Vesper

Grealish would be a monster here I am fully convinced on him super hardcore competitor too never shuts down never gives up only issue is that he literally IS Villa if they stay up he will not want to leave

Gilmour pushing for Chelsea’s first team with the help of Fabregas videos and a Rangers academy overhaul https://theathletic.com/1566879/2020/01/29/billy-gilmour-chelsea-fabregas/ It was February 7, 2017, when Jody Morris saw something that convinced him Billy Gilmour had what it takes to make it to the top. Rangers’ development team were playing Hibernian in Ormiston, East Lothian, and a 15-year-old Gilmour had been picked to compete in the heart of midfield against players as much as five years older than him. Shortly after the hour mark, with Rangers 1-0 up, the youngest and smallest player on the pitch caught Scott Martin with a late tackle that earned him a straight red card. Morris, then in his first season as Chelsea under-18s coach, was in attendance. Far from being put off by Gilmour’s moment of indiscipline, he was encouraged by the display of tenacity. Chelsea were well aware of the midfielder’s exceptional technical gifts, which ensured that he frequently played ahead of his age group in the Rangers academy and had marked him out for Scotland in the Victory Shield tournament a year earlier. Less certain, though, was whether this startlingly small, slight teenager had the desire for a physical tussle against men. Gilmour provided an emphatic response that day and has continued to answer every question posed of him since moving from Rangers to Chelsea in the summer of 2017. His first season working under Morris with the under-18s yielded four trophies, as well as a goal in the FA Youth Cup final against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium. His second culminated in a UEFA Youth League final appearance after regular Premier League 2 game time with the development squad and Joe Edwards. The presence of Morris and Edwards on Lampard’s first-team coaching staff has improved the comfort level of many academy graduates but those who deal with him at Cobham insist Gilmour is not the type of personality to ever be fazed by the prospect of training alongside illustrious senior internationals. He is described as quiet and calm but unshakeably confident, with a steely determination to maintain his lightning career progression and personal improvement. “Billy is a very humble young man but he believes in what he’s doing,” Craig Mulholland, head of Rangers’ academy, tells The Athletic. “You need that inner self-belief to go to the next level. “What we say to our young players at Rangers is that in order to break through at the top level, you need to have a certain amount of arrogance — but with it comes a humbleness. Finding that balance can sometimes be challenging for young players. If you look at the statistics for Scottish players who move across the border before the age of 18, the success rate is incredibly low. But Billy always believed he could buck that trend.” Lampard has made no secret of the fact that he is a big fan, praising Gilmour as the best Chelsea player on the pitch in Saturday’s FA Cup fourth-round win over Hull City after a 22-minute cameo that saw him complete 18 of 19 attempted passes. Trust between player and head coach has been building since the pre-season trip to Ireland in July, when Gilmour impressed in training and in friendlies against Bohemians and St Patrick’s Athletic. Eyebrows were raised when Lampard opted to hand Gilmour his senior debut off the bench as Chelsea tried and ultimately failed to protect a 2-1 lead against Sheffield United at Stamford Bridge in August but the midfielder’s display in a 7-1 dismantling of Grimsby in the Carabao Cup less than a month later gave a better indication of why he had been trusted. “I thought Gilmour ran the game from midfield,” Lampard said afterwards. There is great pride among Chelsea academy staff at the strides Gilmour has made but unlike many of Lampard’s vibrant young core, his development is not purely a Cobham success story. Rangers provided his football grounding from the ages of eight to 15, and stand to benefit financially from various milestones in his career progression. Mulholland takes great satisfaction in what he has achieved already. “The programme he had (at Rangers) over the years — lots of European tournaments where you play best vs best, exposed early to playing against men — always pushed him in groups and challenged him in that way,” he adds. “It’s set him up well for where he is today. “We always knew his potential. When we profiled him against what our player characteristics were, he ticked an awful lot of those boxes. But with any young athlete in any sport, it depends how hard they work and also the level of supervision that’s around them. “Every member of staff spoke positively about his willingness to learn in training sessions. He was always asking questions and had an enthusiasm in every session. As he got older and moved towards