Mhsc

They've signed someone to replace Colwill haven't they? I think loaning them Andrey Santos or Ugo would be more an immediate need for them if we leave it so late in the window they can't sign a replacement. Humphreys would do really well under De Zerbi though, I just don't think they'd be fussed now and he would probably be backup. A loan to a team with a similar ethos of playing out from the back but have a problem player that can't handle it would be good for Humphreys though, maybe a year in the Championship?

Should be close to a month he could be with us, and if he impresses Poch maybe he stays? I don’t understand why we wouldn’t look at him properly and what kind of message that sends to him.

I assume he is with the squad until close to end of transfer window to give Poch time to review. Also, good for him to spend some time with the players, the manager and wear the Chelsea colours so he feels like part of Chelsea, no?

It is not actually a £30m outlay though, if we sell Lukaku and get no one we are up £30m-£45m depending on where he goes (ignoring the massive loss on the £100m purchase for him, we have £30m+ more in the bank than we do right now). If we buy Vlahovic for a £60m sum we are down £60m, however you look at it. He has to be worth that sort of money for this deal to make sense. I think because the strikers market is totally nuts, at 23 with his background he might be worth something over £50m but it is really pushing it given the risks. Hojlund just went for £75m and has less goals and assists in his breakout year than Vlahovic has had in his awful year, so realistically Juve will want £65m-£75m and he is simply not worth that, which should end the discussion - if we were desperate, it might be different, but we have NJ and we are in a position of strength here.

Controversially, I think he should start at RB vs Liverpool based on what I've seen so far.

The main argument is that none of them are the super creative type, they're all fast tricky dribblers - the Olise/Cherki argument was purely about adding the Eriksen style player to Poch-ball. The Kudus argument is just that he's probably better than either Madueke or Sterling, if we could get him in and get Sterling out that would be a pretty big net improvement in terms of salary and quality of what we get for our money.

That is more like how I feel about it. He ticks a lot of boxes from what I see, his stats are excellent in CM but he's also played at CB, he's got the experience Poch is looking for and is sensibly priced at 40m euros. As things stand I would definitely feel more comfortable having him be a Chelsea player than not, but of course it can change if we sign Caicedo.

Is Edson Alvarez really a "hell no"? His stats are incredible, beating Declan Rice in almost everything. Stats can be deceptive of course but surprised he would be a "hell no"...

Btw, how does FFP work when you buy a player and sell a player between a club? We can sell them Lukaku for 75m and they can sell us Vlahovic for 90m, letting us spread the damage over the length of Vlahovic's contract and avoid the FFP damage of selling Lukaku for a big loss?

10m-15m euros and Big Rom for a player they are desperate to get rid of due to injury problems, form and salary is extremely fair, they wont take it but fuck them walk away immediately if not, otherwise they can live with their problem - we need to stop being the club that bails out Italian teams. We can feasibly sell Lukaku to Saudi but wtf are they going to do with Vlahovic? Shopped around all summer and no one wants him, and he's way too young to think about Saudi, and he does not work at all in Allegri-ball. Maybe their only path forward if not us would be to sack Allegri (which probably they can't afford) and bring in a coach who plays some progressive football and bumps Vlahovic's value back up to the 75m range, IF he can get over injury problems and find confidence which is a big if.

Either sales or further loans. We need to be realistic about the likelihood of the U21 players making it at Chelsea. They will all make it as good professional footballers but the level of Chelsea is the top of that, or it should be. We are buying them as investments and in the UNUSUAL situation they prove to be a Chelsea level player then great.

Just trying their luck to get out of the situation they've landed themselves in. We do not need this guy (it is a luxury signing lets be real) so we should offer something very favourable to us, like £15m tops. I am sure Lukaku will take a Saudi deal over not playing so we do not have any real pressure here. Still have a feeling this is all Juve PR to try to drum up interest in Vlaho who they've been shopping around all summer and failing to find a buyer for.

I'm not that fussed by that tbh, everyone was trying to tap up Colwill and it is not a big deal as long as we leave ourselves in the drivers seat - Colwill's interest was clearly all focused around getting out of his youth contract and onto a proper pro's contract making real money, followed by a desire to play regular minutes, and as long as we are keeping kids around on sensible low value contracts until they've proven themselves it will not be a problem for us to tie them down after a good loan spell as long as they have realistic shot at first team. However we should be loaning our players to our satellite clubs where they can be guaranteed to play almost every game instead of going to Brighton and getting a measly 17 appearances. The only reason to loan to Brighton is if we think PL experience is more important than playing every game in Ligue 1 or the other leagues we'll soon have clubs in.

