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Thomas Meunier signs for Borussia Dortmund on a four-year deal after Belgian defender turned down Man United, Chelsea and Spurs when his PSG contract expired https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8459975/Thomas-Meunier-signs-Borussia-Dortmund-four-year-deal.html

Eriksen is revitalised at Conte’s Inter. His best position? ‘Where the ball is’ https://theathletic.com/1890243/2020/06/25/eriksen-is-revitalised-at-contes-inter-his-best-position-where-the-ball-is/ Christian Eriksen stood on his chair and began to sing. He held a napkin in one hand and with the other tried to pump the crowd up. “Today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you.” Romelu Lukaku turned to Ashley Young, incredulous. “Are you serious?” he laughed. As the rest of the party banged the table in time to Eriksen’s lyrical flow, the Manchester United old boys playfully feigned disdain. Join in and recite the lyrics to Wonderwall, an anthem played at the Etihad in recognition of the Gallagher brothers and their support for Manchester City? Not a chance. Alexis Sanchez smiled politely but the Chilean was probably thinking about his labradors Atom and Humber. Eriksen had been unveiled only a few days earlier at the Scala, Milan’s world-famous opera house, upon completing his €20 million move from Tottenham to Inter. But Lukaku and Young weren’t about to throw roses at his feet and demand an encore of that performance. Young chose Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds for his initiation song. Fellow January signing Victor Moses fell back on the Skepta number he banged out during the same ritual at Chelsea. Neutral stuff. Nothing from the City songbook. When the pandemic hit later that month and the hotel Inter put new signings up in near San Siro closed, Eriksen, still looking for an apartment at the time, needed a place to stay. He entertained the idea of moving in with Lukaku or Young… but he could forget about it after singing Oasis. All jokes aside, Eriksen has settled in well at Inter and the strong Premier League contingent, as well as the presence of other English speakers like Stefan de Vrij and coach Antonio Conte, have helped in that regard. After his hotel closed, he dormed at Inter’s training ground with the team chef and a few other members of staff until he found a home of his own. The Dane probably already knows Appiano Gentile, as well as the club’s most capped player and current vice-president Javier Zanetti. Signing for Inter brought an end to 18 months of deliberating on the next chapter of his career. Mauricio Pochettino flew to see Eriksen in Copenhagen before committing to an extension of his own contract in 2018 to find out whether the playmaker, then so integral to his team, intended to do the same. Eriksen informed him he didn’t. After five years in London, he desired a new challenge elsewhere but, just as other Spurs players have found over the years, leaving Tottenham can be a bit like checking out of the Hotel California. Such a lovely place but if you’re under contract, as Eriksen was until the end of June 2020 you aren’t going anywhere unless the chairman Daniel Levy ensures the club gets paid in full. After going public with his intention to leave last summer, Eriksen believed he wouldn’t be a Tottenham player this season. Paulo Dybala then Bruno Fernandes were lined up to replace him. Dominoes ready to fall. But either the destinations didn’t appeal to him or the offers failed to meet Spurs’ asking price. Eriksen ended up staying. Inter, meanwhile, had other priorities and no budget to buy him at the time. When the Nerazzuri played Spurs in the International Champions Cup at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in early August, they had already broken their transfer record for one midfielder (Nicolo Barella) and were about to smash it again for Romelu Lukaku. The Athletic understands exploratory talks about making Eriksen an Inter player only began in mid-November when club officials met his representatives in London. It was around this time that Inter went to Dortmund for a Champions League game, led 2-0 at half-time, and then, as in Barcelona, lost the game after the interval. Conte despaired at full-time and vented to the media. Despite a net transfer spend of €108 million and the wage bill climbing 20 per cent over the summer, he felt the club hadn’t done enough to equip the team with enough alternatives to vary Inter’s play, not to mention sustain the intensity he demanded over 90 minutes. Here’s why Conte is known in Italy as a “martello”: a hammer that never stops clobbering away until he gets what he wants. Nevertheless, discussions about signing Eriksen were relaxed. There didn’t appear to be any rush. Inter have followed Juventus’ strategy in recent years of monitoring opportunities in free agency with mixed results; Nemanja Vidic flopped, Stefan de Vrij has been a hit, Diego Godin less so. Eriksen looked like he might be the next one but the situation escalated through December. Lacking a spark in midfield after Stefano Sensi’s injury in the Derby d’Italia, as well as support for Lukaku and Lautaro Martinez following Sanchez’s ankle twist while on international duty, Inter intensified their interest, particularly as it became clear the uncertainty over Ernesto Valverde’s future at Barcelona, his dismissal and the appointment of Quique Setien as his replacement all but ended the prospects of Conte reuniting with Arturo Vidal, the player he said he would go to war with when they were at Juventus. Slowing down as Christmas approached, a fatigued Inter urgently needed freshening up if they were to remain in contention for honours this season. They were drawing too many games and as their tempo faded, opponents found them too predictable. Negotiations to sign Eriksen in January began in earnest and an opening bid of €10 million was lodged but Tottenham stood firm and were able to leverage Inter and Conte’s desire to stay in the title race. They got double that for a player who, come February 1, would have been able to sign for the Nerazzurri for free in the summer. Given the circumstances, it was excellent business for Spurs, although Inter also came away thinking they got a good deal and celebrated over a fish supper with Eriksen’s agent at Risacca Blu, a seafood restaurant not far from their offices. As Eriksen said his goodbyes at Spurs, his manager Jose Mourinho recommended he rent his old place from the time he spent in charge at Inter. Fifteen years after Eriksen had flown to Italy to undergo a trial with AC Milan, he returned to great fanfare and signed for their rivals instead. Still, it wasn’t immediately obvious where the 29-year-old would fit in at Inter. In terms of his skill set, he bears little to no resemblance to Vidal and, despite Conte’s insistence that there was a precise plan for Eriksen, the role of a No 10 does not exist in his favoured 3-5-2 scheme, which is one of the reasons why Dejan Kulusevski chose to join Juventus over them. In time, though, we may come to look back on Eriksen’s signing as the beginning of another phase in the tactical evolution of one of this generation’s great coaching minds. Conte has never really had a player like him before and how he integrates Eriksen into his schemes is a source of some fascination. Pleasantly surprised by the physical condition Eriksen arrived in, Conte threw him in at the deep end for his first league start against Udinese — a few days after a cameo off the bench against Fiorentina in the Coppa Italia — where he started at the tip of a midfield triangle with Barella and Matias Vecino at its base. In Sensi’s absence, Eriksen has played on the left of that triumvirate too, pushing up between the lines to link up with Lautaro and Lukaku when and where appropriate. Against Lazio, he played in front of the defence, alla Pirlo, as a substitute for the team’s deep-lying playmaker Marcelo Brozovic. But aside from the moment he struck the bar from a free-kick in the Milan derby, his only meaningful display before the pandemic stopped play came away to Ludogorets in the Europa League when he scored his first goal and clanged another shot off the woodwork. His impact wasn’t instant in the way another former Ajax playmaker’s was in 2009, when Wesley Sneijder joined from Real Madrid and, days later, gave a glittering debut performance in the Derby della Madonnina that still gets talked about to this day. Though still early days, the flashes that sparked from Inter’s January signings failed to reignite their season and morale-denting defeats to Lazio and Juventus on the eve of lockdown left them nine points off the top (albeit with a game in hand), their title ambitions apparently hanging by a thread. Conte is not the kind of guy to go down without a fight though and his experience of a compressed pre-season from his time preparing Italy for Euro 2016 has undoubtedly come in handy. Sources close to Inter marvel at his ability to get detailed concepts across in double-quick time. Eriksen himself told La Gazzetta dello Sport: “In my last few months at Tottenham, they told me: ‘Go out and try to make something happen’. It’s not like that here. Conte was immediately very direct with me. He told me where he sees me on the pitch and what he wants from me with and without the ball. It’s all a lot more organised. And yes, the training is hard, but I’m ready.” Despite only being able to work out in the basement of his new home during lockdown, Eriksen was one of the players who stood out in the physical tests when Inter returned to work. The sessions are different from what he experienced under Pochettino but the intensity is still sky-high, with Conte expecting players to rack up a minimum of 11km on their GPS belts on some days. The conditioning of Inter’s former Premier League players, who are used to the Christmas and New Year fixture pile-up, is one of the reasons people around the club are optimistic about the team making up ground over the course of an attritional schedule between now and August 2. With the exception of last night’s display against Sassuolo, a gut-punch 3-3 draw, Eriksen’s performances since the restart suggest Conte used the short time Inter had to ready the players for the final third of the season to decent effect. Wearing the No 24 — an inauspicious number for the generation of Interisti who remember Vratislav Gresko and his role in them losing out in the 2002 title race — Eriksen almost dragged the team to the Coppa Italia final, scoring a corner against Napoli only for humiliated goalkeeper David Ospina to make amends and keep a whole host of other shots out, including another effort from the Dane just minutes from time. Far from a flash in the pan, Eriksen’s quality once again came to the fore in Sunday’s 2-1 win against Sampdoria. As with his first goal for the club against Ludogorets, the chemistry between him and Lukaku, whose intelligence has already shone through in the strike partnership he has struck up with Lautaro, is generating excitement at the Giuseppe Meazza. The team move for their opening goal at the weekend was indicative of players being on the same wavelength, as well as the carefully choreographed nature of Conte’s coaching, with Milan Skriniar playing a vertical pass for Lautaro to run onto and stretch the defence… Lukaku and Eriksen, positioned close together, dashed up the pitch in pursuit while the Argentine held the ball up ready to offload… Lautaro backheeled the ball into the path of Lukaku, who then shifted it on to Eriksen… Then Eriksen played a no-look assist back to his Belgian team-mate, who shot past the goalkeeper Emil Audero… The pair continued to duet in the second half when Young put Eriksen through down the left channel, his sublime control taking him past the defender and drawing Audero out of position. Eriksen teed up Lukaku for a second goal but alas the most expensive player in Inter’s history pulled his shot wide. Conte continues to rue missed chances like that one and the shot Eriksen fired straight at Ospina against Napoli. He was fuming after the 3-3 draw against Sassuolo when Roberto Gagliardini made his entry for miss of the season. Dropping points last night was a kick in the teeth just as it looked like Conte had happened on more solutions to Inter’s problems like taking a wing-back off for a midfielder, reshuffling his defence and going 4-3-1-2 when Inter need to pile the pressure on in attack. Man of the match in the Samp game, Eriksen had five shots and created four chances, and the former Spurs player has to rediscover that form when Inter return to action in Parma on Sunday night. Asked to reveal his best position, he matter of factly said: “Where the ball is.” Inter must get him on it more than they did against Sassuolo. Eriksen’s first three words in Italian at the weekend were confident and unequivocal. “Inter… Scudetto… Si.” Faith in their chances has been shaken in the meantime. Inter will need their Dane to be great if they’re to reel Juventus and Lazio in now.

