The Skipper

In case anyone asks, I have merged the Summer In-Out thread with general transfer talk as a lot of the discussions overlap.

Or we sign a CB and bring back Christensen next season...

Dude is in top shape. Can't wait for him to perform this season.

I recall reading that the club tried to bring him back but Andreas actually wanted to spend the season at Gladbach, as an undisputed starter at a CL club. I think everyone isn't happy about our defence at the moment but I believe the club and Contr are working hard to rectify that right now.

I'd be more willing to give Batshuayi a chance than sign Lukaku to be honest. We need another attacking player, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a pure striker like Lukaku. I wouldn't mind if we signed a top winger and moved Hazard central as a second striker, for example.

-----------------Costa Hazard--Kante--Cesc--Willian --------------Chalobah-- New LB--New CB--Zouma--Azpi ----------------Courtois For me, the best team. While Zouma recovers, I'd play JT. It's not a bad team at all though.

Yeah, I think so too. There aren't many top class CMs up for grabs at the moment anyway, it's going to be difficult to pry away the scarce talent available. I.e. Rubén Neves for Porto. We should perhaps try for him next season when we secure CL football. I'm not too worried about the lack of defensive signings. I think the fact that we shipped out Baba means we're definitely going to get a fullback in which is good. I think we'll get a top CB in as well hopefully soon. Personally, right now I'd be trying to for Marquinhos - think he'd complement Zouma superbly.

I think he's thinking about it. But he also wants to probably give Matic a chance to build up his confidence. If Matic still doesn't perform, hopefully he'll start blooding in Nate properly. I've always believed in Nathaniel's talent, and I really hope his time has finally come because the kid is proper Chels and is a proper natural leader. We severely lack players like that at the moment.

How have you determined that Chelsea have said that Andreas isn't ready? We agreed a two year loan and we didn't include a callback, so we have to honour that. Doesn't mean we don't think he's ready.

Yeah. I want to see a Fabregas - Chalobah - Kante midfield as well.

Can't see us signing a CM tbh. Too stacked there. Don't see any of our CMs leaving either.

He makes TOO much sense.

We should stay as far away as possible from Jetro as well.

He's actually a great talent. One of the top rated from South America. Don't think we really need another DM at the moment though - unless we're actually getting rid of Mikel.

I wondered why we weren't in for Digne. Would've been a really good signing. Good player.

I think he's quite limited technically (apart from having an amazing set piece/cross on him) tbh. Don't think he'll do as well in the PL but he is an improvement over Baba. If his supposed release clause is £21m then I'd welcome him. Good player. A few other interesting options would be Jose Gaya from Valencia and maybe Kurzawa from PSG if we could steal him. A hipster/wildcard option would be someone like Jordan Amavi who I think has massive potential if he can get over that cruel injury he had.

Seems like Arsenal are genuinely interested in this guy. A midfield of Ramsey - Xhaka - Mahrez - Ozil - Sanchez, with Cazorla, Wilshere and Coquelin supporting is pretty outstanding tbh.

I love the geezer but wouldn't be that fussed if he was sold if his replacement wasn't Lukaku but someone like Suarez, Aguero, Lewandowski, maybe even Benzema or Cavani but that isn't the case. I definitely wouldn't sell Costa for Lukaku though. Especially not at £60m/75m whatever it is. He isn't worth that money whatsoever and I don't ever think Lukaku can ever be a top top striker for the club we aspire to be anyway. Think he peaked early and we'll only see marginal changes in his game. Batman is more talented and has a much higher ceiling. The geezer is not a top top club striker. Do you think he'd be able to fire us to the top of the league like Costa has done for us or Atletico? Nope. He goes missing way too often. He's too limited and his ego is way too big - he thinks he's much better than he is. Funnily enough he doesn't ever seem to fight for his team much either. His off the ball movement is shocking as well in my opinion, Costa is leagues ahead in that term. We shouldn't be selling Costa unless we are actually bringing someone better in. And that certainly isn't Lukaku.

Absolutely. Doesn't get much more Chels than Nate also.

We really need better wingers if we're playing Hazard in the middle.

Jay just turned 18 a few months back, Aina is 20 in a month or two. Aina has always been a solid dependable youth player, and I guess that's what Conte likes about him. Also probably that he can mold Aina into a great utility player because of his versatility.

Jury's still out for him from me too, but not because of pre season. Because he's dropped form significantly over the last year and a half. Now last season is a bit exacerbated but what concerns me is that his form was declining from the season before. He hasn't had consecutive top seasons yet in his career if I'm not wrong. He had 1 excellent season at Benfica, two halves of excellent seasons here, and the rest of his career has either been distinctively average or bad. Is that Matic we saw an anomaly or not? I guess we'll find some answers this season...

His technique is one of his best attributes I would say. From what I've seen of him for Marseille, the main thing he needs to work on is finessing his off the ball movement a bit and becoming a bit more clinical. If he does that we have a player on our hands.

Eden struggled to score last season too. He was a lot worse than Pedro in even getting into goal scoring positions. I'm havent really taken much of last season as a season that defined any player's traits or abilities. We saw for Barcelona that Pedro has a good goal scoring instinct. I would say that he actually has a better goal scoring instinct than Eden. That's not a knock on Eden, just that they are different players. Eden is first and foremost a dribbler, whereas Pedro's strength lie in his off the ball runs, hence why he gets himself in better goal scoring positions to begin with. If Eden could only grasp that aspect of Pedro's game and add it to his own he'd be much more of a threat as a goal scorer.

Pedro scores...