Can someone tell me why we don't like Edson Álvarez? I've mostly only seen him on Youtube, where he looks solid enough, and he comes out extremely favourably compared to Declan Rice in virtually all stats. And he is supposed to be like 40m Euros.

Hmm, the more I see about Vlahovic's groin problem the less interested I am. Seems like a long standing issue that has not been solved, and he was made to play through it a lot. Really not worth getting involved unless the deal is extremely favourable, which I don't think it will be.

Come on, Broja is not a serious first teamer yet, he is a youth prospect that may make it in the top flight but we’ve no idea at what level. It’s more likely he has a career like Bamford than a career like Vlahovic.

I think City have pretty much always had two strikers for one spot where one is clearly way too good to be on the bench, during all of their success. My only question is whether Vlahovic is the man.

Worse than NJ's for sure, in pretty much every way you can slice it. He would be coming here to be competition and cover.

I mean it would be in fitting with the "two quality players per position" approach, 22 man squad etc - he is way better than Broja lets be real, Broja's ceiling is below Vlahovic's bottom level probably. Of the many downsides, his injury record is not great, his salary is way too high compared to the reality of his level (and doubt he wants to take a paycut?). Juve have to be looking at losing big on this guy after spending big on him and him flopping this year - we should not be bailing them out. He can play only one position which these days we have almost no players like this, what use will he be when NJ is in form through the middle? Sub for last 4 mins? He is also surprisingly shit scoring with his head, ok not a big part of Poch-ball but still, at 190cm and athletic as he is, he should have learnt to be a beast in the air. And lastly and arguably most worrying, he doesn't know how to press or is too lazy to press. We'd be taking a gamble on Poch developing the hell out of the kid and his injury record clearing up, and a bit of confidence coming back to him to bring him back to the level he was at before - and we've rarely done well gambling on that before. On the plus sides, even in his terrible season he out performed Hojlund for goals and assists I think. It is also reasonably likely a large part of his fall from grace is down to Allegri and his jihadi-ball tactics, as the Juve fans call it. He is a world class finisher, and would probably be the player we would want the ball to fall to in the box over any of our current crop. He is a decent target man for the rest of the lads to play off of, when he's in form. And of course, it gets Lukaku the fuck out of here. In general feels like a Roman era signing and all in all a bit weird? I guess I am on balance in favour if it is something like Lukaku out for €45m and Vlahovic in for €55m - the strikers market IS crazy, after all, and the club can only pull off so many NJ's.

I have pitched in this thread a couple of times that this swap deal could make sense - but only in the context of a swap deal, taking Lukaku out of the situation it would be an unnecessary risk to look at this guy, but if it solves that situation and gives us a young player who could still improve... The problem though is that was before I saw so much of Nicolas Jackson. Vlahovic if he comes is coming to be Plan B, which should not be what he is after and wont be great for the confidence he needs to get back to reach his prior level. I would say no at this point. Lukaku will give in and go to Saudi.

His primary objective has always been money

Nothing is impossible. If we suddenly get an 80+5 bid for Caicedo agreed and simultaneously a deal for £25m on Sanchez it gonna look pretty sus.

I don't like that way of comparing players as most of those stats are not normalised by minutes played, so players who played more games get a lot of green bars. What website is that? Does it have an option to look at stats normalised by per90, like Fbref? That is more helpful imo. That said, some of those charts have players with similar games and he comes out favourably. I'm curious about his poor passing %, I wonder if that is because he is taking on very direct risky passes instead of keeping it simpler? He is supposedly extremely aggressive, so it could be. Honestly be surprised if he doesn't bench Kepa if we get him, he is much more Chelsea shaped GK than Kepa imo, we've always had a big man in goal in all of our successful periods.

Article on Sanchez from a couple years ago https://theathletic.com/2921703/2021/11/01/a-year-of-robert-sanchez-analysing-the-brighton-keepers-aggressive-style-and-huge-potential/ The aggressive style certainly feels like a Poch kind of guy. His ability to come for balls in the air and commanding the box would already insta-drop Kepa IMO. Whatever, I'm on board, lets get him if the price quoted is sensible.

Robert Sanchez is 1.97m apparently, 6cm taller than me, and I am pretty damn tall myself. Can't pretend I know a tonne about the guy but interestingly obviously our goal keeper coach and recruitment staff do as they all worked with him and know him well. If they think he is the right move I am down, as long as the fee from Brighton is for once sensible.