Chelsea fans: Discuss the Manchester City game with our reporter Liam Twomey In any other global scenario, and in any other season, this would be a huge one. As it is, an empty Stamford Bridge will play host to what could be…Liverpool’s coronation as Premier League champions. Could still be fun, though… Frank Lampard has Jorginho back from suspension, with the likes of Christian Pulisic and Tammy Abraham pushing for starts after missing out against Aston Villa on Sunday. Join our Chelsea reporter Liam Twomey to pose your questions, and to discuss the action at Stamford Bridge as it unfolds and then what tonight’s result means for the rest of their run-in. https://theathletic.com/1890567/2020/06/24/chelsea-manchester-city-man-score/

Mourinho doesn’t understand Ndombele. Ndombele doesn’t understand Mourinho. https://theathletic.com/1891033/2020/06/25/tanguy-ndombele-jose-mourinho-tottenham-spurs-psg-barcelona/ From public criticism to a lockdown-busting training session in the park, the seemingly tempestuous relationship between Jose Mourinho and Tanguy Ndombele has surely been one of the most fascinating sub-plots of this elongated Premier League season. The demanding manager and the seemingly laid-back creative genius always felt like being an uneasy marriage, and so it has proved. The latest instalment in their ongoing saga saw reports circulating on Tuesday night of a training ground bust-up the previous day. Mourinho dismissed the claims in his press conference following the 2-0 win over West Ham while elsewhere, reports have varied. Some who are close to the situation say there was a conversation in which Ndombele made clear that he felt fit to play but not the heated argument that has been described in some quarters. Either way, what was undeniable was that for the second game running, Tottenham’s ludicrously talented and record £55 million signing watched on from the bench, despite Mourinho having five substitutions available. Ndombele has completed 90 minutes just once for Mourinho and in his last appearance against Burnley on March 7, was hauled off at half-time and told publicly that “he has to give us more than he is giving us”. Prior to that, Mourinho twice questioned Ndombele’s fitness in public, describing him in January as “always injured”. Since then, the Premier League was halted, the pair broke lockdown rules to train together on Hadley Common and prior to the restart, Mourinho said he was pleased with how Ndombele was training. And yet, he still hasn’t played a minute since that Burnley game. So, what’s going on? The reality is that the relationship between the two is strained — as one well-placed observer put it: the coach doesn’t understand the player and the player doesn’t understand the coach. Mourinho’s aim has always been to try and help Ndombele but as yet, the kind of reaction he was after has not been forthcoming. Some dressing-room sources, including a few who were previously sympathetic to Ndombele, believe this is down to a distinct lack of effort on the Frenchman’s part in training. Others at the club felt that Mourinho’s public criticism of the midfielder earlier in the season were unfair. He remains a divisive issue. Ndombele himself is not understood to have protested about those injury criticisms or his lack of playing time. A naturally quiet character, he has been disappointed not to be playing but it is not in his nature to seek confrontation. Thankfully, he at least finally feels free of the niggles that afflicted him earlier on in the season but, having not played any football for almost four months, is not thought to be ready to play a full 90 minutes. As it stands, Giovani Lo Celso, Moussa Sissoko and Harry Winks are all ahead of him in the pecking order to play central midfield, while Dele Alli’s return from suspension blocks off his route to starting further forward. Clearly, it’s a situation that cannot go on for too much longer — the record signing warming the bench. Should Ndombele continue not to play, then he will look to leave at the end of the season. Spurs’ current position is that they do not want to sell the player but in the current climate, it’s impossible to imagine them paying wages of £200,000 a week for a player who is not getting minutes. As for a possible destinations, Paris Saint-Germain have made enquiries about the player, while Barcelona are understood to have contacted Spurs about a possible move. Barca’s financial troubles mean they couldn’t afford anything like the fee Spurs paid last summer but a loan with a fee and an option or obligation to buy has been mooted — if they can shift other central midfielders in their squad. For the moment, though, despite a growing feeling that Ndombele will leave in the summer, any move remains hypothetical. His focus remains on forcing his way into the Spurs team, rather than out of the club. He’s very unlikely to start next week against Sheffield United but the following week, Spurs play three games in seven days and he will surely get his chance in one of them. Then, it’ll be up to Ndombele to show Mourinho that he is capable of the kind of application the head coach demands, and should Ndombele start getting minutes, then the situation could quickly change. Whether Ndombele’s more instinctive, mercurial style will ever be exactly what Mourinho wants from a central midfielder is open to question. As for Ndombele himself, he is understood to feel settled in London and is enjoying living in the city, and so has no immediate desire to leave. He also loves the stadium and is said to admire the club’s owner Daniel Levy. He is not yet fluent in English but gets on well with his team-mates and is especially close with Dele Alli and Moussa Sissoko, who has taken him under his wing. Generally, though, he is not someone who enjoys long conversations and has never been someone to especially relish talking to the media. This reticence, compared with Mourinho’s comfort in the spotlight, may also explain why the dynamic has appeared as though the manager has been swinging punches, with Ndombele sitting back and taking the punishment. It’s worth remembering though that Mauricio Pochettino could be similarly forthright about Ndombele while he was still in charge earlier on in the season. Ahead of the campaign starting, Pochettino said his new signing was not yet ready for the Premier League, before saying in October that Ndombele could take two years to get used to his methods. And eight months on, here we are — with a new manager but Ndombele seemingly no closer to finding his feet at Spurs. The club are desperate for the move to be a success to justify its vast expense but at the moment, there is no place for him in the team. Given Lo Celso’s increasingly impressive form and the Frenchman’s own inconsistency, it makes sense that Ndombele is not playing. But then you think about the shimmies, the feints, the last-minute rabona crosses and long to see him on the pitch. It’s a frustration shared by almost everyone associated with the club — including Pascal Chimbonda, a former Tottenham and France player, who was also accused of being lazy. “When you see him play, you see he has quality,” Chimbonda tells The Athletic. “But in your head, you think he doesn’t do enough on the pitch — that’s why people think he’s lazy. “People don’t like guys who are too laid-back and when you play for Mourinho, if you don’t give everything, he will take you out of the team. He needs to step up and prove everyone wrong, and that he’s worth the money. “If I spoke to him, I would tell him, ‘It’s time to step up. Prove you’re the player we signed — the same as when you were at Lyon, and do the same thing’ because we don’t yet see where all his talent is. Where is it hiding? Prove that we were right to sign you and then people will shut their mouth.” https://theathletic.com/podcast/148-the-view-from-the-lane/?episode=36

