Mhsc

Man probably has a point. Feel like there might be a little bit of ego in the way Reece is building his body / training. I feel like the club (and Poch) need to take a strong stance with Reece's fitness and put him through a long, slow physio / yoga / whatever routine that keeps him out of intense training and games for however many months is needed, even 6 months if needed. I don't think surgery is the answer - his problems occur all over, what are we going to do repair his whole body under the knife?

I still think a striker who can play out wide but is primarily a goal scorer would be our best bet. We’ve got tonnes of tricky players, tonnes of players who can create but very few who score.

I think he got his contract before we wisened up (the PW+LS era) so it is likely 250k basic and more on top of that for good performance. He got the deal Mason would have got if he hadn't been a little bitch. My brain says that Malo is a wonderful player and he if he has a good season, bearing in mind we need income, if we get lucky and Reece ends the season on a few months of fitness we should sell him if we can get a big offer for him. My heart tells me we can't lose Captain James after losing so many others from the academy, the little bit of real Chels we have left.

Btw, unless the system we used in preseason was purely for preseason, I don't think we need to stress that much about losing James, Poch was building in a 3-2-5 attack system where only one fullback went forward and the other stayed back with the CBs. Having one very attacking / good fullback was critical but not both sides required it. So, if Chilly is fit probably the 3-2-5 has Chilly going forward and Malo sits deep. If Chilly is out, probably Malo becomes the attacking forward and Cucu or Maatsen sit deep with the CBs. The biggest loss is that we've lost our Captain and that bit of leadership on the field. The system can easily cope and thrive without him. This is a big upgrade from Tuchel/Potter era in itself.

Thank god we have Malo. Extremely controversial question: would you consider offloading Reece James over his injury problems? He is our Captain and amazing when fit, but are these problems ever going to go away? Is he worth 250k a week when he plays so rarely? Does he have a realistic future playing RB and being fit for even half of a season?

Palace is guaranteed football and if the money is the same? I don’t blame him if he isn’t fussed about winning trophies, it’s his career to enjoy and do what he wants with. Good luck to the lad. Don’t think we will ever see him in a Chelsea shirt now and frankly if winning trophies isn’t top of his agenda we don’t want him here, but no hard feelings at all. I am not sure I’m keen on Felix. He was a selfish player for us but never delivered, just looked slick without end product. I wonder if we can get a forward who can play on the wing, someone more like NJ than Mudryk.

Back to our feeder club Brighton for a bit of Mitoma?

Apparently his people are a nightmare to deal with, might be why we walked away (as so far every single club has)

Given how little we're offering in wages it is possible Palace matched it and gave other conditions he liked that we wouldn't (e.g. maybe he still has a buyout clause but a bigger one) Very good player in lots of ways, was keen on him if you ignored his injury problems, would have been a monster in a side with both Nkunku and Jackson but without Nkunku I really think we need to focus on getting a goal scoring forward.

Also, it is really sad to see people on Twitter already throwing Lavia under a bus and writing him off now that Hall rumours are out. There is no way these two interactions are directly related. We need to sell a lot of academy players for profit because we're going to end up spending probably something close to £1bn by the time the window is done, part of which is of course Lavia but part of which is also Cucu, Sterling... It is more fair to say that we need to sell Hall to cover Sterling than Lavia imo. We have a min of £150m (probably £160m+ in reality?) or so annual ammortization costs to cover which means we need to sell a lot of players for more than their net book value every single year on average. I imagine if we had loaned Hall it was only to try to increase his value for a sale in 2024. Yeah it is sad but this is the reality of spending £1bn to build an incredible first team in the financial fair play era.

Hall is being very highly rated due to his level for his age, rather than his actual current level. He could develop into a quality player, clearly has good technique and physical traits but hasn't developed composure or a tonne of game IQ yet. He will definitely be a premier league level player in the long run but as always the question is will he not just be a premier league level player but a Chelsea level player? IMO that is far from guaranteed. Hall has asked to leave on a permanent deal instead of on loan and wants to play for Newcastle not CFC. Sell him with a huge sell on clause and ideally a buy back clause imo. If in the future he wants to be here and we want him here we will make it happen, if not then it was not meant to be. I honestly think we have no choice but to sell pretty much all of our academy players to pay off the level of spend we're now at - Chalobah, Hall, Gallagher and maybe Maatsen as well. We have spent an insane amount of money and it will take an insane amount of sales not just in this window but in every window going forward to stay on top of this.

