Mhsc

Honestly looks like an amazing partner for Colwill, our ability to play out from the back with these 2 will be insane. I've never heard of him but NGL feeling a bit excited watching some clips and seeing his stats.

Definitely keeping at that price, must be Thiago competition. Looks like a ball playing CB with woeful tackling stats, bit strange for a CB, but I'll need to see him play to understand these numbers...

Man, would have loved it if they were filming an inside story scoop of Chelsea this summer - another signing out of nowhere, GOD KNOWS how little we actually know, who’s next and who did we almost do that didn’t happen and we’ve not heard a word?

Is this really out last pre-season game? If so, kinda want to see the full XI Poch has in mind for Liverpool, and to play 60 minutes as a group like that...

one less option for us to compete with Kepa. I do think we need a better backup / competition than we have atm. Assume the scouting team have their eye on someone totally not obvious tho.

It is definitely not the most charming place in the UK, but at least half of it is sort of alright on a nice summer's day.

His versatility might play in his favour at keeping him here, plus Chilwell's abysmal injury record, plus his huge fee with very little sell on value cripples us from FFP perspective. But, based on his performances, lack of redeeming qualities (if we're going to sign a not very technical guy with no brain in the future can we at least make them tall, fast and athletic as fuck please) he should definitely be out. His PEAK is a 7/10, when everything clicks perfectly for him. Also, man looks like sideshow bob and it gets on my nerves looking at him in a Chelsea shirt.

Brighton are such a nothing club I was surprised they even had a forum tbh. Funnily enough skimming through it, it is a mixture of arrogant wankers riding a short term high of a good season and now thinking they're billy big bollocks, and a bunch of people who feel bad that they are ruining Moises' career despite promises made and feel bad for him as he is clearly their best ever player and has been good to them but what has he got back? Betrayed at every turn.

Nkunku, Gusto, Nicolas Jackson, Mudryk, Enzo, and way more all bought in 2023 guys, calm down. Do you know how lucky we are with the new owners and staff they’ve got in place for us now? It’s taking time but they’re clearly getting there and we will get to a good place if we are patient and let them fucking cook. By deadline day probably we will get another two senior players is my guess. No it isn’t perfect but they’ve done a pretty cracking job in my books, when you look at the overall situation.

Bro is obsessed 🤣

I really hope you’re joking

Man is currently on an ANNUAL salary of €80,000. Wow.

Yes I was saying the same in this thread in the last week but getting absolutely shouted down. I still maintain he and various others are very sensible partners for Enzo without us spending crazy money, so we do NOT need to let Brighton bend us over and should feel comfortable to walk away if they are talking stupid money. We already have a ridiculous mega star in Enzo in CM, we just need to unchain him - of course if we have unlimited money and no FFP, then whatever, just go and pay £100m for him and if he is a bust we go again, but it is possible we still need to buy CAM/winger hybrid (Kudus), alternative GK (?) and maybe CB (?), and we DO have financial / FFP limitations. This kid is a reasonably uninspiring solution to the same problem that Onana would solve so I am a bit disappointed, no way we get both as they're so similar but to be fair to our scouts they've done a cracking job on a fair few players so I'll wait to see him in preseason (assuming that's the plan, who can even say). I do not know Rennes or their style of football, perhaps in a our progressive/attacking system he'll unleash some stats that our scouts can see coming.

Well, he seems like a poor man's Onana to me based on the eye test and looking at the stats, and especially seems strange to me because when I look at our other signings they are always freakishly good in certain stats areas, showing some kind of clear approach to our data-led recruitment methodology, but when you look at Ugochukwu he doesn't excel at anything aside from perhaps aerial duels (almost 70% win rate). Feels like a pretty old fashioned case of some scout(s) simply liking him and feeling he has potential? Weird thing is he is not THAT cheap, so not clear there is any real upside to him in the future unless he undergoes a big transformation. Does have age on his side ofc. What I will say is that he does tick a lot of what I was talking about the other day in terms of being at least a basic option to partner Enzo who counteracts all of Enzo's weaknesses - tall, powerful, defensive responsibilities covered, dominant in the air - totally frees up Enzo, which is worth its weight in gold.

That would be a weird one... Strasbourg need to be signing up these sort of players, not us.

Standard practice in acquisitions to include a clause that protects new owners against things like this - probably Roman is footing that bill out of what he was paid for the club. Usually a decent amount of £ is held back from payment for a period of time to allow the new owners to find problems like this and take some of that money back to settle problems.

In case anyone didn't know, full match is available in 1080p here https://www.chelseafc.com/en/video/full-match-Chelsea-1-1-newcastle-united-27-07-2023 for free

There was so much talk on this forum after we signed him + Nkunku that we needed to get a striker (Osimhen etc) and it says a lot about how good he has been that all of that talk has died out, all doubts in him have gone. He looks like he could be one of the best strikers in the league and someone who can really take us places for years. Makes the whole prospect of the new season just a tonne more exciting to have a real striker on board for the first time in years.

I don't think Caicedo is going to push or throw his toys out of the pram now - signed a long term contract with them in just March, and apparently didn't secure a sensible clause to leave so can't really complain. I think the reason is incredibly obvious: he was on just 15k a week when he threw his toys out last time. It got him a new contract with them on 4x the salary but he had to commit with no clause to get it which was clearly his priority (money), and now he's stuck there for 4 years at least while Brighton play around trying to get stupid money for him. Same tricks Levy pulls on players and why Harry Kane ended up stuck at Spurs for his whole career. We should ofc take note with Colwill, who is also on 15k a week and just like Moises making some noises, guarantee that all goes away if we put him on a decent deal at 60k a week.

Agreed. The downside is we can’t know if he’s fully washed or just needs some games to bang again. Torres 2.0. I’d dump him at this point in the same cut throat way we’ve cut everyone else we’ve been unsure on and got us fucked last year.

Definitely walk away from Caicedo and no more business with Brighton - don’t sell them anyone either unless for outrageous prices. Now that word is on the street money means nothing to them what goes around comes around. Despite panic there is shit loads of good options we’ve mentioned in this thread and no doubt far more we’ve never heard of the scouts should have an eye on.

Interesting Pochs comments specifically about needing EXPERIENCE, and we’ve been slow playing Caicedo who has only one real year of proper experience. Maybe Poch is the source of us slowing it down and he wants other targets as a higher priority?

I imagine selling Chlobah and Gallagher is the right financial/company decision, but selling Gallagher given his mentality and love for the club is the more painful to me. Could imagine him doing a Milner-esque role for us for years, filling in here and there and just being a really useful grunt that the manager always wants to keep. I don't object, as long as we're not in the state where you would go into the season expecting he is in the XI. He is a squad player and a helpful one. And a top fucking lad from the sounds of things.

Says who? You?

We rate him so highly he was our 2nd pick behind Ugarte