agreed

One night in Swindon: How Kevin De Bruyne’s spell at Chelsea unravelled https://theathletic.com/1882427/2020/06/25/kevin-de-bruyne-chelsea-swindon-manchester-city-jose-mourinho/ The sight of Kevin De Bruyne trotting out at Stamford Bridge in the colours of the away team will always induce pangs of regret among those with Chelsea affiliations. The absence of supporters on Thursday night will make no difference on that front. Every rasped crossfield pass or sumptuously-weighted through ball will provoke reminders of what they could have had. Hindsight can cloud judgment but the Belgian, perhaps more than fellow Chelsea old boys Mohamed Salah or Romelu Lukaku, always felt as if he had the potential to be a generational player. Instead, underused and unsettled, he slipped through the net. It is now over six years since the £18 million divorce which took De Bruyne from the periphery in southwest London to Wolfsburg, regular involvement and, ultimately, career fulfilment. There was fault on all sides to prompt the parting of the ways. Chelsea will always point to the player’s lack of patience. Jose Mourinho, a head coach under pressure to deliver instant success, clearly lacked faith in a 22-year-old who was relatively unproven. De Bruyne has admitted his naivety ensured he was not in the best position to excel during the rare opportunities he was granted. Arguably, the most critical of those came at Swindon Town in the League Cup third round in late September 2013, a game that the visitors had won comfortably by the interval and, at the time, appeared more significant for the flickering revivals of Juan Mata and Fernando Torres, as well as a serious injury suffered by summer signing Marco van Ginkel. The Dutchman is still on Chelsea’s books but has not played for them since. De Bruyne would represent Chelsea again, starting two further ties in the competition and making three cameo appearances totalling 26 minutes in the Champions League before Christmas that season. But his faltering display against third-tier opposition at the County Ground seemed to have cemented his lowly status in Mourinho’s mind. There was never likely to be a recovery at the club after that underwhelming autumn evening in Wiltshire. De Bruyne always had the tools to succeed. Piet de Visser, the Dutch coach turned scout whose influence was so prominent at Chelsea from the early days of Roman Abramovich’s ownership, had spotted it and has made a point of reminding the world ever since. The Genk midfielder had been interesting bigger Belgian sides Standard Liege and Anderlecht, prompting De Visser to insist the oligarch watch clips of the youngster in action. According to the scout, Abramovich’s reaction was apparently to pick up the phone to his technical director, Michael Emenalo, and decree: “Buy him.” Within days, the agent Patrick De Koster received an invite to the Russian’s yacht in Antibes on France’s Cote d’Azur to discuss a move, completed on deadline day in January 2012 as time ticked down on Andre Villas-Boas’ brief tenure. De Bruyne spent the remainder of that season on loan back at the club through whose youth ranks he had graduated. Werder Bremen of Germany then borrowed him for the subsequent campaign after a pre-season spent with Roberto Di Matteo’s European Cup winners when all the focus had been on the new arrival and fellow attacking midfielder Eden Hazard. “The plan was always for me to go on loan for a bit,” De Bruyne conceded in an interview last year with The Players’ Tribune. “So I went to Bremen, and that season went great.” So impressive was he in the Bundesliga, where he played in six different attacking positions, including centre-forward, and scored 10 goals in 33 appearances, De Bruyne was voted Germany’s young player of the year. Jurgen Klopp was keen to buy him for Borussia Dortmund, where his range of passing would have complemented a side brimming with attacking endeavour. Bayer Leverkusen also expressed an interest. Either may have appeared a more natural fit than in the set-up back at his parent club, who had just announced Mourinho’s second coming as their manager. “I thought maybe Chelsea would let me go but then Mourinho texted me: ‘You are staying. I want you to be part of this team’, so I thought, ‘OK, great. I’m in his plans’. When I arrived for pre-season, the vibe was good.” He travelled with the squad to southeast Asia, starting in Mourinho’s first game back in charge against the Singha All-Stars in Thailand’s capital Bangkok before injuring a knee scoring the team’s second goal in a victory over a Malaysia XI. Yet, even by then, the manager had sensed an impatience among the more youthful members of his touring party. “In this moment, almost every player has an ego and almost every player has people around them to feed their ego,” he told reporters a few days before that win in Kuala Lumpur. “Sometimes, the young boys are a bit confused. Sometimes, they think they are a bit more important than the club. Sometimes, they do just a little step forward and they think everything is done. “When I meet all these kids, one of their main issues is: ‘Am I going to play? Do I have a chance to go to the World Cup (in 2014)? If I don’t play here enough, probably I’m going to lose a World Cup possibility, so probably, it is better for me to stay in Vitesse one more year’ – Van Ginkel. ‘Probably, it is better for me to stay in Germany one more year’ – De Bruyne. ‘Probably, it is better for me to go on loan to another Premier League club’ – Lukaku. The kids, they have expectations, motivations and, from this early age, (being with Chelsea) is a good education. They can be a very good group. The older guys here, they are a good support, good examples, work very hard, very respectful, so for these kids to be with Frank Lampard and company is also a big help.” De Bruyne would train as normal back at Cobham, where visitors grew accustomed to seeing him stay behind with Lampard after training sessions as the pair worked on their shooting. “We had a very good midfield, a very good and strong squad, and Kevin was young,” the former Chelsea defender, Branislav Ivanovic, tells The Athletic. “He needed to practise but, from the first loan (in Bremen), you could see he was an amazing player. He was improving everything, even at Chelsea. Sometimes, he reminded me of Frank with his finishing and his passing. I think (in terms of making him what he is today) it was a good experience for him.” He then started and impressed in the 2013-14 opening-day win over Hull City, and was also in the XI in a goalless draw away to Manchester United eight days later. But then, overnight, he found himself quietly shunted to one side with others — Oscar, Mikel John Obi, Ramires, Andre Schurrle, Lampard, Willian, Mata — offered opportunities as the new head coach scrutinised his hand. “I thought I’d played OK — not brilliant but pretty good,” recalled De Bruyne. “Then, after the fourth game (against Swindon), that was it. I was on the bench and I never really got a chance again. I didn’t get an explanation. I was just out of favour for some reason.” He played five minutes of football in a month. Then came the cup tie in Swindon, and a chance to stake his claim. Nathan Thompson does not need prompting when it comes to that Chelsea game. He was playing right-back for Mark Cooper’s side that evening at the County Ground and, when the team-sheet was filed prior to kick-off, he recalls glancing down the visitors’ line-up with a growing sense of dread. Swindon had beaten local rivals Bristol City a few days earlier but would have to prise apart Champions League and Europa League winning centre-backs in David Luiz and Gary Cahill if they were to prevail again. Michael Essien lay in wait in central midfield. Willian, a recent £32 million acquisition from Anzhi Makhachkala, and Mata, voted Chelsea’s player of the year in his two previous seasons at the club, would be a threat from the flanks. Torres, a £50 million striker who had won a World Cup and two European Championships but still had a considerable point to prove, would lead the line. Mourinho’s selected XI had cost around £180 million to assemble. In that company, their No 15 was only afforded a passing glance. The same applied to the game itself. “We all knew Mourinho took that competition seriously and liked to put strong teams out in it, so the quality in their line-up didn’t surprise me,” says Thompson. “But it was a ridiculous team when you look at it. I mean, Essien, those centre-halves, the front three… Van Ginkel went down really early on, so they brought on Ramires, who went and scored then came off again at half-time for John Terry. John Terry! “I’d imagined I might be up against Mata, who hadn’t been having the best of times under Mourinho up to then and was apparently under a bit of pressure but he kept rolling inside and ran the show. That left me up against Ryan Bertrand for most of the night, playing so high up the pitch, and he was so aggressive, so sharp. It wasn’t like they completely dominated the ball — we liked to pass it around as well — but you looked at them and they were such athletes. A different specimen of player. “They brought on Demba Ba late on (for De Bruyne, with 12 minutes left) and he’d been getting peppered at the time, a lot of stick, but he was so quick. I remember just trying to catch my breath at one point in the second half and thinking, ‘Frigging hell, the difference is brutal’. It was nuts. Ba was a player who couldn’t get in their starting team but he was so far ahead (of us). “But De Bruyne… he wasn’t playing anything like he is now. I mean, nothing like he is now. It sounds silly to say it but he struck me as someone really lacking in confidence, someone almost playing within himself, nervous to try things. That can often be down to management. Some players flourish under some managers. Others don’t. And it was as if Mourinho was on his case. You could see it was affecting him: he just didn’t make an impact. To see what he went on and achieved is just mad but, at the time, it looked as if English football was a bit of a shock to his system.” The focus was drawn to Mata, making a third start under Mourinho, excelling as a No 10 and then, as a coup de grace, conjuring a tackle near the byline deep into stoppage time to concede a corner and set those on the bench purring. The penny had apparently dropped that all would be expected to contribute