Vesper

This is all going to end badly I fear. I cannot believe we havent dumped some of the deadweight either. January is a massive seller's market.

The board and Sarri both think we have close to the best LB in Europe. We will bring in some scrub who the punters will demand to be played and Sarri will laugh and light up a fag.

I think this is the nail in the coffin for both Barella and Paredes It is from Matt Law

I agree on all of this. I was just pissed ro see a major option come off the summer board in Piątek, when supposedly he was not going to be allowed to move till then. Juve were the ones (stupidly I think) who were sending out trial balloons over Dybala. This summer will be go time for Werner and Icardi. I was never under any delusions we could grab beither one now, in January. If we dont get Icardi, I just hope against hope he renews with Inter. I would hate to see him at Manure (disaster) or Real or PSG or Barca or the worst, Victimpool.

Now that he is off the table, these are remaining (and some are not really going to be able to do it) all-rounder MF's who can play all 3 postions in Sarriball. There just are not many young, crazy talented and high energy big motor MFers out there. He is a special player IMHO. If SMS had his drive, Lazio would have no problem getting over £100m for him. I cannot think of hardly any players who could literally play all 3 of the Sarriball MFer positions besides Barella. Frenkie de Jong is clearly another. Probably SMS, Saúl Ñíguez (maybe, not sure about him in a Regista role) and maybe Pogba (again cannot see him happy in a Regista role). Tanguy Ndombele probably could handle it. Houssem Aouar might be able to adapt, I so dread him going to Shitty or Victimpool. Same for Donny van de Beek, but he and Aouar are both more offensive than defensive players. Marcelo Brozovic and maybe Fred. Thats about it that I can think of. The older examples are Nainggolan and Vidal, but again, its the DH part that they might not like so much. I dont see us moving for any of those so screw Sarri (his saying that the 3rd MF position had to be defensive as well as forward thrusting, which I just listed above) and just go all out for a REAL WC AMF One who actually scores goals Sarabia release clause is only £16m James Rodriquez option is only £39,5m for Bayern. Offer to pay it and bring him here (especially if CHO is involved) OR Big one If Eden still refuses to sign renewal by middle of next summer, try to flip him for Coutinho (who can play winger too)

She is well over 6 months pregnant. They were recent words. He just wanted to wait to move till summer, after she gave birth, which is why I said buy him and loan him back till then. Now he is gone for years, probably for good.

I can understand that, but still, I hate seeing AC Milan and Juve get let off the hook to a point. I guess Juve are still on it if we dont end up buying Higs after the loan period.

Piatek was only actually my 5th choice, just still far more than Higuain (who, at least is only here on a loan I am led to believe) Icardi Dybala Timo Werner Jovic Piatek Haller

He would have left for sure in the summer, he said over and over he wanted to come to the EPL, that he liked the style of play here better than Italy, and he liked Chelsea the best. These were his own words, not some internet rumour.

We just have to face the fact that we are no longer going to be a big player in the transfer market anymore. We are not going to move for the big players, and the few really good ones we have chased we are apparently going to miss out on due to (as you put it) penny-pinching. These are not mega deals, these fails are in the £35m to £50m range. I am 100% convinced that the bottom line the Pulisic deal went through was because of the USA marketing potential. Why else would we pay almost £60m for a benched (by an 18yo!) player who has never scored more than 5 goals in a season (with multiple years at top level) in an absolute pinball scoring offence. If we were serious about winning the EPL and winning the CL, we would be chasing (and winning multiple ones) Mbappe, Icardi or Dybala or Griezmann, and players like de Ligt, de Jong, Koulibaly, Coutinho (IF rumours are true about Barca shopping him) Lucas Hernandez, Fekir Isco, Dembele (should have tried last summer) etc etc etc. Hell I wager we don't even try to get Sarabia by matching his ridiculously low £16m release clause or James Rodriguez (could get him from Bayern by paying for their option to buy of only £39,5m from Real Madrid) That is TWO world class AMF's for only £56m total. We could have had almost 2/3rds of billion quid to play with if we had done a mass purge (all based off real, concrete offers) Zero chance we will ever play up in the stratosphere of the market anymore, not as long as Roman is the owner. The board is also now under a negative feedback loop of fear, do their horrific mistakes in the past 5 years. This Barella fail (grrrrrr) and probable Paredes fail on confirm my dark mood on this. Something has to give soon! Especially if we really fuck up the upcoming likely Hazard CHO exits. What is going to give, I fear, is all hopes of top 4 and thus CL for a period of years.

I cannot believe we are not the ones buying Piatek We are totally helping out a team (Juve) who has CONSTANTLY assfucked us for years as well as empowering AC Milan madness

7 RB's who would be upgrades, some massively so, on Allonso, especially the first 5 all COULD be purchased by us, most on this list will move by the end of next summer Lucas Hernandez Junior Firpo Ben Chilwell Alex Telles José Gayà Alejandro Grimaldo Ferland Mendy the board is shit though (I am sure you will disagree on that as they gave La Tortuga a big renewal) and probably will not move on any they are talking about bringing in Rogerio, a 21yo part time Sassuolo starter on loan from Juve, who may end up being Emerson 2.0, who we will sell for a loss in a couple years You want to see what good fullback play is, go watch Victimpool, go watch Shitty (when Mendy is heathy and I am sure they will soon buy Firpo or Chilwell) Go watch Dortmund, Juve, Barca, Bayern (if they didnt have Alaba and Kimmich they would truly be struggling), hell go watch Leicester. It isn't a coincidence that fullback struggles are playing key roles to many big teams struggling atm.

