Vesper

I agree, we waited FAR too long, and now it will not happen. I would absolutely take Areola at this point. The only thing I don't like about Cillesson is that he will be 30 in April, but that is nitpicking. Either will do the job. Not making offers for Alex Meret and Alban Lafont was foolish too.

Thomas Strakosha is better than them both.

Icardi and Dybala are 2 of only 5 total that interest me to a huge excitement level Those 2 on the same team would be crazy Not that we are going to ever make moves for them, but just wanted to add the only other strikers/secondary striker I truly love are Mbappe (he is more of a winger I guess, but plays as a secondary striker often) and Firmino Number 5 would be Martial (only as a striker, which I think is his natural position and why I was (am) still cray cray to get him on our team.

That is also my main worry. He parks the bus in the right corner and does 14 leg flair moves. I have hope Sarri can get him out of that slowdown play. I am resigned to the fact he is here for the year. Courtois too. Morata as well. Hopefully all 3 put in career years.

AWOL was before he came out with the passport story. After the Costa shit, I trust a lot less too.

Golovin is a better example. I did see what I thought was too harsh slagging going on and then many got the vapours when Monaco gazumped us. He wasnt one if my top 4 AMF (Not sure what to call SMS who is a hybrid) choices, but would have not been upset at all had we signed him. 1 Isco but only way to get him was to sell Hazard 2 Nabil Fekir but I still think LPool goes back for him. His knee worries me a tad. 3 Talisca ....my number one January window want as that is when his Chinese loan is up. He is PERFECT for Sarriball. Tall, ultra pacey, and scores a tonne of goals. Superior to anything we have had since Lampard. Big upgrade over Barkley IMHO. Time will tell how Barkley and RLC handle AMF. 4 Lucas Paquetá young Flamengo potential star.

I fail to see this. I do not recall a tonne of Higuain boosters here. Most have been quite sceptical or at least not full on fan boys/girls. I think a lot of somewhat tepid support has been due to Morata's implosion over the last 6 months. add to that shite like this from him CHELSEA STRIKER ‘OFFERS HIMSELF BACK TO FORMER SIDE’ http://www.talkchelsea.net/transfers/chelsea-striker-alvaro-morata-offers-himself-back-to-real-madrid-report/

so you dispute he is not at training camp?? LOL and the passport was HIS OWN EXCUSE, not some made up keyboard commando's

I deal with a couple of these I never said Emerson WOULD be a flop, I said IF he was we are in a bit of a sticky wicket. I do think Alonso is not up to the task, perhaps I am wrong, but his lack of speed (and overall defensive awareness) is very worrisome in a wide open 4 3 3 that we will employ In regards Morata, I am open (but also worried) as to his ability to come good. I was never on the Higuain train. Martial and Icardi trains? Hell yes, but wishes are like arseholes, everyone has one. I am ALL in for Morata now to succeed as we have probably fucked up any chance at Martial, and we FOOLISHLY (this makes me angry) did not buy Icardi for only £98m (he has a 2 week, July 1 to July 15 each year release clause) when the chance was there 98m for the worlds best or 2nd best pure striker (CR7 plays all over) is a steal, especially as he is only 25 (turned that 5 months ago) Now, for GK. You didn't list all the myriad good options We had opportunities to buy (Bold means the best ones we should have went for) Alisson (I agree, was overpriced) Oblak, once no swap plus cash (as he is in the city Courtois yearn to go back to) was possible, he instantly fell off my radar. And now the fails that fall directly upon us, all the following are/were legit replacements, miles beyond what we have if Courtois was sold now.... Alban Lafont, went for ridiculously low price, and will, I think turn into a superstar over the next 3 years or so (he is only 19, but already 3 full Serie A season under his belt) Gianluigi Donnarumma He wanted to leave, AC Milan was banned from Europe football, all we had to do was meet his (less than Alisson) price (Milan said they would swap for Morata at one time (thats was said by their actual people, not some twitter rumour) We twatted around, AC Milan won their CAS appeal, and now we have lost all leverage Kepa Arrizabalaga superb young keeper, we didnt even try, Real tried to get him on the cheap and he then signed a 10 year contract, but Bilbao are the type of club you wave serious cash in their face, they sell usually Mattia Perin really good 25yo Italian, he would have been good here, he is in running for 1st team keeper for Italian national team, Juve ended up snagging he for peanuts Alex Meret 22yo Italian, I rate him over Perin even, really vexed me that we made zero approach, Napolit got him for around only £19m and now the ones still available (and yet we do fuckall) Thomas Strakosha My number one choice overall, why we didnt buy him and then sell Courtois is probably the biggest frustration of the window for me, maybe after Martial Jasper Cillessen another one who we could get, and via a swap perhaps (Alonso) Barca are selling their only good backup LB, Lucas digne so nned a LB, AND have wanted Alsonso for last 2 years. Alonso has roughly the same value (40m euros) as Cillesson's release clause) Alphonse Areola Definitely an option too, not my favourite of whose left (Strakosha 1, Cillesson 2) but still would be fine André Onana wild card Ajax 22yo, loads of talent, so athletic, great with ball, but he is bit of a wild child and finally 2 well known Spanish keepers who would be adequate and miles better than the shit we have after Courtois Sergio Rico from Sevilla 24yo, really good, not great but would more than do for the price Gerónimo Rulli from Real Sociedad 26yo, i have seen him play like 5,6 times last year, is on par with Rico As for Willian, we shall see, I hope his head is on straight, I only wanted to sell him NOW because of the insane 65m 70m prices being banged around, and the teams involved (2 out of the EPL, and then a Man U team who I REALLY wanted Martial off of, and would do a swap plus 10m if need to get him. Also the fact that there were great (still are) RW upgrades or on par for him ALL far younger Leon Bailey my number one choice, saw zero concrete movement by us Suso, a younger (24) clone of Jose Callejon Ousame Demebele (again Barca wanted to do a swap deal, and Willian plus Alonso was a suggested swap BY THEM, maybe with a wee bit of cash tossed in as sweetener) Malcom (GRRRRR we bollocksed that shit up BAD, he was my second choice after Bailey, we could have had him for only £36.5m!! ) Federico Bernardeschi (Juve have THREE starting level LWers and they wanted cash to go for Pogba) Christian Pulisic (for a decent price, i do not think he is worth atm what Dortmund want) Federico Chiesa Fiorentina maybe even better than Bernardeshi, wonderful young Italian RW ALL those but Malcom are still out there At the end of day, all the problematics MAY come good, they may totally break their bad form they have had (I never btw,wanted to sell pedro at all) odds are small all come good I am not slagging the club out I am being realistic and looking at big, long term picture If I didn't care about my Blues, i would not be writing books (lolol) on here