defensively under this new regime. “There’s no such thing as a luxury player these days,” offered the assistant coach, Steve Holland, in his post-match assessment. “Jose’s made it quite clear what he wants the attacking players to do in all those positions: not just to Juan, but to Willian, Kevin, Andre, everyone. We were very pleased with Juan’s contribution.” The coaching staff would have been just as encouraged to see Torres scoring one — the first, outside the UEFA Super Cup, by a Chelsea striker that season — and setting up Ramires for the other. David Luiz, omitted from the squad a few days previously against Fulham, spent the second half playing in midfield. De Bruyne’s display, other than that one cursory reference to “Kevin” by Holland, did not warrant a mention. Mourinho had expected the youngster to deliver dynamism from his berth in a three behind Torres. This, after all, was a player who had been kicking his heels on the sidelines for weeks, desperate for greater involvement. The staff had anticipated him rampaging all over lower-league opposition, infiltrating Swindon’s lines and driving Chelsea forward. Impress and he would be back in the fold. Instead, there was precious little creativity or even energy. He had played 78 minutes that night and, even against players from the middle of the third tier, they had rather passed him by. “We’d played Tottenham Hotspur in a pre-season friendly a couple of months earlier and I’d come up against Gareth Bale in what was actually his last game before he signed for Real Madrid,” adds Thompson, now 29 and still plying his trade in League One with Peterborough United. “Talk about confidence levels: he was at the other end of the spectrum to De Bruyne at the time. Bale couldn’t do anything wrong. He could just flick a switch and stampede all over you. I remember him looking as if he wasn’t fussed, then picking the ball up, a little burst of pace, and scoring with an unbelievable shot from the edge of the area. “It was all coming so naturally to him. He didn’t have to think about anything but you could tell with De Bruyne that he was over-thinking everything. He was nervous. Things weren’t going his way, he was unsure about how he was playing, what he was supposed to do, and that made everything harder. There was no fluency to his game at all.” De Bruyne has subsequently conceded as much. “I made some mistakes myself,” he said. “I was a bit naive about the way that you have to handle yourself as a Premier League footballer. What most fans don’t realise is that when you’re out of favour at a club, you don’t get nearly the same attention during training. At some clubs, it’s like you don’t exist anymore. If it happened to me now, it wouldn’t be a problem. I know enough to be able to train on my own and take care of myself. “But when you’re 21, 22, you don’t understand what it takes. When I got that chance to play against Swindon, I wasn’t in good shape. And that was pretty much it for me.” It would be three days before the world realised De Bruyne may have wrecked his chances at Stamford Bridge. The media corps had trooped down to Cobham later that week to listen to Mourinho preview a mouth-watering derby away at Tottenham. The talk had all been about his first head-to-head with his compatriot and former Porto and Chelsea analyst Villas-Boas, one-time friends turned foes. The barrage of questions about his relationship with the recently-appointed Spurs manager had been so relentless that Chelsea’s head of communications felt compelled to interject at one point to move the discussion on to alternative topics. In truth, even once the broadcast section of the press conference had concluded and the Portuguese was addressing the daily newspapers — he tended to relax slightly once the cameras were turned off — the responses were generally bitty and rather unsatisfactory. He refused to bite on the issue of Willian, who had originally been destined for Spurs that summer before Chelsea moved late to lure him across the capital. “I did nothing. I don’t know the story. It was not a question of persuasion. It was a question of connection. He always had the dream to play for Chelsea.” He did not seem particularly keen to engage and, as was often the case, it became a matter of probing him with different subjects until he made it clear he had an opinion he wished to express. There was always something he was eager to air. De Bruyne did not crop up until the 20th question flung from the floor. Did he make an impression on you in midweek and, like Mata, show that he buys into everything you want him to do? “Not so much.” It was the abruptness of the response that made those present take notice. OK. You’re down on numbers. Could De Bruyne perhaps fill in for the injured Ramires in central midfield? “Let’s see. Let’s work. But the first thing is the understanding that Bremen don’t have the same squad as Chelsea, and when you have more competition, you have to compete every game and every minute. For example, for the selection tomorrow I have to base that on the game against Swindon. If we all agree that Mata did enough to play against Tottenham, somebody has to drop out. So Kevin is out of selection. “This is the kind of situation they all have to understand. I have to try and be honest with the players and my choices. The next time Kevin is on the pitch, he has to think he’s playing for his next appearance. At Bremen, he played every game. Here, he’s not playing every game. In Bremen, he didn’t need to prove himself so much. This is a different reality. He’s competing against very good players, so every minute he’s on the pitch, he has to work really hard.” The implication was clear. An opportunity had been passed up and, despite declaring publicly that he was “a fighter” who would scrap to regain a place, the young Belgian found himself cast into the wilderness, especially when it came to the Premier League. He was not even in the 18-man squad at White Hart Lane that Saturday and was also omitted from the subsequent midweek trip to Steaua Bucharest of Romania in the Champions League. He trained with the club’s development squad while his senior team-mates were away, an indignity that did not go forgotten. His was not the only frustration at the marginalisation. De Visser, speaking to Het Laatste Nieuws in 2016, suggested he had personally taken up the issue with Mourinho. “We had some discussions. He would say, ‘Piet, I regret it too but the boy wants to leave. He doesn’t want to train under me anymore’. I told him, ‘Of course the boy wants to play — he’s ready to play’. I tried to convince him of Kevin’s qualities. But Mourinho just repeated, ‘Piet, he doesn’t want to train’, so I went to see a training session — and Kevin was the best player on the pitch. “Look, Mourinho is a performance-focused manager who has achieved a lot in his career. He wants to work with fully-developed players. He thought Kevin needed one, maybe two more years. But Kevin was ready. And Kevin was convinced he was ready, too.” It would be December before Mourinho offered anything close to an olive branch for the outcast, restoring De Bruyne to his match-day squad for a madcap 4-3 win away at Sunderland, having declared on the eve of the trip to Wearside that the 22-year old was “showing desire and working very hard”. By then, Spain’s Atletico Madrid had joined Wolfsburg and Leverkusen in sounding out De Koster over a possible mid-season move. “I feel sorry for not giving him big opportunities up to now but he’s working better than ever,” said Mourinho. “He’s sad when he’s not selected or playing but he’s working professionally which, for me, was a change from the beginning. When he works the way he is, he has to have a chance. I like him as a player. I’ve learned now how to like him, also, as a kid. He’s a good kid and he’s showing he’s a good professional. Hopefully, I can give him enough time on the pitch so he decides to stay in a happy way.” Yet, having been an unused substitute for the next match away to Stoke City, the midfielder slipped back into obscurity until summoned to Mourinho’s office at the training ground later that month. There, the head coach produced a piece of paper and, deciphering the analyst’s scrawl, rattled off the Belgian’s contributions to date — one assist, no goals, 10 recoveries of possession — before offering up the comparative numbers for Willian, Oscar, Mata and Schurrle. Silence. “Jose was just waiting for me to say something. ‘But some of these guys have played 15, 20 games. I’ve only played three, so it’s going to be different, no?’,” De Bruyne told The Players’ Tribune. “It was so strange. We had a bit of a conversation about me going back out on loan. Mata was also out of favour at the time, so Jose said, ‘Well, you know, if Mata leaves, then you will be the fifth choice instead of sixth’. “I was completely honest. ‘I feel like the club doesn’t really want me here. I want to play football. I’d rather you sell me’. Jose was a bit disappointed but to be fair to him, I think he also understood that I absolutely needed to play. So the club ended up selling me and there was no big problem at all. Chelsea got more than double the price they paid for me, and I got into a much better situation at Wolfsburg.” At the time, given the player’s reluctance to rejoin the club’s legion of loanees, the £18 million fee seemed attractive. Chelsea insisted on inserting a sell-on clause to ensure they might benefit from any future sale but there was no buy-back option. That hardly felt like a risk given the player’s toils but was perhaps their biggest error. But, at the time, most at the club had grown tired of the grumbling undercurrent of dissatisfaction that had accompanied him all season. A fresh start seemed to suit everyone. The blossoming of his career in the years since casts that decision in a very different light. Admittedly, Chelsea would win the title in two of the three seasons that followed, with De Bruyne subsequently pointing to that as evidence they “would not have any regrets, either, with everything that happened”. But seeing him dazzle so consistently with Manchester City provides a constant reminder of what might have been at Stamford Bridge. As one of the members of Chelsea’s hierarchy would later admit, “everyone is implicated” in De Bruyne’s failure to make an impression at the club. Things might have been very different had he put Swindon to the sword.