a more full-time environment, more and more, we saw him back doing extra stuff — whether that be watching clips with the coaches, doing one-on-ones or additional practice. He just loves football.” Gilmour was steeped in football from an early age. His father, Billy Sr, was once a junior for Ardrossan Winton Rovers and played extensively at the lower levels of the Scottish game in Ayrshire. “He was around football dressing rooms as a young person and I think that’s rubbed off on him,” Mulholland says. Gilmour’s younger brother, Harvey, is now a highly-rated prospect in the youth ranks at Kilmarnock. Billy Sr is a Celtic fan and for a while, Gilmour trained with both Old Firm clubs. When the time came to commit to one, however, emotion didn’t come into the decision. Rangers won out, partly because the journey from Ardrossan to their Murray Park training ground was easier for father and son but also because of the technical, possession-based philosophy Mulholland had implemented throughout the age groups. “What we did five years ago is take the decision to quite radically change our academy programme — in terms of our style of play, our game model and culture,” Mulholland explains. “The way Billy’s now playing for Chelsea is what you see in the young Rangers teams. We have players in demand from many clubs across Europe, which maybe wasn’t the case before. So from our point of view, it suggests we’re doing something right.” Chelsea see Gilmour, in the long term as a No 6, or a deep-lying playmaker, and Rangers identified him early on as being a natural central midfielder. “There are a lot of players of a young age who will move around different positions but that wasn’t the case with Billy,” Mulholland says. “There was the odd occasion that we put him in different roles — not because we thought he was going to be that but simply to expose him to a different aspect of the game. There were other occasions where we subbed him in a game to see what reaction we’d get, or he started as a sub. “We tried to develop his mental side and put road blocks in his way at times to see how he would handle it from a resilience perspective, and there were never any issues from it.” Mulholland would often see Gilmour sitting with Graeme Murty, Rangers’ development squad coach, watching video clips — of his own performances, of Rangers senior players, and of some of the world’s best passing midfielders he was seeking to emulate. “We saw real-time learning with him in those situations,” he says. “Players can be all types of learners — some are more visual, some learn better on the pitch — but with Billy, we saw the learning happening as we went through the clips.” That process has continued at Chelsea. Gilmour studied game footage of Cesc Fabregas closely when he first arrived at Cobham and has also cited the likes of Luka Modric, Andres Iniesta and Frenkie de Jong as inspirations. “These were and still are the players I watch all the time and base my game on,” Gilmour said in an interview with Versus magazine earlier this month. Things came full circle for Gilmour after his masterclass against Grimsby. “He played amazing tonight,” Fabregas wrote on Twitter in response to a question from another user about the Scot. “Personality is the most important at this age and he’s got it all right. Now time to keep learning and taking advantage of these games to prove [to] the coach he’s good enough.” Moving to England has accelerated Gilmour’s maturation. His family remain in Scotland while he lives in Cobham with two other Chelsea youngsters, and there has never been a hint of homesickness. “It was the best move I’ve made in my life so far. Absolutely no regrets about it!” he said this month. “I’m loving living in London as well; completely different energy to Glasgow. It’s a lot busier here, and a wee bit warmer as well — I’ve even got a tan now!” A big part of Gilmour’s final step to a regular starting spot at Chelsea will be his physical development. Daily gym and core strength work has been a priority since the day he arrived at Cobham and he has made significant progress. He will also bulk up naturally as his body continues to mature but in the mean time his battling instincts will continue to be a key attribute. Internally at Cobham, the comparison has been made between Gilmour and a young Morris — himself a small, feisty, technically-gifted midfielder who rose from Chelsea’s academy to represent the club in the Champions League, as well as lifting the Cup Winners’ Cup and FA Cup. Gilmour has even grander goals. “That’s always been my ambition, to be the best player (in the world),” he told BBC Sport in an interview in September 2018. “If someone is better than me, I want to be better than them. I’ve always had a winning mentality and I hate losing, so when I see someone doing better, I need to match them.” It is a mentality that has already helped him earn Lampard’s trust and one that should yield more opportunities to establish himself between now and the end of Chelsea’s season.