Personally wouldn’t surprise me if we sell Chilwell in a year or two, especially if he doesn’t stay injury free. I have the feeling we will regularly sell depreciating assets and replace them with up and coming players as part of the new strategy.

A few conspiracy theories have been going through my head about why we're spending so much money, buying so many young players and tying them down for such a long time: 1. Maybe part of the plan for the acquisition is to join Super League 2.0, whatever that will be (maybe something dreadful involving Saudi teams?), where there will be no FFP. Subsequently, we don't care about FFP. That would be really gross, but the one thing I dislike about Todd is that he would probably cockily think this is genius. 2. Maybe we're anticipating a transfer ban and want to secure ourselves through it. Maybe we're expecting a hard stance after we've had one already and have now self-reported ourselves over breaches under Roman? 3. Maybe we are 99.9% sure any trouble will just be a fine, and we're just saying no problem 4. Maybe we anticipate some kind of ban / points deduction but think the net benefit is worth it to become a top team again quickly

I have a lot of time for Chilwell and in certain systems he is insanely good, BUT to be fair if we cleared out our whole LB roster and went to the market I don't think we'd buy a single one of them under PW/LS. It would be a couple of lads we've barely heard of or not heard of at all and they'd be pacey skillful players who can defend and attack equally well.

I think a £30m deal would be quite reasonable as long as we have a buy back clause at <=£50m + sell on fee. Honestly, letting these players go to a club where they can be settled for a few years and grow as a guaranteed no.1 and then buy them back if / when it makes sense seems like a solid plan to me. We need income. Later, if these players turn out to be at Chelsea's level we can buy them and if not, we move for whoever in the market does make sense. Imagine if we had sold Hudson Odoi for money when he was looking good but gave ourselves a buy back clause? When he flopped, we would have been laughing. If he had banged, we would have bought him back. It is just good business IMO.

Not sure what future Hall has here now though, where would he play? We've stacked the midfield (his supposed natural position) with expensive players and he was a makeshift LB (where we have 2 senior players + Maatsen). Maybe he has a role here in 2-3 years if Chilly and Cucu both move on or if Maatsen leaves or moves position? I'd probably just sell him with a cheap buy back clause + huge sell on fee and we can see in the future if he makes sense to play at CFC tbh, just definitely shouldn't sell him without it or loan him to a poorly fitting club that will stunt his growth (and frankly, his future transfer value).

Lukaku doesn’t need bad management to turn into a giant useless cunt that downs tools, we should never have bought him in the first place, guarantee we wouldn’t have under PW/LS.

Given how much time Santos has had to learn the system and how well he did in preseason I would be tempted to give him the nod over Lavia. Caicedo though should defo slot in right away.

In my post I literally said he’s the only one that’s a serious goal threat, I’m not questioning him at all I think he’s amazing and going to do great for us. It’s just not fair to put all the burden on him which with Nkunku out it mostly is now.

Looking forward to seeing a completely unleashed Enzo. Hope he appreciates what the club has done for him! Almost got into a fist fight to get him here and then we cucked TF out of Liverpool to get him the midfield partners he needs. Big bet on this lad but with great odds! What's amazing is he could still grow a lot, if he can add goals to his game (and with his technique why not?) he could genuinely be the best CM of the next 10 years and one of the all time greats.

I mean I like to think what our club is doing is being done by a lot of clever, highly paid people that know more than we do - but this guys explanation is pretty dodge, doesn't know the difference between a balance sheet and a P&L and his numbers are all over the place, and didn't he bankrupt the club he was running? Nevertheless I am feeling relaxed. I think if we get back into CL and continue to produce and sell academy players then we'll be absolutely fine, and I assume the club is assuming the youth they've bought this year is selling for a profit in the next windows too.

Also, is there a greater example of cuckoldry than what we have just done to Liverpool? Dissolve the club and leave Merseyside to Everton.

Perhaps with Lavia joining, in possession we'll use either the 3-2-5 (which we used in preseason always) or 3-1-6 (which we debuted vs Liverpool) with Caicedo either being in the 2 or the 6 something like this with Nkunku replacing Gallagher when fit. James Disasi Colwill Lavia Sterling Caicedo Gallagher Jackson Enzo Chilwell