Pedro conquered football at Barcelona, but at Chelsea he has completed it https://theathletic.com/1887562/2020/06/24/pedro-conquered-football-at-barcelona-but-at-chelsea-he-has-completed-it/ Amid the celebrations that followed Chelsea’s convincing Europa League final victory over Arsenal last season, one of Pedro Rodriguez’s team-mates turned to him and said: “You’ve completed football now.” “Oh yeah, I have won everything,” he replied, a startlingly casual response to his new status as the first footballer to lift every major trophy at club and international level. “We were laughing and joking and he was like, ‘Yeah, I have won the lot’,” Rob Green tells The Athletic. “And we were like, ‘What?’ He had never mentioned that. It took someone else to raise it.” Pedro did not dominate the headlines after the final. That honour belonged to Eden Hazard, who signed off seven glorious years at Chelsea with two goals and a match-winning performance. Then there was Olivier Giroud, whose decisive opening goal against his former club had earned him the tournament’s Golden Boot award. But Pedro’s historic feats went beyond adding a 25th winners’ medal to his glittering collection. A characteristically sharp shot into the bottom corner on the hour mark in Baku made him the first Spaniard to score in a Champions League and a UEFA Cup or Europa League final. It is a club that consists of only four other members: Hernan Crespo, Allan Simonsen, Dmitri Alenichev and Steven Gerrard. If it proves the last trophy of his Chelsea career, supporters will need to think beyond a forgettable final season under Frank Lampard when evaluating his Stamford Bridge legacy — although last night’s news of a short-term contract extension means there might yet be one final chapter to write. Regardless, his is a story well worth remembering. Pedro’s determination to push his way out of Barcelona in the summer of 2015 indicated an impressive hunger. The comfortable choice would have been to stay with the club that had formed him as a man as well as a footballer, giving him an opportunity to scale unimaginable heights and dominate the sport, even as his first-team opportunities dwindled. There were other enticing options. Manchester United, rebuilding under former Barcelona coach Louis van Gaal, were keen suitors. In fact, it looked certain he was heading to Old Trafford. Somehow, like many defenders when Pedro is around the area, they were caught out of position. Premier League champions Chelsea presented him with a chance to live in London and link up with Spain team-mates Cesar Azpilicueta, Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa. Pedro took his time making up his mind, and a £21.4 million deal to bring him to Stamford Bridge was announced on August 20. Pedro’s agent Antonio Sanz revealed: “Maybe Manchester United fell asleep. The negotiation with Chelsea was like a lightning bolt. “It is common knowledge that United were in the bidding for Pedro, but Chelsea were faster and within 24 hours reached an agreement with the club. It was a whirlwind.” The move was widely considered a steal — a perception only strengthened by United’s decision to commit up to £58 million to sign teenager Anthony Martial from Monaco on deadline day. By then Pedro had made an emphatic start to his Premier League career, scoring one and creating another for Costa on his debut as Chelsea held off West Bromwich Albion 3-2 at The Hawthorns, despite having John Terry sent off. Many of the Chelsea players who had battled Pedro in his Barcelona days quickly gained a new appreciation for his qualities up close at Cobham. “When he came from Barcelona, we could see his talent,” Branislav Ivanovic tells The Athletic. “He has something different in that position than any other player in the world — he’s so quick with the ball at his feet, he’s always hungry and looking to score. He always goes straight to the goal and it made him an amazing player. “He was not the most physical player for the Premier League but he adapted perfectly because of his own quality. His speed was amazing, especially over short distances. I remember in training when we practised short sprints he was always ahead of us. He was hardly touching the ground when he was running!” Pedro’s warm and good-natured demeanour helped him settle quickly into the Chelsea dressing room in spite of his limited English, and Azpilicueta and Fabregas embraced his arrival. “Off the pitch, he was a little quiet but good enough in the group,” Ivanovic adds. “He was always laughing and talking with the Spanish guys, most of the time with them. They helped him also to settle in, but when you have the quality that Pedro has, you don’t need a lot of time to adapt.” The story of Pedro’s first two seasons at Chelsea clarified his identity as a player who shines in a successful system but who cannot heal a dysfunctional one. His debut Premier League campaign yielded seven goals but he was powerless to prevent the disastrous unravelling of Jose Mourinho’s second spell at Stamford Bridge or the team’s plummet to the brink of the relegation zone before recovering to mid-table obscurity. Talk of a swift return to Barcelona seemed credible, but Pedro shut it down during a rare sit-down interview with the Evening Standard in May 2016. “I am really happy here and have no regrets about the decision I made to join Chelsea,” he insisted. “I am already looking forward to next season in terms of what we can achieve and putting the club back where it should be. “I’m sure next season will be a great one for me and the club. I’m really looking forward to fighting for the Premier League, which will be a dream for me.” Antonio Conte unlocked Pedro’s true value in the 2016-17 season, deploying him on the right of the attacking line in the inspired 3-4-3 system that powered Chelsea’s surge to a second Premier League title in three years. He scored nine goals in the league, including spectacular and crucial strikes from outside the box at home against Tottenham in November and away at Everton in April. Pedro’s form and fitness waned the following season in line with the momentum of the Conte era, but he silenced suggestions of irreversible decline by matching his Chelsea career-best tally of 13 goals across all competitions for Maurizio Sarri in 2018-19. The campaigns yielded contrasting emotions, but both ended with him lifting new silverware — the FA Cup at Wembley in May 2018 and the Europa League in Baku a year later. The ebbs and flows in his production were not solely down to age and health. Pedro had married childhood sweetheart Carolina Martin in June 2015 as he weighed up whether to move to England, but the pair split up and divorced in 2017. She returned to Spain with their children, and the personal upheaval took its toll. Many