Mhsc

Who the fuck are these goalkeeper targets. So far our scouts have not been able to pick up a good goalie and not really sure what would have changed, with names like this being thrown about. They seem to be good at scouting midfielders and fullbacks. And youth wingers from Brazil. But GK + CB they appear to be genuinely weak.

Honestly if they want 50m-60m euros, i.e. <= £50m, and even if he wants £300k a week, this would just seem like a no brainer to me - if they'd sell to us. Goalkeepers can play at a high level for way longer than other positions. His record speaks for itself.

Excellent news that the club are leaking that we're going after a number 1 GK after all. I had the feeling from the moment he was appointed Maresca would need a different GK to any of our options but I guess he & the directors felt like it was the right thing for him to spend time with them and assess them in person instead of relying on footage. That is kind of fair and correct to the players, "everyone gets a fresh start with me" etc, so fair enough tbh. The fees for top GKs have got pretty big now so idk where we will find the kind of value they're after while getting a clear upgrade on Sanchez tho. Edit: maybe I misread the tweet? To me it reads as "the new signing will be expected to start the season as number 1" but maybe it is supposed to mean that Sanchez is still expected to start as no.1?

100% they wish they could sell him but no one wants him and they're stuck with him and those wages

I actually find Fofana's response quite intelligent and fair. If he had gone on a full out, public scathing rant directed purely at Enzo, called him a bunch of names or whatever, then it might be a different matter. But he pointed out the situation as what it was: blatant, open racism from everyone on that bus. He is right to be offended and perfectly within his rights to point it out in public, especially when the video itself was posted publicly in a celebratory / prideful way! Enzo has created some job for himself to restore his reputation. I do feel like there is a path for him but it wont be easy. No doubt the sort of thing a PR specialist firm could help him with, just hope he doesn't use the fucking cunts that helped Money Mase ruin his reputation for life.

Petro was playing in a Poch side that was setup for him to fail. I didn't really find him individually at fault with us losing games. He was not amazing but per the eye test he actually looked like he had less likelihood to drop a clanger than Sanchez (who probably has a higher ceiling in form). Find all of the press around our GKs quite baffling, have to hope these very well paid professionals simply know the game a lot better than I do: can't really see any of our GKs being good enough in the modern positional systems. But what the fuck do I know. Sanchez when he was in form had Brighton fans raving about him as one of the best goalkeepers in the world and an under appreciated machine. We've never really seen that Sanchez for Chelsea though.

Casemiro never looked like a good fit for the PL though, and they got him when his legs were gone. Kante is one of the best PL midfielders of the last 10 years and still looks like he's got it. Struggled with injuries for us at the end but who didn't in that period? Wouldn't want him here now with the money we've invested in midfield already but I am sure Kante would have played all season for us if he were still here last year.

Part me of thinks an Enzo ban will be doing Maresca a favour in terms of team selections. That midfield group is way more manageable if you take 1 big name out of it.

If Kante is available then Man Utd should go in for him honestly (as a club that wont mind paying him £250k+ pw at his age). Immediately give them a world class midfield when you add him to the mix of Ugarte + what they've already got.

Suarez got 8 matches and a fine. Hard to compare racist acts but I wouldn't have thought this was worse than what he did.

And bully him into taking a pay cut, publicly shaming him if he wont basically play for free. Only a matter of time.

This summer has been frustrating so far! Signings so far are cheap-ish, unappreciated players (that might turn out to be gems but we don't know yet), Maresca has barely said a word (although I did enjoy the little bits we've seen of him) and we've got this fucking Enzo situation now too. Meanwhile we see some top talents go around to other clubs. I wish the season would just fucking start honestly. We're not going to sign anyone interesting and I'd just like to see how Maresca wants to line them up and whether we can string consistent results together with a more strategic manager. Also, worried the football will be boring. Just want the season to start so I can find out all of these things and enjoy watching the lads. Fuck the transfer window, seriously.

Would imagine the players who were actually fit and trained/played with Enzo all year will give him the benefit of the doubt and get over it quickly. Harder to see the group that have barely met him (Fofana, Nkunku etc) letting it go, possibly ever. At best we can hope they can manage to play and train as professionals but the togetherness you want in a squad will likely never be there. During the Euro final I was talking to my friends about how crazy football transfer fees are, when you think that all it takes is 5s of a player saying something racist and your £100m is gone forever. And you can't control what footballers say or really know what their beliefs are ahead of time. I'd assume Enzo will get fined for this but it is hard to see what the path back for him is. It probably exists but it wont be easy at all.

