Mhsc

I am feeling the same sadly. Absolutely disgusted.

Mudryk isn’t even in the squad, he’s injured. Trolling is beneath you.

Here come all the WUMs

Poch 2000% vindicated for sticking by him, all preseason he was shit but Poch knew better. Respect.

That’s where he’s been playing all season…

It is again probably 4-2-3-1 with Colwill LB and Chilwell LW. It is like Poch doesn't believe Chilwell can play LB from a defensive PoV..and maybe he is right...

Ok so it is actually a loan in the region of what I was saying, i.e. a loan with a decent fee and all wages covered - that is the only circumstance I could see the logic in us changing our stance. It might be sensible, if he has even just an average year the transfer value we would hope for will still be at least as high as it is today, given that we've been talking about selling him for basically peanuts for his level. If he has a good year, might get even more for him next year + another year of ammortization done.

I don't know anything about Luton except that it is a massive shithole, so not sure what to expect. Hoping for us to score a bunch and not that bothered if we ship 1 or 2 in the process as long as we win. Also hoping to see a team selection that does not feature Colwill LB, Chilwell LW.

We should stay away if it isn't a sensible deal.

Not interested at £80m in Jan tbh. That's MAYBE his summer transfer window value coming off of a full, good season where he's scored 20+ goals. Not his Jan value after a lengthy ban with zero training. I would think £50m + some serious performance related add ons (maybe up to £15m?) would be sensible.

Just stand fast and force him to Saudi. No loans, unless there is an obligation to buy or a punitive loan fee (£10m + wages covered).

Saudi buying players in their prime is just in its beginnings IMO, the more they build a genuinely competitive league the more will follow, when the wages can be 10x or more it’s inevitable this is just the beginning. Paths forward seem to either be an intervention from football authorities (who are corrupt and generally work for the highest bidder), boredom or disinterest from the Saudis saves our bacon and we return to status quo, or Super League 2.0 where their teams compete with ours and all agree to work under the same financial framework as some kind of CL alternative / replacement.

There’s no one available that I have a particular interest in tbh. Toney in Jan to compete with NJ and call it done for the year

He will do well at West Ham, probably be repeatedly linked away for big money and they’ll sell him for 3x in some number of years.

Apparently his entourage are such disgusting scum that every club until West Ham have walked away.

Amazing that anyone could be anything other than extremely excited about this guy. He contributes beautifully all game, I'm absolutely thrilled with having him up top both in terms of what he's bringing on / off the ball AND the attitude and confidence he permeates. Coming off of a season with no real striker it is just lovely to see a proper striker back at Chelsea. Goals will come, I'm not the slightest bit concerned about NJ.

Now I am a simple, nostalgic kind of man and if he is a life long Newcastle fan, from a family who've always supported Newcastle, and his life long dream was to go and play for Newcastle then I wish him well and hope he has a good career, just not when he plays against us. Good luck sir, and thanks for the £30m. Better to get it out of the way now than integrate him and have him pining after the move year after year. By comparison with the way Mount handled the situation, this guy was outstanding, signed a deal with the club to protect his value and only asked to leave on a perm deal when his childhood club came in for him, from a position of being 3rd/4th choice behind other first teamers. Absolute ideal behaviour and respect to the club.

Thanks for posting Vesper, a very interesting read. I was trying to do my own limited research into this a little bit in the last weeks but quickly realised it is extremely complicated. It seems like on a high level though that what I posted a week or two ago here is quite likely right: we are probably going to fail at minimum FFP and maaaybe marginally fail the PL's rules as well, unless something radical and unexpected happens (e.g. Super League 2.0), and the club is very likely doing this on purpose. I think the aim is simply to not fail so outrageously that we get a serious punishment (e.g. just a fine, like others have received). Especially how we will be compliant in 3 years (70% rule) seems almost impossible, a LOT of things will have to go not just 'right' but 'amazing' - amazing commercial deals, huge success on the pitch plus continuously making a tonne of profitable player sales every year. It seems far more likely we'll fall shy and just think we'll get away with it. The ability to deduct money from the accounts for exceptional circumstances is extremely helpful. I didn't realise we can write down the transfer value of people like Lukaku and others. That is a huge help. I would hope we can even write down some money over sponsorships given that the PL intervened to stop us getting our sponsor for their own reasons. All in all seems overwhelmingly likely we'll fail but be within some sort of touching distance and agree a settlement with Uefa. In the future if we can sell some of these big money signings like Caicedo/Mudryk for similar money to what we bought them for but replace them with some of these young guys who we're hoping come through as elite footballers (Santos, Ugo, Angelo etc) that would make it way more feasible too.

I'm not convinced we're switching system. I think Poch will either try to fit the 3 into his 4-2-3-1 or rotate between them. I think it is possible that Enzo will play further forward or Caicedo might in a role similar to Maatsen in preseason, as the guy leading the press as Kante used to.

The skinnier, fit, healthy, confident version of Lukaku from the Conte Inter team would obviously help this team a tonne, but the fat, lazy, disloyal cunt version that we have would just be poison in the well. Not worth even considering. His time at the top ended the minute the interview was published.

I think Poch has said that he's stuck to a 4-2-3-1 throughout, its just that Colwill has moved to LB and Chilly to LW, but we were always building with 3-2-5 when in possession in preseason and that has pretty much not changed (we dabbled a little in 3-1-6 against Liverpool), its just the personnel and how effective they are being in the system has dropped off - Santos who was good in preseason not played a minute, before we had Maatsen playing and being a press machine he's been replaced by Chilwell who has different qualities, and of course we've lost Nkunku who was our top goal scorer and key to lots of the play we worked on. We also did not have Disasi playing alongside Thiago.

Caicedo should not have been subbed on imo, it was a bizarre move when we're chasing the game and very high pressure situation to put a young guy into but I guess that's the treatment you get when you come for a record fee, I'd have rather either started him or not played him at all. Not convinced that Thiago and Disasi is a good CB pairing, good when we're in possession and building but as a combo they're a bit too sluggish in defense I think, one or the other for me but probably not both?

Given the amount of defensive power we have in Lavia and Caicedo, I wonder if the Cherki idea has gained or lost merit? Originally I was against getting him because he is extremely lazy defensively, but his creativity is not really in doubt. If we played Caicedo + Lavia behind Enzo, Cherki as the RAM and Sterling LAM that would be a better balance of creativity/dribbling. Maybe the defensive output of Lavia+Caicedo cancels out his lack of work ethic... My gut still says don't buy lazy players though, or people that don't score when our whole CM group are not goal scorers.

Have always thought it should be your most cold blooded, composed in front of goal guy, which you'd expect would most often be your 9 if you've got a good one, because that is the bulk of their job. I would absolutely let the lad pad his numbers by adding 5+ penalty goals a year too, personally I would love to see a Chelsea player competing hard for the Golden Boot - probably Haaland wins unless he gets injured, but having a striker who is in the top 3 for the Golden Boot every year inspires massive confidence IMO. I was absolutely baffled by it when I realised Enzo was going to take it, because of the sheer disrespect to NJ. If he wasn't on the field then ok, I personally still wouldn't pick Enzo but I can listen to an argument in favour of him in that situation.

I think he’s best as a second striker ala Nkunku isn’t he?