Vegetable

By the end of this window we will come to conclusion that Lukaku is good player after all and should be given chance once again as he scored goals in Italy and can pull the defenders out. The state of things. I'm fine with Felix and Osimhen as part of swap deal and hopefully sell with profit, but not getting much hope something clearly failed in the past will suddenly turn out good now.

I was stuck on "no contact made" version. If so, that's totally different thing. Don't want to be a naysayer, but isn't Osimhen bit more of a gamble than some of us want to think? All major clubs backed off their interest, his value is down, our "technical staff" greenlights it… Personally I'd prefer a loan and potential haggling later than being stuck with another expensive player with no end product. Not like we have never bought limited player in decline from easier league before…

Weren't the same tier 1 journos reporting that clubs treat each deal separately and they are in no way connected like, earlier today? Prime soap opera until it's done.

Oh yeah, absolutely agree, he is invisible since the start and I'm not a smallest bit surprised - what I meant it's totally on the owners, buying 40 million player for 120 million won't make him 120 million player. Yet some folks insisted we need to overpay twice for Caicedo for Enzo to work and this saga seems to continue to this day, as I still see the ideas of building entire team around him for some reason. Not sure if Mbappe had this kind of luxury in oil money club. And quite recently whole world could see what kind of leader/captain material Enzo is - not the best. AND they are trying to snug Kante. These guys took it personal indeed 😄 Not gonna lie, I'm 100 times more positive with Gallagher staying, than replacing him with another busload of random players for 50 million each for sake of virtual profit on books, that will be spent on another dross random players in matters of minutes.

And I wouldn't even blame the guy tbh. He had nothing to warrant his pricetag in the beginning, our owners getting carried away (initial offer was like 1/3 less and it was attractive offer) and a lot of fans going absolutely apeshit with him being future captain and better Fabregas for next 10 years to come isn't really Enzo's fault. This kind of pressure is what snubs young players more often, than helps them grow.

Same as no one is willing to do business with Napoli and whoever else. Money talks in the end. We constantly do business with teams that played us dirty multiple times in the past, starting with st. Brighton for example.

Are there any new regulations that would prevent us from having feeder club and offloading players there? I feel like we could form decent-ish Bundesliga / Serie A / Ligue 1 team with unwanted players, take off pressure from outgoing transfers, do financial magic and develop all those random kids there. Where are the downsides and why the matters seem to be stuck for third year now?

1. How to fail medical at Chelsea? There must be some other big issue, esp. that journous don't really point to medical. 2. When Felix was leaving there was rather universal opinion that he is super nice lad, but useless for Chelsea and must go. Now suddenly he is great deal again and after two invisible seasons in Spain he will be super useful when we have 10 other players on his position and/or expect him to perform better when played out of position? Not only our owners seem to have ultra short memory. And for 32836 time - personally I don't care about highlights and stats from Serie A or La Liga. Cool to be great attacker when things are happening slow motion around you, but it doesn't translate to PL for a smallest bit. Just stop buying million random players for sake of it. Maybe give Saul a call once again, surely it's gonna work this time.

I'm not convinced by club's current signings philosophy, but there is some philosophy indeed and Osimhen would stick out radically. He has some reputation, a lot of big clubs were after him last year, was priced >100 million at some point and is 25 or 26 already. Clearlake doesn't learn a slightest bit, but they seem to be traumatized after buying bigger names in the beginning and they surely know how Lukaku came to be here. Would be quite surprised if this move went through.

Whole operation seems to hang for its life on this assumption and with global economy being rather troubled lately this seems even riskier. The super high-ticket transfers seem to not happen that often as even the oil money slowed down, but prices may flatten a bit, eg. mediocre players not being much cheaper than good ones, so it may kinda play out in our favor, but again, 3-5 years is not that far horizon, FFP aside, with wages included I'm not sure there will be huge profits, given the losses we will have to chew up with current roster

Once again I feel like decisive people weren't properly briefed on that tiny little HG thing on a lot of levels. Not even going into how ridiculous it is to sell him, especially for this price.

Any info on Kepa's situation? After spending bajilion on 12 goalkeepers we've came to a point where he looks like solid 1st choice.

Wonder if club still trusts Mudryk to turn out of any use, it's a marketing thing or he was simply too expensive to shift before x years passes

In such literal take, yeah sure, we are not involved, same way as we are not involved in 11 passengers showing up to games. We all have our own motivations, but after 20 or more years of supporting this club, travelling to few games when travelling to game half of Europe wasn't that easy and having way more emotional involvement into something that doesn't touch me directly I consider this thing some small piece of my life, as most of us perhaps. I don't care for results as such as they come and go, that's what sport is about, but all I expect in return for my supports is gravitas of sorts - in form of people acting appropriately. For this reason I want players to show up to every game, don't want people, who wouldn't find a job two divisions lower to be at helm here, don't want to act like a sunday league operation in terms of self respect, don't want shitfaced Barkley falling out of taxi and don't want likes of Toney, Tonali or Mutu anywhere near the stadium. If people directly involved don't care, do they deserve me doing so?

