The Skipper

It's not just the PL. Higuain went for 75m. You think Dybala would've cost 27m if he was being sold this season?

Ridiculous. Guy is trying to self fund a new stadium for us at £500m. From his own pocket.

He wasn't the right manager for us because we're not going to consistently spend big on players anymore. If that's what he needs to even get us a respectable top 10 league finish. Grade B players like Kevin De Bruyne or a certain Lukaku that we've been rumoured to splash out cash on to get back? Courtois? Filipe Luis, who is one of the best in his position but Mourinho didn't fancy him because he wasn't Ivanovic? Now we severely lack a quality left footed fullback. No matter what way you put it, going from champions to hovering 1 point above the relegation zone after half a season because we didn't get Pogba and Stones is completely unacceptable.

So essentially you're saying that Mourinho can only produce the goods when he has Class A eggs? That's pretty poor tbh. As they say, a great chef should know how to make the most of what he's got. He should still be able to cook up a good meal with average eggs. It's pretty shit that he let it all implode because he couldn't get his targets (all though there's evidence the club tried) Jose and United are a match made then since he will always have an unlimited budget there. He definitely wasn't the right manager for us since that won't be the case for us most of the time. Our huge spending days are behind us for now. We haven't (net) spent much in the last few years at all.

Mourinho got sacked because we were drifting one point above relegation with nearly half the season gone. Nothing more in it tbh. Papy, Baba & Hector were never going to be first teamers here so they definitely weren't the downfall of Jose. You know, I'd be inclined to maybe think your theory was plausible if you know, we were even top 8 in the table. I'd then think his sacking was unfair. But he was stewarding us to the relegation zone and that's unacceptable. The narrative that Jose's sacking was unjustly barely holds any merit to me. We lost 9 games out of 16. 9! We were on form for the worst title defence in PL history.

He really isn't that great, that's why he hasn't been picked up yet.

Arsenal apparently in for £40m rated Raul Gimenez from Atletico. Wouldn't mind him instead of K2 tbh.

Matic doesn't really use his height very well though tbh...

I don't understand the hate people have for Pedro, I think he's a much better squad player than Cuadrado is. People have really forgotten how awful Cuadrado was for us because he had a very average spell at Juve on loan. He can't hack the PL, he literally craps himself on the pitch. Pedro is a better player in my eyes. Never rated Cuadrado to begin with.

Tempted to say we should just buy a really good attacking right fullback. Someone like Fabinho from Monaco. Even though that means we don't have a pure left footed fullback but if we must persist with Azpi there for let's say a season it's fine. There aren't many great left backs out there tbh so I wouldn't mind this.

Dude isn't good enough anyway. Not in the PL for sure. Hearing it's a loan to buy but the buy is obligated which means he's as good as sold. That's fine.

Emenalo and Eddie Newton. That's their job, especially the latter. He will have briefed Conte on our most promising loanees, no doubt. Conte will probably have heard of Christensen anyway as well.

He wouldn't have come back for pre season. He'd have his pre season with BMG I'd imagine.

He wanted to stay, and we had an agreement with BMG. He'll come back next year for sure.

If it's a player of Koulibaly's prestige I actually don't mind this.

They're getting Maksimovic AND Caceres though.

My question is - does he fit in Conte's system?

Extremely average. Stay away.

Yeah, I fully agree. Best solution right now is to invest in the back line so that we can take a bit more risk in midfield.

Ideally, yes. Can't see a player available on the market right now (that would join us) that can get us that though. Which means we have to make do with what we've got for now. We can get pretty good ball circulation going on if we get in a midfield of Oscar, Fabregas and Kante, providing we sign a competent CB and LB. That's the best solution we can get right now.

Well, we can improve our ball circulation if we play Fabregas, but we can't really play Fabregas without too much risk with the defenders we have. So, it's a bit of both actually.

His second half performance was actually very good. This is the sort of role he should've been used in a long time ago. Dude is definitely a B2B midfielder and not a number 10.

I think Cesc has to because it's way too late in the window to find a player of his level. If Cesc is leaving it'll be next season. Conte likes having a pure deep creative midfielder, and he has something to work with with Cesc. I still think Cesc will be important this season but Conte needs better defenders first to mask his deficiencies.

This is why I think we're after another midfielder. Someone defensively capable but also someone who can start attacks well like Kante does. Maybe Chalobah could do that but not sure Conte trusts him.

Typical Costa performance. I know he has his limitations but gosh, I love the dude.