At this point, who knows, as the model of operations being pursued at present surely seems to be a 'one out before one' comes in scheme. The £60m net spend cap was reached with one buy, Jorgingo. No sales of import have occurred since then, and no incoming transfers that were not frees have occurred since. They are treating the players as if they were fungible assets, and operating at a zero sum game base level. Players have highly complex inputs and outputs that determine their value. Performance on the field, age, health, reputation, marketability, etc etc. In terms of age they are generally on a pretty predictable bell curve, with some exceptions. A true inflection point (it is partly due to human psychology and the way we perceive ageing milestones on a decade by decade long basis) is when a player hits 30. We are going to run face first into that brick wall (or already have) with a large core of the team over the next couple of years. Kante, Hazard, Alonso, Azpi, Moses, Drinkwater, and Willian all hit 30 within a 10 day (Willian turns 30 on the day this window slams shut) to 2, 2 and a half year span. Fabregas, Pedro, Cahill, Luiz, Giroud are all 31 or older. The reason this matters is because Abramovich seems to have defaulted to funding the influx of players by selling the players already under contract. The contractual situations also further complicate this revenue stream, as I have already stated above (Courtois leaving on a free if not sold, Hazard, with only one year left next year, all all his erstwhile suitors holding all the cards in terms of being able to pay fractional value for him to finally bring him in their door. Chelsea is a top 5 in the world club (I have seen it as high as 2nd, or as low as 5th, depending on the evaluating organisation) in terms of market value. A HUGE reason for this is the billions in telly revenue and CL revenue that we have taken in due to our great successes since Roman bought CFC. He also just wound down any further development for a new stadium. That is a MASSIVE future forward loss of revenue, not just in terms of amount of bodies in the seats but even more so for the loss of luxury box and corporate revenues. That will put a huge governor on how much we can spend for club upkeep as the revenue streams will be vastly smaller without a new, state of the art home. Combine that with an upcoming severe trough that is rapidly approaching in terms of current squad valuation (and thus another limit to renewal due to hundreds of millions less to spend coming from sales) and the entire model breaks down. The loan army can but bring in so much, and if we drop out of any realistic hope for CL or even UEFA Europa League, that is a compounding synergistic factor as well. Further revenue loss not just from missing prize monies, but also from a loss of global prestige. Look at Ajax for a multi-decade example of this. Roman has SERIOUS legal issues with the UK government. He cannot even enter the country, and billions of his holdings are subject to the US/UK/NATO-driven Russian sanctions that are only going to be increased as the madness that is this new cold war is levered up. He also has lost 60% of his peak £25 billion net wealth in the last 6,7, 8 years or so due to market debasements and probably some poor business decisions (I have obviously not done a forensic analysis of his books so cannot give you a clear-view accurate accounting of this loss of wealth.) Add up the totality of the mise en scène that is CFC and its placement in the greater world, and unless there are dramatic changes that go FAR beyond a shit transfer window, it truly might be time to sell the old girl.. The newly anointed richest man in the UK, a certain Mr. Ratcliffe, seems to be quite interested in the colour blue these days.