at Chelsea noticed a break from his usually smiley demeanour when he spoke of missing his children, and the difficulty of finding a new partner in London. Observers noticed how he took advantage of Chelsea’s trip to Barcelona in 2018, when they played the second leg of their last-16 Champions League tie. It gave him the chance to have a rare kickabout with his children at the Camp Nou of all places. Those team-mates that were filming the moment on their phones were asked to send on the footage. The club may have lost the tie 3-0, but the player had the consolation of going back home with a treasured memento from the excursion. Sarri’s rollercoaster season in charge brought other challenges. “He wanted the bus to be silent on the way to games — nobody was really allowed to speak,” Green recalls. “So even if we were driving through London, you’re talking about a good 40 minutes sat in silence.” For Pedro, who regularly sits with Azpilicueta, Marcos Alonso and Willy Caballero on the team bus talking and playing Parcheesi —an equivalent board game to Ludo, popular in Spain — it was jarring. “The group which Pedro was a part of would explain the difference in mentality,” Green adds. “If you have a quiet bus where they are from, then something is wrong. Whereas in Italy, where Sarri is from, something is wrong if it’s a noisy bus. “In South America, in Spain, the thinking is we are going to a game, relax, enjoy it. That was something Pedro and the others had to take on somehow. They were there to enjoy it and play with a smile. What a great way to live your life, rather than bricking it every time you play on the pitch. Pedro played like that. He was a bundle of energy. “You’d be sitting there on the bus and, say, if someone hadn’t travelled for a while like Gary Cahill and he was chatting away happily, Sarri would say, ‘Gaz, no’. And Gary would be like, ‘What?!’ Sarri would say, ‘Don’t speak, mutter’. “If someone from Pedro’s group or elsewhere exploded with laughter, you’d hear the wrath from the front of the bus. But Pedro had that Spanish way of life — he just wanted to express himself on the pitch and off it.” Pedro scored arguably the finest goal of his Chelsea career at the start of August: an outrageous, immaculate flying backheel from Ross Barkley’s floated cross in a 5-3 pre-season win over RB Salzburg. Hampered by injury and sidelined by Frank Lampard’s vibrant youth revolution since, he has found other ways to meaningfully contribute to what everyone has known for some time will be his final season at Stamford Bridge. Ivanovic recalls a Pedro who, early in his Chelsea career, largely kept to himself off the pitch and gravitated naturally towards his fellow Spaniards in the dressing room. Green saw an older version, more at home in his surroundings and prepared to embrace his role as a senior figure in an increasingly youthful squad. That development has continued this season. Lampard has spoken positively about Pedro’s professionalism at every opportunity. He trains with the same enthusiasm and intensity regardless of whether or not he is considered to be in serious contention for first-team minutes. Through actions more than words — he remains very self-conscious about his English, regularly describing it as “awful” — he sets an example for Chelsea’s academy graduates, a baseline of commitment and quality that they must match in order to play. “Above anything, it’s about the will to do well,” Pedro said of Chelsea’s young players in an interview with The Independent in September. “It’s about everyday education, and the desire to get better, to show they should be in the first team and keep doing it there for many years… to show every day you belong here. “If you don’t, it’s impossible for a young player to get to the level of Frank Lampard or John Terry. That’s the key, the will to show your qualities every day and to stay here for many years and show you belong. It’s not just about ‘want’. Many players ‘want’. It’s about showing it.” This attitude is why Lampard was so understanding in talks with Pedro and Willian about extending their contracts until the end of a season delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Both will play out the season at Chelsea but a switch to Roma has been agreed for Pedro. They can offer Pedro what Chelsea would not: a chance to continue his top-level football career, to continue trying to add to his 25 major career honours, and to continue trying to score goals. Goals form a key part of Pedro’s legacy at Chelsea. The raw numbers are far from phenomenal — he has been a scorer of great goals rather than a great goalscorer during his time in England — but the sheer versatility of his finishing is hugely impressive: of his 29 goals in the Premier League, 13 were scored with his right foot, 14 with his left and two with his head. “He had an easy finish, even with difficult balls,” Ivanovic says. “You could see he came from the Barcelona school. When you saw how easily he finished difficult balls with both feet, and from the first touch until the end he’s at full speed and in total control… it was amazing. “He had a big impact on some titles, and what he achieved at the club deserves big respect.” Lampard extended his playing career in the Premier League until a month before he turned 37. He knows what talented veterans can bring at important moments. It’s why he wanted Pedro and Willian to see this campaign out. Pedro took some convincing to stay on. As The Athletic revealed last week, he had been unwilling to play for Chelsea because he didn’t want to put his move to Roma at risk. But Lampard is a determined so and so and refused to take no for an answer. He didn’t sound too confident before the weekend, but talks were stepped up on Monday and Tuesday, leading to a change of heart. It helped that Pedro also had some words of reassurance about staying at Chelsea for another six weeks from Roma coach Paulo Fonseca soon after agreeing a two-year deal (with an option for a further 12 months) worth £56,000-a-week. This will be his swansong at Chelsea. There will be no more extensions after this. As the new contract includes the FA Cup, the final of which will be played on August 1, he still has the chance to sign off with trophy number 26. The club have a quarter-final against Leicester City on Sunday. Surprisingly, he is staying for the Champions League too, but nobody expects Bayern Munich to blow a 3-0 first-leg lead at home the week after the FA Cup final. Regardless, Pedro will be remembered at Stamford Bridge and beyond as one of football’s great winners. He came to England in 2015 with nothing to prove, and yet still drove himself to make more history. To paraphrase that team-mate in Baku, he conquered football at Barcelona but he completed it at Chelsea.