Jut don't get 4 key players injured for next 10 months and move on…

I think every fan is involved. What kind of message does such act send? Owners pretty much showed that half-anonymous player from Portuguese league is bigger than the club itself and then expect our players to fight for the badge. All criticism aside, Chelsea in it's current form gives incredible trampoline to young players who otherwise couldn't even smell stuff from the Megastore, so take it or be forgotten philosophy would be even more understandable. Just imagine Real Madrid coming for Gallagher this window for 50 million, Boehly publicly says he doesn't care for offers from such funny little club who think big of themselves, player says he doesn't mind, he will stay and focus on Chelsea and then they end up tossing 120 million for him after 10 publicly broadcasted refusals. Absolutely ridiculous to think about it yet it's pretty much what we've done, except Gallagher is proven in PREMIER LEAGUE and Enzo had a good patch in Portugal. If we don't take ourselves seriously, no one will.

Of course, their board told us to piss off pretty much in not very pr-friendly language, Enzo himself publicly backed off with his will to move, yet we came back a few times, throwing more and more ridiculous money into this, way beyond initial proposal. Can't imagine City or Real engaging in such desperate activity, especially over relatively unknown and unproven player

Yeah, people who "turned on Enzo" are probably the same delusional people who believed he is worth anything close to what club paid and for him, not to mention this whole humiliating circus around this transfer, and will single-handedly carry this club (contrary to Palmer, who came here pretty much unnoticed ironically). Still can't understand where this whole mass apeshit came from, but it was soon repeated with Caicedo. Those ridiculous pricetags inflate expectations, rightfully so, yet Chelsea is difficult enough to hit fire up for actually good players, not to mention alleged superstar potential, that is super hard to realize here.

This is ridiculous, but would make much more sense had we have the long overdue satellite club. Meanwhile overloading the club with allegedly talented players for a price of actually decent players is a highway down the table, not the opposite way. Seeing the preseason, watching selling academy products due to "financial reasons" and buying 37493724 overpaid players, who somehow manage to look trash even on yt compilations, at the same time makes me seriously concerned whether the team in it's current shape even capable of playing on Premier League level, despite having like 70 men on the roster.

Honestly I was more excited with us playing academy players under transfer ban, than during this "exciting" project of never-ending purchases and homeopathic presence of academy players in the squad and Sterling as most senior figure. I guess we will be top4 spenders this window again, yet I can't even name who came here as makes zero difference in quality anyway…

Is it a relegation domino or what kind of domino Romano means?

What you point out only shows people have realized how much the standards lowered recently. Gallagher would have hard time finding his place into our CL winning squad, but now bit Barkley-esque type of MF, who is an academy graduate, level-headed, willing to put in the work is golden and candidate for becoming the leader and spine of the squad. Plus, thing with Connor says more about an idea for the club and role of academy, than Connor himself and that's even more concerning.

Freaking hell, would LOVE to take a look at this club once and not see dumpster fire everywhere. Petit has a point, sell James, as point for this move could be easily made if needed, and bam, we achieved something that even City and PSG didn't manage to - 100% plastic, only exception we do not have a pack of superstars but mediocre children, sprinkled with absolutely random FM finds, all overpaid thrice. Or are we hanging entire club's personality on Colwill then? Anyway, if I'm not wrong, we consist of more Brighton's players, than Chelsea players atm. Incredibly that Roman managed to avoid such shit for 20 or so years, yet Clearlake needed like 5 windows. Ironically, the marketing pushes the identity and heritage stuff with that gen-z jerseys and media, at the same time effectively eliminating any bit of heritage and identity. What is left here to support for the fans? Exciting prospects from exotic 3rd league's clubs reserves for the price of half of Mbappe? The Chelsea thing ® Change everything to change nothing, we cuss about exactly the same things we used to for years, only difference we used to actually be a serious club and get results. I'd wish so, but can hardly understand at which point of this operation the money is being made.

If only they would actually be top talents. So with hotels sold and one of the only academy-made players who actually cared gone to "avoid dire financial problems" we can now proceed to hoard another 17 random sunday league level exciting talents for 30 million each, right? Btw, even if any of those bs buys would actually turn out Real Madrid level of wonderkid, we are aware those players need a right environment to actually become top players, right? Meanwhile the club is still mess, manager is questionable, academy is becoming alibi for money-flipping mid players, we have zero seniority or experienced players bar likes of Sanchez, lol, and no clear direction. Surely such guy would fire up during loan to Mallorca B and win us PL next season.

I always look forward to no-City (or similar type of thing that will emerge in the future) winning the league but I see a lot of our past struggles in them. Of course, reasons are different and circumstances are different, but the effect is similar - always lacking the extra edge. And that extra edge is a difference between being elite and being top always 2-6, been everywhere, lost everything. We could have at least few more cups in cabinet if not that little extra edge. Arsenal is definitely a process, but if they will bounce once more, it may as well go back to hovering around 2-6 and falling apart. Some times an extra kick is needed aside of hard work, but this is completely off topic as we would have to have some solid ground work in place to talk about extra edge and after three years we are still pretty much dragging around the starting point. Still my point was if there is and opportunity to snap some transformative figure (but like seriously, not the Enzo-supposedly-transformative type) we shouldn't deny ourselves to do so for the sake of it. The saying Penny wise, Pound foolish come from somewhere I guess.