Unai Emery hoping to guide Arsenal from beneath cloud of gloom ahead of meeting with equally troubled Chelsea https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/01/18/unai-emery-hoping-guide-arsenal-beneath-cloud-gloom-ahead-meeting/ A winter storm is raging at Arsenal, where off-field trouble has combined with an on-field wobble to make this the most testing period yet of the post-Arsène Wenger era. Cracks have formed within the club’s newly-assembled executive team, and a loss of momentum under Unai Emery threatens to darken the mood once more in north London. Given the context, it is hard to avoid the feeling that Saturday evening’s meeting with Chelsea is the most significant match of Arsenal’s season so far. It provides Emery and his players with an opportunity to kick-start a campaign that is beginning to stutter, but it is also a game which Arsenal dare not lose. They start the weekend six points off the top four, knowing that falling any further behind would be close to fatal to their hopes of Champions League qualification. “I think yes,” said Emery, bluntly, when asked if a gap of nine points would be too large to bridge. For a league game in January, then, the stakes could hardly be higher. And so Emery craves a positive response from his squad after a run of three defeats in six league games, calling for them to “play with all we can” in a match he described as a “small final”. The Spaniard had hoped to meet Maurizio Sarri’s side with only three points between the two teams, but those plans were scuppered by a worryingly flat defeat by West Ham United last week. “We had a big challenge against West Ham,” said Emery, who is expecting his meeting with Sarri to result in plenty of goalscoring chances. “We spoke about playing under pressure, which we have to do if we are to be competitive and take this opportunity. After our loss, it is a big difference to be six points behind Chelsea instead of three.” The question will be whether Emery’s tactical tinkering provides Arsenal with enough of an advantage to mask their defensive deficiencies. He has already proven himself more than capable of changing the course of matches from the sidelines, not least during their stirring 22-match unbeaten run earlier in the campaign. In recent weeks, though, the lack of solidity at the back has proved so overwhelming that Emery and his attackers have been simply unable to compensate. snip

I get it, you are an Alonso fanboy. I am not. Conte used him as a wingback, and he also used bloody Moses there. Moses is back on the scrap heap and soon (hopefully) out the door. I think many other players could have been plugged into LWB and we still could have won the EPL 2 years ago. Alonso was not vital to that win. Conte, unlike Sarri, is and was and will be a proven great manager, with a lot of hardware. I go back to Sarri's own words 'Alonso is close to the best fullback in Europe' THAT is, beyond a doubt, delusional. Spain called him up because of injuries, then, the minute both Alba and Gaya were healthy, it was back to the sidelines for Alonso. Why? Because both are vastly superior players. Why do you think Alonso has been shit at every team that has played him at LB? Because he isn't good enough at that position. If you want to see him play in his only fairly good position, tell Sarri to go to a 3 5 2 or a 3 4 3, and when he refuses, sack him and bring back Conte (pro tip, Conte will tell us to fuck right off). Last point, I REALLY have to LOL at your positing that Alonso is a great passer. Patently false.

If the Piatek deal falls though does that mean no Higs?

I will take my chances, and I feel confident I will be the one (along with millions of other Chelsea supporters) to be proven 100% correct. Sarri as a very good manager is entire yet to be proven. ZERO trophies and he has our club on tenterhooks in multiple areas.

Matías Vecino now that Inter have SIX CMF's I bet Sarri will tell Marina to go back to the well on him I would MUCH rather we try for another Inter midfielder the board has fucked up on several years ago and on multiple windows Marcelo Brozovic

SARRI, NO SALE Chelsea miss out on Italian sensation Nicolo Barella as Inter agree £44million fee Box-to-box powerhouse likes yellow cards and Premier League football but is staying in Italy for now https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/8229851/chelsea-nicolo-barella/

LOLOL, ridiculous slating of a superb young player. Based off nothing factual, and using weak logical fallacies.

I can solve this all Alonso is shit as a fullback and we will probably never win a trophy with him there. He had one good (not even a full one) season at wingback 2 years ago. Last year he was semi-shit, and this year he is full stop crap. He literally has the worst cross completion percentage of any full time player in the top 5 European leagues and his extreme lack of pace opens us up like a cheap tin of beans when he saunters forward to lob in yet another shit cross. It truly speaks volumes about how crap Emerson must be if he cant bench this donkey. Sarri is delusional or trying to gaslight when he says La Tortuga is close to the best fullback in Europe. That is simply pure, unadulterated bollocks, 100%.

Serie A transfer deadline Bizarrely, Italian football had originally planned to run a truncated winter window from Thursday, Jan. 3 to Friday, Jan. 18 at 8 p.m. CET. It would appear sense was seen last month, however, with the deadline now restored to Jan. 31 at 8 p.m. CET (3 p.m. ET).

Supposedly it took well over a year.

If that happens I assume we will buy Rogerio from Juve, but he is on loan at Sassuolo, so they would have to recall him (if that is even possible).

And (even though it failed and it looks like we dodged a bullet) Golovin.