Released Richard Nartey: 'You learn how fortunate you are growing up at Chelsea' Young centre-back has been at Stamford Bridge since he was nine but after a season of learning on loan at Burton Albion, his release at 21 means the next step is approaching https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jun/24/chelsea-fortunate-growing-up-richard-nartey-burton-albion “The first thing that happened was a ball got kicked in the air at me and I got an elbow in the face,” Richard Nartey says as he recalls his gritty introduction to League One after going on loan to Burton Albion. The centre-back, who has been at Chelsea since he was nine, knew it was time to sink or swim. He was making his professional debut after coming off the bench against Bristol Rovers in August and it was a rude awakening. “I was a bit dazed,” Nartey says. “It was my wake-up call. I was telling myself: ‘You’ve got to give it back. You can’t act like this young person from Chelsea, otherwise people will pick on you.’ I had to show I could do all the physical stuff and let my technical side show as well.” He knuckled down, helping Burton to a 2-0 victory. He enjoyed his time at the Pirelli Stadium and is disappointed that the League One season is over prematurely. He has been back at his family home in Wimbledon during lockdown and, with Chelsea deciding not to renew his contract when it expires on 30 June, he is focusing on finding a new club. The 21-year-old is used to being challenged. Nartey placed a high value on his education, even though it slowed his development at Chelsea. He attended St Paul’s, a private school in south-west London, until he finished his GCSEs when he was 16. “I stayed longer than most at Chelsea before going on loan because I started full-time a couple of years later,” he says. “Usually you do day release at 13. You still go to school and take a day off to train. At 14, 15, 16 you do full-time football. I didn’t train for two and a bit years full-time. snip

