King Kante

Well yeah, if Tammy starts banging them in like Haaland then no worries. However, that kid is well on course to be the generational CF. Of course the wheels could come off for him in the next two years but if they do not, you have to go for a player like that if you're an ambitious club. Cu*t agent or not. As for Donnarumma, yeah I guess he may not be worth it. However, he only has a year left and we've blown £141m on Kepa, so corners are going to have to be cut somewhere. If it is Onana or having to deal with Mino's sound bites in the media, I go for Donnarumma. As I have said before, I have not seen Cakir or Rajkovic. So, maybe they are great but I am not someone who recommends/dismisses a player based on stats and youtube highlights.

Yeah. I know, Mino is a real fu*ker. However, sometimes you need to bite the bullet. For instance in 12-24 months Haaland is going to be on the market. I know we probably have very little chance of getting him (I reckon he goes to City) but it would be insane not to try due to his agent.

The financially savvy thing to do at GK is to buy a old GK that is decent then start tapping up Donnarumma and sign him on a free next Summer.

Been amazing as he helps give us an out when under pressure. His treatment after the first three/four games of the season to late Feb/early March was baffling.

I wouldn't say he was that amazing today as he got himself into a couple of bad positions and against rushed out and missed something and Zouma had to bail him out. For me, Rudi is going to be saved by the age and quality of the rest of our CB's but I do not really want him to be anything more than CB3 next year.

Edit: just seen it was already posted.

Yeah, I have been doing a bit more research on Onana recently. From what I have seen, he is one of those GK's that cannot handle anything and pushes everything away, a lot of time back into dangerous areas.

Goal line technology not working Yeah, Bournemouth must be fuming. Wouldn't be surprised if they sue.

I am happy that they got the Ropey League. Last thing we needed was Jose having a whole week to drill his team. Could've pulled some Conte sh*t if he had done that (although I would've said it would allow him to get top 4 rather than the league.) As for the game, so happy. Really needed the CL. Only disappointment is Utd made it. However, when you keep on getting cheap penalties over and over, you cannot expect much else.

That looks like he arrived at the ground and he hadn't done his homework. So has just realised that if we do not get a draw at least it will be Ropey League football.

Yeah, but I like that. Football players these days are far too cookie cutter in their personalities. Give me a Diego/Morelos any day.

Because about ten years ago everyone was masturbating over Barca's tika taka so a lot of clubs had their youth teams set up their coaching to produce similar type players. This is also why there are hardly any decent CB's knocking about either as quality on the ball was prized over defensive fundamentals.

Well he has the problem in that he is pretty slow, JT had the same problem when AVB tried to make him play the high line. However, most of his game now makes him CB1/2. They really missed him when he was out a few games back.

Ah, totally forgot about that post. The pressure is obviously going to my head! About time. Warning signs have been there for a long time. Big shame as he cost us so much but he needs to go as he just isn't good enough. As for the game, Kante is a big loss, really needed his legs. That said Moutinho and Traore on the beach is a bonus, if we can get 2 goals ahead by 60 mins we may be able to do it, as Traore on the break and Moutinho's deliveries were two of my biggest concerns. Come one Chels! Lets do this.

De Ligt had a rough first few months (and largely because of the ridiculous hand ball interpretation in Italy) but is now either their best defender or second best defender. The failed to settle has been largely overplayed since Jan.

When have I said it before?

What has Martinez done this year to warrant such a high valuation? Whenever I have seen him, I have never been all that impressed.

Agree. I think he was way over hyped but it needs to be remembered he is only 19 and he has just come off a really bad injury. I reckon next season we will see a lot more of him and he will prove himself to be a good squad player at the very least.

I have zero faith that we will get the result needed tomorrow and reckon we will need Utd to bail us out. I honestly have no faith whatsoever in our GK and defence. Having absolute nightmares of Moutinho and Neves whipping in balls to Jimenez and Traore and Jota breaking on a counter.

Just trying to figure out what the budget may be for us. I am going to base things from Jan 19 as I think that is the most fair way of doing things; Brought Pulisic - £58m Kovacic - £38m Ziyech - £37m Werner - £48m Total - £131m Sold Morata - £50m Hazard - £90m + bonus Luiz - £8m Pasalic - £13.5m Nathan - £2.7m Lamptey - £3m Aina - £7m Kalas - £8m Hector - £4m Omeruo - £4m Cesc - £8m £198.5m + Hazard bonuses That tells me that Harvetz must be pretty much the end of our buys without sales. From looking at the squad and what we need, I would say, we need: GK, LB, CB, CB/DMF (this last one is much lesser a concern that the first three.) How much are we going to need for that? My feeling with the current players needing to be shipped out is that we could do something like the following (prices have been arrived at as we need to sell and Covid); Barkley - £25m, Batsh*t - £15m, Emerson - £15m, Bakayoko - £15m, Zouma - £30m. That for me is around £100m. If that is the case, £25-£30m will go on a LB, which leaves us with £70m for a GK and CB. If we want a DMF/CB (Rice) I reckon we would have to get rid of a Jorgi or Kante to fund it.

