Vesper

Hate to say it (as I was an insanely huge fan, and I REALLY thought he had top ten CB in world eventually written all over him) BUT Zouma is perma damaged goods He is never going to fully recover, IMHO, from that cruciate ligament nightmare 2 years ago.

I have a suggestion for a new official nickname for Jorginhno I thinks it is inch perfect (like his passing) The Metronome

https://www.buildlineup.com/shared/5b5e54eb138c092e24abca00

I posted a really detailed comparison in the Rugani thread. Rugani is a better passer, yes, Caldara is more the hard nose enforcer type.

Tony Pulis's wet dream!!!!!

She said 'You're going where,no man has been before', I said, 'Wot?, what in your ear?'

Makes sense it's Kitson as the source. He is a ginger and the footie kit on his Twitter is orange! Only thing I really remember about him is Tony Pulis at Stoke called him a petulant prick. LOL. I think the only striker Pulis hated more was Berahino at West Brom.

waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too early to go there !!!!!!!

He is deffo one I do NOT want to sell. The guy is pure class and is a great changeup striker. He busts his arse every minute on the pitch and does all the dirty work.

Offer Juve Morata for Alex Sandro, straight swap once we have Martial then buy Bailey or Suso that would all yield a staring line up of GK Cillesson CB AC CB Rudiger (Luiz and Ampadu as backups) I dont care what we do with Cahill, have him park cars outside the Bridge LB Alex Sandro Emerson as backup RB Azpi Zappacosta as backup DMF Kante Bakayoko as backup (eek) we could sell Bakayoko IF their is time and get Vecino to keep Sarri from upping it to 5 packs a day CMF Jorginho Fabregas as back up Moses as backup sell Drinkwater PLEASE!! AMF Barkley/RLC LW Hazard CHO as backup RW Bailey or Suso Pedro as backup Striker Martial with Bats and Giroud as backup I would be sooooooooooo happy with that lineup

We can still sell them Courtois for £35m once we have a keeper lined up Offer Barca a swap, Alonso for Cillesson (they are selling Lucas Digne their backup LB to Everton so need another LB) then we have striker and GK sorted and get rid of the 2 main trouble makers atm surely we can find a LB to support Emerson and a RW (BAILEY) if that is all we need we need to stop arsing about with Italian CB's and dodgy CMF's

THE ONLY way I would not do this double deal is IF Man U offers a swap of MARTIAL FOR WILLIAN

Norbert Elgert: Schalke's academy guru behind Özil, Draxler, Sane, Neuer, Goretzka and many more https://www.bundesliga.com/en/news/Bundesliga/leroy-sane-ozil-draxler-all-owe-schalke-s-norbert-elgert-debt-of-gratitude-475024.jsp his youth coach

yep

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-6004491/Real-Madrid-make-100m-bid-Chelseas-Willian-Thibaut-Courtois.html

FTW

I agree with most of what you say- I so hope you do not think I am saying to sell all those NOW, in the last 11 days. I just think the whole top of the structure is in bad shape and they do (what appears to me) to be some really shoddy work from a systemic perspective. Half of me wishes he would sell it Jim Ratcliffe ASAP. Not my call

Chelsea transfer news: Blues offer £40m for defender Mattia Caldara after switching focus from Juventus teammate Daniele Rugani https://talksport.com/football/405310/chelsea-mattia-caldara-teammate-daniele-rugani/

Juve are refusing to sell Rugani to us now. We got Alex Sandro'd once again. Now this, lolol Chelsea transfer news: Blues offer £40m for defender Mattia Caldara after switching focus from Juventus teammate Daniele Rugani It appears Maurizio Sarri’s men have had a change of heart https://talksport.com/football/405310/chelsea-mattia-caldara-teammate-daniele-rugani/ Chelsea have reportedly submitted a £40m bid for Mattia Caldara, having cooled their interest in his teammate Daniele Rugani. The Blues were heavily linked with a move for 24-year-old, Italian, Juventus centre-back Rugani, however are now instead eyeing a different 24-year-old, Italian, Juventus centre-back. According to La Repubblica, Chelsea director Marina Granovskaia met with Juve’s Fabio Paratici in Nice after the London club’s pre-season friendly against Inter. The end result of this meeting is that a €45m (£40m) offer has been submitted with the aim of bringing Caldara to Stamford Bridge.

