Mhsc

At first glance looks like its just a straight forward Nkunku for NJ move Bit uninspiring if so, but lets see. Feel like we need a pretty big tactical shakeup without a proper 9 in the team - and Nkunku aint a 9.

Yup, pretty much. And our injuries seem to get mismanaged into escalating chronic, career ending injuries too so..lets just hope we get a fully healthy NJ back at all But season very likely over - only VAGUE hope I could see to be competitive in PL would be Cole as a false 9 and pray.

To be fair, Kane very obviously wanted to leave basically for the entire time - he was just locked into an insanely long contract and his only route out was to try not showing up to training - briefly tried that and ended up just going back to training with his tail between his legs after realising they just wouldn't pay him anymore but wouldn't sell him either, as they called his bluff. Haven't seen many players try that trick ever since that incident in fact. We are in a very good position to keep our good players for the long term - literally copied the Daniel Levy model. No real surprise of course that if you copy the Levy model you might not win much tho.

Doesn't necessarily mean they wont be sent to a bomb squad! Raheem and Chilly are basically impossible to sell but they were both sent there anyway. Probably take a loan deal with us paying a chunk of wages for any of them and just manage them out through the remaining years of their contract, not much else we can do really.

Why so little? Hard to imagine tbh

Yes because Felix wasn't good enough to get into the team If he was, they would have found a spot for him, it just was a convenient excuse. Simple truth is he is bang average and failed to deliver when given opportunities - at club after club after club. Worked hard only when he felt like it. Selfish as fuck with his decision making, which usually comes about 5 minutes after the moment to make a decision came and went. Same old Felix basically, not improved his game whatsoever over the years - got his mind totally closed and no desire to work hard or improve whatsoever.

Um, Enzo regularly plays 4 attackers... Felix didn't play a lot for us because he wasn't very good.

They're refusing him a 2 year extension on £220k a week supposedly - we are 4th in the league and may make CL still. Who knows, much stranger things have happened in football. I would think the main problem would simply be that we wont offer the sign on fee + huge weekly wages it would take, as its against our strategy...

Yeah that would be amazing Also VVD free transfer on a big money contract for a couple of years has to be tempting...

Seems as I keep complaining about how bad all of our CBs are, I'll throw out a name too: what about Dean Huijsen? He seems to be genuinely ambipedal. Appreciate he is v young, and I am no scout, but he looks like he ticks all the boxes: Clearlake approved (i.e. young as fuck), potentially insanely bright future, low wages. Probably cost a fortune but that's not traditionally stopped them for top young talent if wages are good.

Sacking Maresca would do absolutely nothing. Start by looking at the players who are letting the team down so badly - and the even worse players who sit behind them who come in to replace them when they get injured, or finally dropped. Ask yourself who bought those players, ask yourself who hired those people, and who created the strategy for the club. There is a clear line of accountability and responsibility there. Maresca has for sure made mistakes but overall he is the only leader at the club that I trust at all other than Joe Shields.

Um, very minimal similarities aside from our players failing to perform. Totally different system.

Getting rid of the manager wont help Recruitment directors have to go at this point, and Boehly for the problems he created in his stint in charge Egbhali rebuild with Joe Shields and some staff that aren't from fucking Brighton

When we're in possession they just slot into a back 6 and sit and stare at us and we pass backwards... Need to catch them in a transition.

Tosin should have taken care of it instead of lamely passing it into intense danger Sick of our CBs, even bigger disaster than our GK situation, not got a single player we can trust there

Nkunku's confidence clearly shot, usually he's the best finisher in the squad and when in a situation like that he should be insanely deadly

Our GK + CB situation is like a nonstop triangle of death Strategy against us is pretty simple, just do anything to put the ball in between the three of them and wait for them to hand you a goal

Didn't he totally bottle it vs Brighton for us so far?

Eh, some random article from a totally non serious entity, just looking to stir up shit and get attention. Nothing article and nothing story tbh, until we see any actual evidence Endless articles come out talking shit about Chelsea, maybe about 10% turn out to even have a small basis in truth

Good point, albeit free transfer (and again, ultimately not a good CB, struggled to break into our team where we do not have a single good CB says it all) So maybe they are willing to go older if its a free transfer I used Disasi as an example as he cost €45 million so clearly the club are wiling to spend on CBs that are a little older, maybe up to around 25 or 26 years old they're still willing to spend a bit of money (to have a hope to still have sell on value). They probably thought signing him was signing the juggernaut experienced CB that we needed.

Felix will impress a lot in any shit league given guaranteed starts and just left alone to float around and do what he feels vs a team that isn't pressing him. He's a very limited player with a few silky traits that make him look better than he is if you look at the game just superficially, but in the end his performances and repeatedly being dropped and shown the door as fast as possible by every big team he's ever played for speaks for itself.

To be fair, the club have tried to sign Disasi, who I guess was 25 at the time. I don't think its impossible we'll sign a slightly more mature CB (probably <=26) but its extremely unlikely the sporting directors have a single fucking clue what a good CB looks like, so it would probably be another terrible signing

So no one has announced an agreement with Jonathan David for summer? Bit surprising, thought for sure he'd have signed a pre agreement with someone.

IF Lavia is fit then probably we'd see Caicedo fullback inverting into midfield again Otherwise we'll just see the painful meme of a CB playing out there like Disasi was for us - Colwill could always move to LB again and probably be much less of a liability out there (but also much less useful in possession)

He is a 0 football IQ kind of guy unfortunately. He will probably learn eventually through being repeatedly violated on the pitch until he figures it out, but it will take years. Gap between him and Saliba for example is a GIANT chasm, 2 years age gap but you'd think Saliba is 30 for the quality of decision making he has compared to Colwill. Minimal progress from him since his loan at Brighton in truth. Increasingly my opinion is we should simply sell him in summer. At his current rate of improvement he might be suitable to play for us in 5 years or more, far too long to wait. We should have found this out over a couple of loan moves since his time at Brighton, instead of having a massive liability in the XI in some vague hope he would quickly learn how to defend.