Is anyone reliable peddling the "Alvarez has decided to leave" story?

Been saying since the day Maresca was appointed the new number 1 priority has to be a GK, I don't really believe that Sanchez is perceived to be the answer. He would be a high quality no.2 if he is happy to do that role. I do think he is a good shot stopper and could have found form as a traditional GK and won fans over, but I just don't see him playing the role of a GK we need who can slot into a back 4 in possession and look totally composed and relaxed like a CB. I guess our goalkeeper coach who worked with him for years would know better what the guy can do in training but I never saw that from him on the field. He is not calm enough.

I assume Conor has to be off, but who knows. I could imagine in big games we might go very solid and put KDH, Caicedo, Lavia and Enzo all on the field at the same time by moving Caicedo to RB (as De Zerbi sometimes did with him) and having him come into midfield from there with either Colwill or Renato playing LB / tucking into CB. But I would expect against mid/lower teams it will be a problem because we will want to get a lot more forward players/goal scorers on the field and have Palmer play either as a 10 or a right sided 8 but either way it leaves just 2 spots for Caicedo, Lavia, Enzo, KDH, possibly Conor, and a crop of promising youngsters like Carney. Fully fit the team will be very hard to manage and keep happy.

Calafiori does look like an interesting player, and apparently he might be taking £65k per week at Arsenal. Last year Eghbali and Boehly would have boarded a private jet to personally persuade everyone involved that he is coming to Chelsea but now we just quietly buy another player that we think is better value without the need to start a bidding war. Not sure what to think on that but to be fair we have a good record at these kind of signings and I'll wait to see this lad before judging. Been an underwhelming transfer window so far but the thing is it always will be if we are going to pick up players before they make a big name for themselves, so I guess we should just get used to it. Most baffling thing to me at the moment is what is going on with the new manager? Why isn't he giving interviews and getting us excited about what he is going to do with our players?

In the old days I would be quite against this signing, thinking it was just a manager being allowed to buy their mates. I do trust the talent ID of our current crop of scouts, more or less. I will give the guy a chance. It is not inspirational but could well be that he's a bit under-appreciated and could do well in a better team. He is not going to be worse than Gallagher imo. I also think him knowing the system well already will be a big help.

Dewsbury-Hall is a weird target but I guess I can kind of see the logic, if we can sell Gallagher for decent money (£45m+) and get Deswbury-Hall for £25m it is immensely helpful for the books. He would not be an exciting signing but he has just had a good season, knows the system and I can see an argument that he will look like an even better player with a better team around him. Definitely feels like a move old Chelsea would make more than new Chelsea though.

Got to be a specialist in niche random children to know anything about our transfer targets. Barely seen an exciting transfer rumour this summer. They might turn out to be exciting with the benefit of hindsight in 3 years time, but in the here and now only Olise, Alvarez and Sesko have been somewhat interesting rumours this summer for XI candidates.

Feels like a massive upgrade on Broja. Could be a nice bit of business this.

🚨🇳🇬 Antonio Conte on Victor Osimhen: “I’m aware of his situation, I know there’s an agreement with the club so it’s a different case compared to others”. “There’s a pact between Victor and Napoli on his future and I accepted that”. I guess this is why the Osimhen rumours have been circulating so hard, with his agent trying to drum up transfer speculation on him <> Chelsea. Napoli obviously agreed they would sell him this summer. I wonder if as the window goes on if by playing hard ball about not being interested at the price they're quoting if they'll actually come down to the kind of territory we might be willing to do a deal at? (£50m+Lukaku?)

We should definitely get Jonathon David if he wants to join on <= £200k. Problem really is does he want to? Going to have endless options at that transfer fee + goal record.

Personally I do not find anything about the £19m signing of some random Villa youth suspicious. Probably Joe Shields liked the look of him and he gets money to spend where he wants. Doesn't even come close to being a bizarre signing by our standards over the last couple of years. Maatsen fee also perfectly normal imo, given what we got for Lewis Hall who was not even close to accomplishing what Maatsen has (CL final, wanted by multiple top European teams, etc)

This is the most ChatGPT looking scouting report I have ever seen https://khelnow.com/football/2023-10-world-football-marc-guiu-profile-scouting-report Obviously, I don't know anything about this kid and he has basically no stats due to lack of playing time at top level. Anybody who watched him play and has something to say about the lad?