Tomo

The same age Salah got 10 goals in 50 games in the Swiss league and Europa, Mount looks a decent bet to trump that total playing PL and CL. Anyway i only made that point because i disagree with ML's assessment that Mason isn't on the same tier as what those two were in their early 20's as i firmly believe he is, time will tell if he has a similar career.

Not saying he'll turn out as good but Mount is better than 20 year old versions of both, especially Salah.

Most important thing is we have learnt and making sure this doesn't happen with Mount, Odoi etc

I wonder if he will do his interview wearing the club merchandise he told fans to boycott.

Worry about them losing another time, it's in our best interests to see Arsenal smacked right up in this one.

Palace have now won away vs all the top six atleast once since promotion.

We still need to in my opinion as we would be Tammy going down away from having a striker crisis all over again. Furthermore it will give Lampard the option to play the diamond. In the unlikely event Ole is happy to stay as #3 extend his contract for a year also.

Usually i'd be quite critical of a performance like that but he was drafted in the lineup in the 11th hour so that has to be factored.

Tbh i thought we did well against them all game, I've been critical of our defensive structure but today was more down to Norwich being clinical than our failings. They scored the two, had 1 chance after Pukki's goal and hit the bar from that corner but beyond that they didn't really create anything.

I thought he was sensational today, couldn't help but smile when he scored the opener. If he can carry this on and we get our new striker signing right we could wind up with our best pair of forwards since Drogba and Anelka.

This contract alone sets his family up for generations, i love the club but in the same situation i would do exactly the same thing. Taking £70,000 a week when you could earn nearly triple would be insanity.

That's not really the point i'm trying to make, it's a completely different discussion entirely. Any one that says in Callum's position they would take a 'modest wage' when there's a genuine chance of taking home treble that is either lying or thinking too romantically, he had strong cards and played them.

Callum is getting a very harsh press on this one. Player's will almost always use their cards to full effect in negotiations. Terry loves the club as much as anyone but in 2009 played chess with the board to get the best deal possible, Lampard manipulated the fanbase in 2013 to get an upper hand in negotiations, as did Terry in 2016. Don't blame any of them. If the club held all the cards and were able to stick Callum on modest wage (like they did with Mount) they would have done so without thinking twice, however Callum has us over a barrel even with his injury and he's pounced, fair play to him. I would be very happy if their genuine discussions on whether he gets 500k a week when he's 22, why? Because that will mean we have a truly world class player on our books.

It's well documented Wolves will demand a hell of a lot for Neves and there's no chance Leicester will accept anything lower than Maguire money for Madison. I do believe Kovacic and Jorginho are better than Neves (he really isn't what he's cracked up to be) and RLC is better than Madison and Mount won't be far behind for long if he is atall.

Wilfred Ndidi is that you?

The thing is i think he's wasted further up, his bursting runs from midfield is his key attribute and playing number 10 or worse up front will give him next to no space. It's a problem because in terms of how Lampard wants to set up Mount is already a key player but RLC has earned his place with his performances last season from March, i really hope this doesn't turn into a Lampard/Gerrard esque situation of shoehorning both in to the detriment of both's full effectiveness.

That would be a humungous waste of resources (the two combined would cost not far off £200m). Firstly because we already have better players than both in their positions, secondly because every other position bar GK needs reinforcements more urgently than CM and lastly neither are that good.

Will he interesting to see where he fits in under Lampard. I can't see him taking Mount's place as he suits perfectly the style Lampard wants.

I don't think that's true atall. I think footballing people below identify the targets and she tries to negotiate with whatever names have been given. I don't believe for one second that she has any say in picking which players to target, potentially she vetos some for financial reasons but I that's about as far as it goes. Maybe she does do things wrong but picking her out for something she more than likely has no involvement in just screams being critical for the sake of it, you may aswell accuse her of the Kennedy assassination while you're at it.

I'm talking about identifying and scouting targets, I am 99.9999999% sure she doesn't do that.

Rejecting bids for Willian isn't identifying targets to bring in, and if i had to guess the situation with Christian, he was scouted and Sarri was content, he said he was unaware it was happening when it did, not that it was happening atall. That was mainly a narrative a rival fans trying to make out Roman is a lunatic who makes life impossible, here's a link to the Ray quotes via Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/chelseafc/comments/1bwuqu/fernando_torres_purchase_ancelottis_idea_not/

I'm flip flopping between Tammy and Giroud and leaning towards Oli after Leicester. Firstly because in that half hour when we tore Leicester a new one and created all those chances he set up all bar one of them and as he proved in the world cup can be a decent foil for vibrant wingers and AM. Secondly because we need some experience to balance out the youth, most of us want Pulisic and Odoi wings and Mount CAM/LCM, adding another early 20 player to it will be too much, not even Wenger went that young. For now i think we should go for Giroud, especially if all those 3 are starting aswell.

We haven't really signed any duds since he's left. All our signing's since the 2017 disaster (which Drinkwater aside had more to do with Conte than people like to admit) have all been good all in all. That's not picking the targets though and rumour has it she's pulled the plug because of the mess Monaco are in (fearing his transfer value would plummet) and the financial part is her fortee. Carlo wanted Torres something Wilkins (RIP) since confirmed.

Picking transfers and getting players in fall into the same bracket. So Marina identify's targets over the managers, scouting team and even Roman? I find that very hard to believe. She clearly does the negotiating but it will take very strong evidence for me to believe that she actually picks the targets

Supposedly someone behind the scenes none of the public know about. He said she doesn't pick the targets, which is pretty obvious.