I would disagree a GK's stats are like a CB's stats when it comes to analysis on goals conceded. A GK is more like a CF in that few clean sheets should be seen as few goals. Obviously a GK, cannot record clean sheets by himself but he is also at the mercy of his team mates just like a CF. If a centre forward has poor supply he has fewer goals. So, yeah the clean sheet stats count. Further, go have a look at Kepa's Opta shot map. Honestly, it is even worse than I thought it would be. Essentially he only saves the ball if it is down the middle, either side and you have an a massive chance to score. As for other areas of Kepa. Looking back at his play for Athletic, there were the glaring errors that we still see today; Inexplicably swinging his arms before attempting a shot - this is a massive massive massive red flag. A GK should not do this as it means they are more than likely going to miss the ball as they do not have the time to get across. Incredibly low save % of one v one's in comparison to other GK's because of his poor positioning/decision making Getting rooted to the spot for long range shots Getting too square to save cut backs and/or getting himself caught in no mans land. Making silly errors This is all there. As I said with the other GK's there was much better evidence that they were great GK's. Kepa may have had some flashy saves (like his one against Fulham, where everyone gets slightly excited because they can then watch some gifs) but he was also error prone. As for the Madrid fall through. If you think Kepa is potentially a £70m+ GK and you have a business model that involves buy to loan then surely you go for it at £21m. This is a club that in 2011 spend £7m on Tibo (which was actually quite a lot for a GK then) to only loan him out for three years. So, yes. If the club rated Kepa so high and where tracking him to a level you would expect, he should've been signed then. It is clear they club where not tracking him then as otherwise it is just another level of insanity. You say they were hoping Tibo would re-sign but when exactly were they expecting him to do so? By that point it had been over 18 months of him refusing. How much more rejection did they need? No one was expecting the club to buy a Oblak/Alisson mid-season. However, what you do is you sound them out and make sure you get your ducks lined up so they know of your interest and they can plan to move their families. All the noise from Oblaks side was that we left it to late to contact him i.e. went for him at the same sort of time we went for Kepa, that indicates panic as you do not go to a GK like Oblak two weeks before a season and try to do a world record deal. As for De Gea, I think you misunderstand what the yips is. The yips can mean the end of a career as the players head has completely gone, it doesn't just mean he is in poor form but will 100% recover. Utd's contract extension was silly. However, De Gea did justify it to a certain extent with his performances. I am not saying he will recover, I am saying he has the yips which means he could be done but it is due to it being a mental thing rather than a ability thing. Oh well, if Pepe Reina said to Sarri Kepa was a good GK, what other choice did we have than to buy him for £72m and on £170k a week for 7 years? Quick, we had better also ask him which CB's he rates as well. Don't want to miss out on any other nuggets of wisdom he has.

SP talks too much sh*t. 3rd rate ITK.

Again don't disagree but there is still the problem that his stats where not good. The other GK's had great stats. De Gea is currently also bad but that looks more like a player with the yips than a player that is simply poor. If it wasn't for him the five years after Fergie left, gods knows how bad it could've got for Utd. As for the Madrid move, if that falls through then surely you just jump in if you rate him so high, especially if six months down the line you spunk £72m on him and your club runs a buy to loan portfolio. Further, Tibo, Oblak, Alisson (from Brazil to Roma) all went for reasonable/low fees and wages. None went for world records and made one of the top five paid GK's in the world.

I agree, but the problem is Mo, it doesn't appear any of what you outline is the case. I say this because: 1) His stats where poor/not great at Athletic. 2) He has a £18m buy out in the Jan before we brought him and at that time he was on sub-€10k. If we were tracking/watching with intent why not buy then? We do loan to buys all the time. This also goes double when your current No.1 has been stalling on an extension for 18+ months by that point. 3) He had only played 56 professional games when we had brought him so any analysis was based on a small data set.

I have always said Jorgi is a final piece of the jigsaw type player rather than one to build your team around. You're right, if he had been playing for City (las season in particular) people would've been having fantasy wa*ks over him as he would've been so integral for them. However, a further problem is that he is an idiosyncratic player, in that he needs to play in a team that is obsessed with ball retention. That means we has to play under a Wenger/Pep/Sarri type manager and/or a club like Barca where possession is their No.1 concern. My feeling on Jorgi is that; 1) He is a very good player, but 2) He isn't a SFL/Chelsea type player. For this reason, I can see him going if a decent offer comes in but that is due to a stylistic clash and not due to his quality.