Mhsc

Seeing Jackson, Nkunku & Mudryk all cooking with Enzo on the pitch behind them is the sexual energy I'm waiting for. It has potential to be more deadly than the Costa / Fabregas / Hazard era, in fact when you compare our squad with the 16/17 team the only two areas where we're clearly worse is the loss of Kante and Courtois.

RJ should obviously get minutes as it is preseason but based on Malo's performances so far he should be the name assumed in the XI at RB IMO.

Just as Man Utd did with us. We don't want to be negative and burn the relationship with Caicedo. We make a great offer and it is there for them to take if they want to. If we end up signing someone else then at that time we tell them / him we are no longer interested. It leaves the door open for Caicedo to pressure them and for them to change their mind, rather than us being seen to have burnt the relationship and walked away from talks.

Given time difference, I imagine by this evening we will hear the latest on Caicedo, which I personally hope is the final and best offer (ala Mount) with scope left for messing around with the structure but not the amount itself. We should probably leave it as an open offer, to give them and ourselves scope to conclude it as late as deadline day. But, if they've not said yes or are making noises that only minor negotiation is needed, we need to be opening talks for backup candidate no.1 by Wednesday at the LATEST. My guess is we immediately look to agree personal terms with Lavia, but it would be interesting if we were to make a ~£80m bid for Tchou given the Mbappe situation - that would put Brighton / Caicedo under way more pressure as it would mean permanently ending interest in him whereas with Lavia you could argue we'd still be open to getting him.

Kudus immediately benches Madueke to play RW and rotates in to play at 10 for Nkunku imo. Would be a great signing. Hard on Madueke but he does have injury record.

Olise can play anywhere in the 3 behind the striker btw but tends to play either CAM or RW afaik. Don’t really understand the lack of interest in him, based on his ability he is insanely creative with a wizard left foot, set piece specialist (currently don’t have one), excellent in the press and he tackles, blocks and intercepts like a machine. Would be a great squad player and at a sensible price if buy out is real, Palaces player of the year too in a squad that had some good talent. Only problem for me is he has a serious hamstring injury and you could (and maybe should) argue it is better to wait, if it is true he has a clause and if that clause is active in Jan then why not check how his recovery is?

And Enzo? He’s a great player but… do you know what leadership looks like? He’s done nothing, not even close, to be a leader. Not yet. Maybe he can grow like that. I’ve only seen Thiago and Kepa be vocal and opinionated and driven on the pitch from this group. Probably Gallagher would be ahead of Enzo too.

Honestly have a feeling this Lukaku / Inter beef is fake and they’re just playing us to try to win the negotiation. They’ll come back on deadline day with a ‘forgiveness’ offer of €35m.

You managed to totally avoid my question. I think Thiago or, and I know people will lose their mind, Kepa are the only two people I’ve seen display leadership in this squad. Can’t comment on new players yet.

Not convinced by either as Captain, what leadership exactly have they shown?

Olise is interesting, like a middle ground between Cherki and Kudus, has the defensive side covered well (like Kudus) and puts out serious assist numbers (like Cherki) but suffers from the same lack of goal scoring as Cherki. Would take Kudus if it is between the two of them, but definitely either over Cherki. He’s also a set piece specialist which we are currently lacking. If we get both surely someone is going out on loan (Angelo?) and someone is up for a last minute sale, maybe Sterling if Poch is contemplating a Mudryk/Maatsen LW?

There's always the small chance he's a die hard Chelsea fan that wants to play for the shirt and happy to take on that £100k a week base salary with performance related bonuses if we hit CL, commits to an 8 year contract with us and becomes our greatest ever player.

I feel like we're gonna score a lot of goals but it will take Poch a while to get us polished at the back, we still look very vulnerable with players losing their man too easily in defense, and Kepa is decent but not the kind of keeper that is gonna hard carry us when young players make mistakes. Gusto looks like an inspired signing but we've sunk so much money into LB and I am still not convinced by our players there, I do not think either Chilwell or Cucu is good at defending vs a fast, skilled opponent and we will be very vulnerable against the 'wrong' opposition, but we've spent so much money on them it feels like we're committed. We've also just got a lack of stability at the back caused by persistent injury problems, which hopefully Malo and Colwill can help solve - probably a backline of Malo, Thiago, Colwill and Cucurella or Maatsen could stay fit for the season pretty feasibly and develop a rock solid understanding of each other. I am expecting Reece and Chilly to drop like flies as always, but hoping Reece moves position and achieves some longevity as a DM.

Looked solid to me vs Brighton, managed to play a fair few progressive passes, made himself available for the ball with confidence, did a good job defending in the box although was a bit rash with tackles outside of the box. If we had an embarrassment of riches in MF we'd probably want to loan him to a PL club at this point, somewhere like Brighton ironically if they lose Caicedo...

Wrong thread

Our first premier league game is 13th August. Imo we make our final bid for Caicedo on Monday, make it a reasonable offer, and "move on" by Wednesday if they've not taken it and try to urgently sign another player - we need someone in with at least 2 weeks prep before the season starts I think. Circle back to Caicedo as a possibility towards deadline day from a position of strength, having signed a good quality MF (e.g. Lavia), after they've been dealing with an extremely unhappy player for a while see what they have to say.

Yeah I agree, he's not really like Drogba in lots of ways but I meant more in terms of the potential impact he will have in our team and how long we might get out of him. Feeling very excited about him.

Nicolas Jackson is Didier Drogba reborn. I'm so excited.

Sick, completely unrealistic fantasies pop into my head sometimes: triple swap deal of Lukaku, Sterling and Ziyech for Mbappe

Agreed Gallagher has looked good in preseason under Poch - he is still obviously a bit more technically limited, frankly less intelligent on the ball player than some of his colleagues but he is absolutely the classic guy that can perform in a system that he's been taught well and he brings a lot of qualities that we shouldn't underestimate. Should only consider selling him in a years time at this point - 100% worth seeing him under Poch, when he DOES play under a manager that suits him it will also help his value, and later we only sell him if we reach a point where we've somehow found some £12m south american who brings everything Gallagher does but is more intelligent on the ball and it becomes obvious the time is right. I think he will absolutely get a bunch of minutes as it stands.

That was concern in back of my mind. Would he need one to play at Strasbourg? I think it would probably be better for him to have a loan anyway, kid too good to have a risk of not being a starter.

Wonder why Maatsen has been playing as a LB before, simply looks too talented to be stuck there.

Thank god for Nkunku. Love to see him when we’ve got Enzo in.

£65m and £330kpw for the next 5 years is one hell of a gamble on him. I didn’t really realise he was on such huge salary with us and that they raised it a bunch when he joined them. Madness.

Havertz getting absolutely slammed by Arsenal fans for his performance today, they’ve finally realised he might not be a midfielder. Fuck knows what his position actually is, we never figured it out either.