atm there are only 2 true WC CB's in the entire league Virgil van Dijk Aymeric Laporte MASSIVE drop after them if I had to grab 4 (Rudiger is in the top 5 or 6 in the EPL which shows you how much the quality has fallen) meaning all 4 of ours are poofed, sent out of the league, and Laporte and VVD are off limits then I would take Caglar Söyüncü Declan Rice (like I said, I see him at CB in the end, and obviously he can play DMF and CMF so a huge plus for versatility) Davinson Sánchez Joe Gomez (RB ability is good too) after them Issa Diop fuck Stones and Maguire, especially Stones, hell if Lewis Dunk was 24 or 25 and not 29 in five months, I would take him over Stones (no, not joking, I have seen Dunk be a fucking wall for 3 years now, he is massive in the air and in size overall, and has more pace than Maguire, he just is not that great on the ball, but is better there than Zouma) absolutely zero interest in any other current EPL CB I did not list (I am not going to get into academy players or exotics like saying oh! Rodri at CB, lol)

Pogba helps them loads I know he is hated here but I still rate him a top 5 CMF on the planet when he is fit and motivated, which it appears he is he is very unique when Pep and Klopp fuck off both the dipper scum and shitty will drop off (the dippers have around 3 more seasons max to reap huge hardware, as their core will be too old after that and I do not see them managing it well so far, plus Klopp surely wont stay there forever, if Barca had half a brain they would be looking to scoop him up down the road) Manure always will worry me as if they finally get their shit together, they are capable of a long roll, Sancho on that side is a nightmare )they wil also buy a class CB and fill in the other holes I am sure by the end of next summer window) I always had a grudging respect for them as a real old school powerhouse, the league has been lucky they have never come close to replacing Fergie (Ed Woodward is a train wreck overall) I have nothing but disdain for Spuds (only thing they have is that cracking stadium), Arse (what a joke they have become, insanely mismanaged), Shitty and the Victims

They have a great chance to win all the rest leading up to the last game (Leicester) They literally play nothing but shit, and Pogba is back and looks engaged.

Super post Manure need a WC CB, LB, DMF and RW (my nightmare is Sancho) and they are then near title winning level. OGS would then be the main barrier. Koulibaly, Alex Sandro, Thomas Partey, Sancho plus Poch = nightmare

Rudiger is our best CB atm it really is that simple AC has got to be sold only type of CB who would work well with Zouma is a superb ball handler like Marquinhos or Giminez or the now too too to buy Iñigo Martínez Tapsoba looks solid on the ball, and there is also Pau Torres (left footer too)

'Legend!' - Chelsea fans go nuts as David Luiz signs new Arsenal deal Chelsea fans have been reacting to news of David Luiz' new contract at the Emirates Stadium https://www.football.london/chelsea-fc/luiz-arsenal-contract-chelsea-granovskaia-18477821

agree

I do not want him, at least not at the crazy money I am hearing quoted I think he is overrated to a point I am sure I will get lit up but I am really hellbent on on an actual WC CB

fair point I am in need of far more validation

Reece looked shaky as hell, too risky atm Shitty scare me more than the dippers, Pep has them playing with a chip on their shoulder (like we always used to have for years and years)

I trust Azpi in this nightmare fixture

lol, no it is the man of your dreams bbe

going back a few years on this one West Brom had and on again off again interest in him and then this happened (I had inside info too because my Baggie m8 is really sussed in at the club, he golfs with many of the staff and even some of the players for years, so this story is 100% rock solid) REPORT EXPLAINS WHY WEST BROM HAVE COOLED INTEREST IN WILLIAM CARVALHO https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2017/06/03/report-explains-why-west-brom-have-cooled-interest-in-william-ca/ snip The Express and Star reports that the West Brom boss had travelled to Portugal to have a good look at the 25-year-old, which hinted that he may well be a key target for the club this summer, especially following the news that former captain Darren Fletcher had quit the club to join Premier League rivals Stoke City. However, the Express and Star is now reporting that Pulis has now cooled his interest in Carvalho due to a concern over his athleticism. snip Pulis said he was not up to the pace of EPL and energy wise he was wanting (West Brom were still up then) so I am surprised to see this