they have been looking at a lot of strikers they do have Mariano Diaz as well, although they barely play him RM is clearly not happy with Jovic atm his returns are poor atm 1 goal, 2 assists in 675 minutes his only goal was versus Leganes, the worst team in the league if we had set up some deal, they could have had cover at least we should have tried a lot harder and earlier I do not believe he is a 5 to 8 goal a season striker at all

Poison dwarf said days ago he wants £40m for Mertens. Maybe he was taking the piss, but still...... I go back to my original pre-window point about Jovic. WHY THE FUCK were we not all over Madrid to do a 6 month loan, even with no option? Win win win, for both clubs and the player, and hell, maybe we could have stuck in a crazy high strike option number (above what RM paid) just to give us a hope IF he exploded in the EPL. Fucking board.

too complicated self deleted

Ake rumours being recycled ffs https://www.footballtransfertavern.com/premier-league/chelsea/chelsea-blues-weigh-up-late-move-for-bournemouths-nathan-ake/ jokes all around

IF this is true, well words escape me Chelsea could ask Tammy Abraham to play through the pain barrier against Leicester Abraham is still recovering from an ankle knock sustained against Arsenal and Chelsea are yet to sign a striker in January By Matt Law, FOOTBALL NEWS CORRESPONDENT https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2020/01/28/chelsea-could-ask-tammy-abraham-play-pain-barrier-against-leicester/ IF WE FUCK HIM UP FOR A MONTH OR MORE (and make zero moves for a backup, which is almost etched in stone now), WELL......

left back alone shoots your stance down, clearly obtainable upgrades out there and fuckall done, plus concrete offers for our 2 dregs fucking shit on by Marina and her cuntish games and we should have been ALL over Real for a loan for Jovic (option or not) from before the fucking window you are in for a rude awakening if you think we can leave it ALL for one window (and many of our targets are going to damn near impossible to pull) plus lack of perm sales yet again on dogshit we miss out on CL and we also fail to sell Kante (and keep ramming him down the team's throat in this system) and we miss out on 2 (or all 3) of our giant and crazy pricey targets and the slide begins for real, especially with another truly cocked-up summer window

even assuming Tomori comes fully good to the point where he is truly far beyond Rudiger, WHO are the other two CB's you are going to buy who are better than Rudiger (as you said 4th option for him)????? get ready to drop 150m or so quid (on top of the 300-350m we are in for at LB, Winger, and CF) for those 2 CB's the only ones out there (and most are NOT available) who are clearly better than Rudiger and young enough to buy are Virgil van Dijk Raphaël Varane Matthijs de Ligt (massively overrated atm) Aymeric Laporte Kalidou Koulibaly (not young enough now at the price Napoli wants) Lucas Hernández José Giménez Marquinhos Milan Skriniar Clément Lenglet Dayot Upamecano Ibrahima Konaté Alessio Romagnoli Stefan de Vrij Caglar Söyüncü Stefan de Vrij Joe Gomez Rúben Dias (unproven in a real league and has an £80m RC) and maybe, MAYBE Niklas Süle Éder Militão (not fitting in well and I would not trade Rudiger ATM for him until he proves he is indeed better) Diego Carlos Maguire (I hate him) and that 450-500m total is also doing NOTHING at GK, DMF, RB, AMF, and CMF zero chance we are dropping £450-500m not including all those other positions, sales or no sales (and we are SHIT at sales)

The board is not backing him now and I think there is a good chance they will not in the summer either. Especially if we do not make the CL. We have MASSIVE holes at CF and LB, team crushing holes, and yet they couldn't even sort out those 2 things Yet (adding up the 4 or 5 targets that ALL assume we go for and get in summer) we know think they will drop 300m, 350m THEN????? LOLOLOL and that 300-350m is with us NOT doing anything in terms of GK, CB. DMF, AMF, CMF and possibly having Alonso still as a LB option LOLOLOL I think the board will use Frank as a shield if thing go truly fucking pear shaped (no CL and a nightmare summer 2020 window)

Chilwell £80m LB X £30m (or we keep Alonso and just plan on getting fuckall for him when his contract ends, which will be a £45m loss from his non-sale plus be spattered if Chilwell goes down) DMF (or keep Kante and then start to massively loss huge chunks of his £100m value plus not fill a gaping need, so I am going to say zero spend here, just to prove my overall point) Sancho £120-130m (minimum) Winger X £50m CF (around £50-70m whether Werner (pipe dream) or Dembele) 3rd string CF £10-15m so that is a gross spend of £310-345m and that is IF we do nothing at the 2nd LB and do nothing at DMF, do nothing at AMF and nothing at GK, nothing at CB, nothing at CMF and also £100m less income if we do not sell Kante LOLOL as if we are going to dump in well over 300m in one window (especially if we miss out on CL again) and after we just took a near £100m loss overall for only 4 or 5 (the 3rd string CF costs fuckall) players Even if we do NOT buy a 2nd winger and just renew Willian for 2 years, it still means around 300m or so, as he will cost 20m in salary and then you are talking about only buying 3 or 4 players for around 300m and still leaving gaps all over and also FUCKS us if we nightmarishly have to rely on Willian for 2 more years (no chance a 4th winger will not play) just showing what we are being set up for by the board and also by the consensus of who are targets and also how much is being shoved off until just one short window great chance it turns into a pure shitshow if we start failing on the big 3 targets as well

not even Marina is stupid enough to bid £10m for a 37yo (in the beginning of next season), out of contract, hack GK who is shorter than I am (or the exact same height if spuds are not lying about it, which I think they are)

we are going to end up letting Giroud walk on a free more than likely same for all or most all of Willian (and possibly shit away 20m more quid if we renew his pathetic arse for 2 years) Pedro Kenedy van Ginkel Drinkwater (or a pittance) Jamal Blackman Azpi eventually Charly Musonda (or a pittance) Danilo Pantić (or a pittance) Lucas Piazon (or a pittance) Nathan (or a pittance) and take massive losses on (over either what we paid, what we could have had via timely sales or both) Baba Rahman Davide Zappacosta Tiémoué Bakayoko Bats Alonso Emerson (possibly) Victor Moses (Inter do NOT have any obligation to buy at all) Kante (on what we could have gotten for him IF we do not sell him this summer) And we can get fucked on Mario Pašalić if Atalanta do not activate his buy clause SHIT BOARD

