8.84 million (£170,000 a week, as reported by The Athletic in June), making his total cost £19.64 million for the year. By accounting for new signings in this way, clubs make it easier for themselves to spend in the transfer market without necessarily incurring losses in their accounts that fall foul of FFP. Player sales are accounted for using a different calculation, meaning outgoings don’t necessarily need to outweigh incomings in order for an overall profit on player trading to be recorded in a club’s annual books. “It’s the right way to do it, but it’s a neat little accountancy trick to make things much more manageable,” Wilson explains. “Clubs write off the transfer fee over the length of the contract, and you’ll also see them looking to extend those player contracts after two or three years, because it allows them to write the fee off over an even longer period of time. It makes players much more affordable from an accounting point of view.” “We get blown away by the big number, the transfer fee, but clubs tend to spread those costs over the length of contracts,” the agent adds. “They’re not always as dramatic as they first seem and can be built into longer-term business plans. Other than Thiago Silva, Chelsea are buying players for the long term. They technically have sell-on value. Look at what they did with Hazard: bought for £30 million, sold for three times that amount. They’re shrewd with their big signings. Yes, Kepa might be an exception to that rule, but even he’s still relatively young. They recognise potential.” Chelsea’s recruitment drive in this window is spectacular, but also strategic. Ziyech, Werner, Havertz and Chilwell were all long-term club targets endorsed by Lampard. The hope is that collectively their impact will help bridge the gulf in class to Liverpool and Manchester City, but at the very least their contributions should enhance the club’s efforts to more clearly separate themselves from Premier League rivals who do not feel able to back up their own Champions League aspirations with the same will to spend. There is risk, but also logic to Abramovich’s course of action. “It would be wrong to say that Premier League clubs can’t afford to do business in the market because they absolutely can,” Wilson says. “What they’re choosing to do is to look after the future financial models of their respective organisations, which is why we’re seeing a slightly lower spending pattern. Chelsea have gone against the grain. “They’ve rolled the dice somewhat, and the thinking seems to be, ‘If we spend a fairly significant sum now, those players will be with us for the next three or four years and we can continue building the squad’. They’re signing their superstar front players early, and you’d probably expect them to spend less in the coming years to make up for what they’ve spent this year. It’s just a different strategy. “The top six is pretty tight, so anyone spending now is going to steal a march on their rivals. Most of Chelsea’s business is coming after they secured a Champions League place, and the additional revenue they generate from broadcast and commercial deals could be as much as £100 million if they reach the latter stages of the competition. That’s £100 million more than those teams outside the top four are going to be earning. “If we don’t see more spending from those teams outside this season’s top four, what we may see over time is a solidification of those four teams currently in the Champions League, and the Big Six could turn into a Big Four.” The burden of maximising the return from this investment on the pitch will fall squarely on the shoulders of Lampard, but Abramovich is providing an emphatic answer to those who suggested he lacked the desire to bankroll the construction of another great Chelsea team. “The only way they could bridge that gap to Liverpool and City is by spending,” the agent says. “The alternative is to risk becoming an also-ran, a club that is looking at Europa League qualification at best for the foreseeable future. “Bayern showed Chelsea how far they are off the pace in a competition like the Champions League. It all basically depended on Abramovich’s appetite, and everything we’ve seen so far suggests he’s as committed to the club as ever.”

lol quote of the week from the Guardian Fiver email Frank Lampard has also ended his day-long drought without a signing, with defender Malang Sarr joining on a free.

you are a know-nothing troll your posts are far too often bullshit and you have went after poster after poster since you came in here you ridicule people yet than have the sadz when anyone punches back against yer tosh

naw m8 one (mine) is an opiion the other (yours) to numpty shite you literally said go try and buy Rudiger from us for less than £40-45m or so even with the COVID-19 across the board reduction he is rated (and T-Mart is almost always far below market price)

Federico Pastorello of P&P Sport Management

laughable I do not even know why you post such utter bollocks