I absolutely stand by what I said. If nothing else happens this window that is exactly what we are staring down the barrel of. Also, if he is going to stop spending money to any sort of degree (and again, that is where we are if nothing else happens in terms of incoming signings) that is not acceptable and the clubs will start to melt away. Nothing in that is drama at all. It is a stone cold analysis of the facts on the ground so far. I take a very granular level look at things, I never go off half cocked because this player or that player didn't get signed. Looking closely at things, and then panning back to a wider panorama yields what I just wrote, subject of course, to change in the next nine days. Things can indeed change in that short term event horizon, but until then, what I typed is as good as any picture of what can and likely will happen in terms of most of my projections, especially from the numerical valuation end. Time waits for no man or woman.

What part of what I posted isnt true? He did not show up, and now claims it is passport issues. Both those are facts, not rumours.

I couldn't care less that we missed out on Higuain. It is no real long term loss at all. I never wanted in the first place. Look at ever single line-up I make. He isnt in any.

If this is the new Roman model going forward he has to sell. We lose Courtois on a free next year, Hazard will leave for half what he worth (or less) Willian will be 30 going on 31 so resale is shot. Pedro will be 32. Alonso value will plummet this year. If Emerson doesn't come good in a huge way we are fucked at LB. Kante will deffo bolt as well I fear. Unless Morata has a huge year his resale value will be shite. Who knows what will happen to Bats. God help us if Azpi or AC or Rudiger get hurt. Willian is now going AWOL and is going to be poison in the locker room if we force him to stay against his will. We are digging a hole for ourselves that will be insanely hard to get out of for 2019-2020 without a new owner who will splash massive cash.

by cover you mean sub for him? cuz if you play Kante, Jorginho and Vecino all at same time you have a big problem with creativity and offensive thrusts there is ZERO chance that Vecino can play AMF well

William just went AWOL and didn't show up to training camp claims it is passport issues https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/6905429/willian-chelsea-training-passport/

he's very close to signing a 3 year contract (€4.5m) he is over 30 so that puts post paid to any desires we may have to hijack, we dont do multi years for over 30's

we need to have a 'De Laurentiis Is a Right Proper Cunt' thread Maurizio Sarri slammed as 'one-dimensional' by Napoli chief http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-6010505/Chelsea-manager-Maurizio-Sarri-slammed-one-dimensional-Napoli-chief.html

Unless we sell Bakayoko or Drinkwater (or a combo of 2 out of three between Cahill and Moses and Zouma) we are done buying. I am convinced. £60m net was what Roman said at beginning of window and so far that has held up. We will be have to be 2016-2017 lucky to finish top 4 with the lot we have.

Maybe in bizarro reverso world. How much have you watched him play? I have seen him around 10 Serie A games just this year, maybe 25 overall, plus the WC. He is profoundly ordinary. I have listed 20 plus (including his teammate Roberto Gagliardini) who would be far better buys for what is his role.

Hell yes they have!! especially holding onto Icardi!!!

Abramovich warned us all at beginning of window. £60m net spend. I certainly thought that meant a shit tonne of sales and use that for upgrades. Looks like I was dead wrong. Unbelievable we didn't dump Bakayoko, Cahill, Moses, Zouma, Drinkwater, and Courtois. That would have least gave us £170m to play with and NONE of those save Courtois is going to play for shit this year. That amount of cash could have gotten a really good keeper to replace Courtois, plus Bailey, and Fekir. Add in the already paid for Jorginho and it would have been a great window.

you be lucky if 22 quid got you 2 pints and 2 pies now

Bayern Munich accept Inter offer for Vidal https://www.calciomercato.com/en/news/bayern-munich-accept-inter-offer-for-vidal-56038 Not that I want him AT ALL, but this might free up Vecino as they now have up to SEVEN CMF's

Yep, I have been watching it on Italian sports telly all morning. Thanks for the confirmation