AC Milan's Suso closes in on Sevilla transfer https://www.goal.com/en/news/ac-milans-suso-closes-in-on-sevilla-transfer/1ik31aj30flm91i665htpt5keh The Spanish winger is set to return to his home nation on a temporary deal that could become permanent AC Milan midfielder Suso is close to joining Sevilla on a loan deal with an option for the La Liga side to buy the Spaniard in the future. The 26-year-old will arrive in Seville on Wednesday for a medical after the two clubs agreed the 18-month loan arrangement, Goal can confirm. Sevilla have an option to buy the Spanish winger for €20 million (£17m/$22m) at the end of the loan period, but it could become an obligation if Suso reaches a certain games target.

Feyenoord ‘considering’ Chelsea midfielder Lewis Baker as last-minute Plan B — report A potential return to the Eredivisie https://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/chelsea-fc-transfer-rumours-news/2020/1/29/21112217/feyenoord-considering-chelsea-midfielder-lewis-baker-as-last-minute-plan-b-report

Inter Pondering Summer Transfer Window Swoop For Chelsea’s Emerson Palmieri https://www.fcinter1908.it/copertina/studiando-colpo-estivo/

Vincenzo Morabito, one of the intermediaries in Inter’s negotiations with Chelsea over Olivier Giroud, appears to have suggested the move is off. As per various reports in the media, the two clubs had a deal in place over the 33-year-old Frenchman whilst reports have also stated Inter had agreed personal terms with the former Arsenal player. Giroud has been limited to just seven appearances across all competitions this season for the Blues, who he is contracted to until the end of the season. “Bye bye Inter,” Morabito posted to Facebook followed by a series of crying face emojis. https://sempreinter.com/2020/01/29/photo-intermediary-in-inters-negotiations-with-chelsea-for-giroud-bye-bye-inter/

Inter Ask Chelsea Striker Giroud To Wait Until Contract Expires In June To Sign For Nerazzurri https://sempreinter.com/2020/01/29/inter-ask-chelsea-striker-giroud-to-wait-until-contract-expires-in-june-to-sign-for-nerazzurri/

his quality of play is staggeringly better than Kepa across the board, it is not just the stats per se same for Alisson, same for ter Stegen and Ederson

glad to see you finally getting pissed off and sarcastic I think it is shameful if we literally do nothing all window but sign a 16yo Norwegian kid we have had ages to try and game this shit out as I posted before, I see no way we get SIX or SEVEN players in in the summer, and some of those 6 are monsters to pull 2 LB's (Lampard clearly does not rate either of the 2 we have at all) 1 DMF 2 Wingers (I will go BONKERS if we renew that twat prat Willian on damn near 200K PW for 2 more years) 2 CF's (granted one will be easy, a 3rd stringer youngster like Josh Maja I hope) and those seven (or six) mean no actions elsewhere at all, so it could be even more plus we have a literal shit tonne of rapidly devaluing deadwood and dregs STILL on the books, and not even ones like Moses are truly off it (for that matter even Atalanta could fuck us with Pasalic, lolol) and at least 3 or 4 of those buys they want in the summer are super fucking hard pulls, so so NOT guaranteed at all, and if we swing and miss on all 4, we are well and truly fucked HARD so so pissed at the fucking board

he was oki played better than he has the last month or so, looked pretty solid on defence I still would take many others over him if he ends up actually going for £80m Telles, Gosens, Theo Hernandez (quickly becoming a beast), maybe Grimaldo (not sold on him for 60m euros) Alaba (doubt Bayern sells him, and will want crazy money if they do) Alphonso Davies (see Alaba) Gaya is only 5 million more and a better player atm than Chilwell but still NEITHER are worth 80-85m quid that is just madness

Tadic one season wonder in a shit league was dogshit in a real league (EPL) for years I do note rate him at all only 3 I liked off that entire Ajax team (I think de Ligt is overrated atm) are de Jong, Donny van de Beek, and Onana not sold on Ziyech as he does it in a shit league, but if we fail on Grealish and Maddison, will not be shocked if we ends up here the Eredivisie is a joke would rather watch the Jupiler league any day unless it is a big derby amongst the big 3

Millwall choked Baggies lost again though