Its not outrageous at all. it is called future-forward basic management and pre-planning in a complex market. The hedge fund I work at has tens of billions under management, and if we started to plan mergers and acquisitions only in their targeted closing period (in football terms, the transfer window), we would soon be liquidated and sued into the abyss for financial malpractice. Look at Bayern Munich, they are brilliant, with their year over year targeting and use of pre-contract tie-ups. You say that to lose those players I listed would cause utter chaos. What do you think we are in now? What do you think last year was? Give me a D I E G...... I am NOT suggesting we sell any of the core of the team. Ex-core perhaps, but many or all I listed are peripheral and even marginal players that we immediately or certainly within 3 to 6 months of season's end (in the case of Bakayoko for instance) knew were not going to work out to any sort of acceptable level. Drinkwater is even more egregious. He never should have been purchased, especially at the ridiculous overpricing we incurred. Also, IF we had been doing our due diligence for the last 5 years in a timely and professional manner(clue on professionalism, it IS NOT having Granny take the first month of the window off for a bloody holiday) this buildup of rot would never have taken place. All those dead-weights I listed could have been methodically pre-shopped, and parcelled out as soon as the window opened for official paperwork, or at least within a couple weeks span. It is not like our legal staff cannot handle multiple contract writing once the prices and terms have been agreed. Any legal firm in The City worth its salt could handle that. It is also literally insane to expect a 'one in only after one out' policy when you are talking about a multi-billion pound club in a highly fluid and hyper-compressed transfer window environment that the bellends at the FA have shackled all of us with. We are not in the Cock 'N Cow Sunday pub kick about league. If the firms I have dealt with in my financial career or have come into contact with via case studies in my academic journeys had played their cards like we have (again from the business/fiduciary end especially) they would all be in receivership or administration (something that seems to permeate the football world to an amazing degree already). We have not even filled the Technical Director position for months upon months since Emenalo left in November! Do you think any publicly traded company would leave its CFO or CEO position utterly vacant for a year??

I agree with this fine gentleman from the lovey part of England known as Kent

to move forward, you have to do more than just retain territory already possessed my gran could have accomplished what we have done (not sell Hazard and Courtois and Kante, one of which we will lsoe on a free next summer, and quite possible sell the other then for £50- 100m less than we could have gotten now) all she would have had to do was not answer the phone Also we will have lost another 75 to 100m plus or so in combined resale value on the ageing (all the following are over 30 or next summer will be damn close to it) Alonso, Willian, Luiz, Fàbregas, Drinkwater, Pedro, Giroud and the younger Moses and bakayoko (who will never be worth more than now as long as we have them) Add up the £80m courtois is worth and we will get nothing on a free or next to nothing if we sell him in January, the 50 to 100m (I split difference and call it £75m less) we get for Hazard (IF he doesn't re-sign) and the 75ishm in lost value from the rest that's well over £200m LESS cash we will have, just for sitting on our asses (and they STILL will need to be replaced, in an even more expensive market than thsi summer's) that's pure loss, all from poor management That doesnt even count the £75-100m plus we lost not qualifying for the CL it isnt surprising that Abramovich has lost 16 billion of his £25 or so billion net worth in the last last 5 to 7 years (he is down to £8.93 billion as of Jan1, 2018), if his team building skills (both in executive suite and on the field) are any reflection

Two of the 3 may think if they stay away long enough that we will sell them. Costa 2.0

If this transfer window (and the whole general direction of the club for the last year) is what a club pushing for CL places looks like,then I think we must think the entire top half of the EPL table qualifies for the CL. We have but added one new diamond to a broken bracelet that loses more lustre and links each week. We also brought in a new jewellery salesman and expect him to sell that broken bracelet for double the price the last salesman tried to and failed to do, and that was when it was in far better shape. As incentive, we are offering customers a 38 year old free box of Green candy.