Pizy

I know the game isn’t played on paper, but with De Bruyne now out injured again long term I’d say we have the best midfield in the league on paper.

Just sounds like they’re extremely salty that they were dumb enough to have such a low release clause. They’re BIG MAD that they’re going to lose their biggest talent for a tiny fee.

Never! Only time I’m not is when it us and ONLY us after a player. Any time we’re battling a rival for a highly sought after talent I’ll be paranoid. 🤣

That’s a big, BIG price for a 19 year old but the upside and potential is world class. Huge show of faith by our owners and board if they seal this AND Caicedo.

It’s a big concern for sure. Have to imagine that the club will be super cautious and not rush him in just because he’s a shiny new toy. But for us to STILL push ahead with his signing rather than get someone like Kudus or Cherki who are ready to go right away it must mean they have absolute faith that he’ll recover fully. And they better be right if he’s getting a massively long contract! At least the price is ridiculously low in this day and age. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Hopefully it’s done within the next 24 hours so that he can get a few training sessions in for the weekend. And so we don’t allow a desperate, begging Liverpool a chance to dramatically raise their bid and wage offer to Lavia to turn his head again. We all know exactly how this new, Declan Rice-less West Ham will play. They’ll want to be super physical, high energy, and lots of direct play to try to rattle us. So having both Caicedo and Lavia in our midfield to battle them with physical power would be a huge bonus.

Let’s get him in in time for the weekend! 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

Is Olise actually French or is that just who he chooses to represent due to his grandparents or something? Could’ve sworn I’ve seen an interview of his where he had a thick London accent. I had no clue he was French until I read his Wiki page. Though he was English through and through. Anyways, I want a Lavia update today! 😅😅😅 For me he’s now more important that Olise since he’ll slot straight into the XI and he’ll us from day 1.

Have to imagine we’re waiting for final approval from the PL. You’d think the club would be desperate to start getting money for new shirt sales in ASAP. Especially with all these shiny new signings. We haven’t even officially revealed our away kit yet which is crazy since the season has started.

The one I’m not sure about as I mentioned last night is Ugo. Casadei and Santos are at least pretty different profiles of midfielders compared to Enzo, Caicedo, and Lavia. I can imagine Casadei for example being a Lampard type who plays further up. That’s probably his future. But Ugo is a pure DM and we’ll have 3 players (Caicedo, Lavia, and Santos) who all occupy that deeper position so I’m not sure where he’d fit. Puzzling signing for me. If he was purely an insurance signing in case we failed with Caicedo or Lavia then we could’ve waited until the deadline to get him since it’s not like anyone else was after him. Gallagher for me HAS to be sold to the highest bidder this window. It’ll be sad and unfortunate on a personal level because he clearly loves the club and is desperate to fight for his place, but he isn’t a deep midfielder and we have others for the more advanced roles. Need to go not only for on the pitch reasons but also to help us out FFP wise. Two of the biggest priorities before the window closes are to get as much money as possible for Gallagher and Chalobah.

Sell on clause is pretty irrelevant for a player we’ve spent so much on. If Real Madrid or PSG want him in 3 years (they’re the only clubs who could dream of affording him) it would be because he had been excellent for us. And in that scenario we would demand what, £150m for him? More? Nobody is paying that for a DM.

If Lavia comes and with Andrey being the huge talent he is, I really have no clue why we felt the need to buy Ugochukwu for €27m. What is his path to the first team in that scenario? I’d personally rather we keep Santos here rather than Ugo. Him getting sub appearances, starts in the cups, and training with world class players will be huge for his development.

United look dogshit, btw. I said the other day and I maintain that I see them falling back from last season and think if our signings settle in well we’ll finish above them.

Meslier himself said earlier this summer that he’d come to Chelsea only if he was the starter and wouldn’t sit on our bench. For someone coming off a terrible season like he did we certainly couldn’t promise him that.

The most nerve wracking saga of the summer (and possibly ever!) is finally over. Caicedo and Enzo signed within 6 months of one another. Unreal ambition!

MIDFIELD SORTED FOR A DECADE! Assuming Ugo is 100% sent out to Strasbourg, our 4 midfield options this season are Enzo, Caicedo, Lavia, and Santos. That is INCREDIBLE depth and a stunning rebuild after the Kante, Jorginho, Kova, and RLC era. And ALL between the ages of 19-22. Ridiculous!

Tchouameni is better at using the ball than Caicedo at this point but I wouldn’t take him instead of Caicedo defensively or tactically.

Yeah, I’m just scared of hamstring problems after what we just witnessed with Kante. Comes back from a bad one and then quickly picks gets them again.

Yeah, months from now when he’s back from injury. 🤷‍♂️ Signing a wide attacker who has a torn hamstring currently for big money is so damn risky.

West Ham already got Ward-Prowse in just in time to play against us (who scored that great free kick against us not long ago and is a threat to do so now) so it would be super annoying if they can get Kudus in to face us as well. A player we ourselves should be getting.

A lot of us have talked shit about Cucurella but I would absolutely NOT do any business with Newcastle. Firstly because they’re a very strong team who we’ll be directly competing with for top 4 and secondly because Eddie Howe is absolutely fantastic at coaching average players into looking amazing. He’d get a real tune out of Cucu, imo. So why give them another weapon? If he goes it should be either abroad or to a smaller club here in the PL.

Klopp and Liverpool fans may have to be put on suicide watch if we nab Lavia too. For that reason as much as any other I hope we convince him to choose us.

I see him ending up at Pool simply because Klopp will be in his ear about how hugely important he’d be for them straight away. Whereas for us he’d probably be gradually eased in. Probably also comes down to length of contract offered. These players seem to really like the long term security of the 7-8 year contracts we’ve been throwing around so if we offer that to Lavia it could sway him our way.

Liverpool have apparently gone up to £60m for Lavia and agreed a price with Southampton. Guess we’ll now find out both how much we want him and how much he wants us. I really want us to get him now.

Yes, the price is indeed absolute madness. In the exact same way Declan Rice’s price was madness. I would say both player’s real value is probably around the £70-75m area. You throw in the fact that both are so young, still had multiple years left in their contracts, and were at clubs that weren’t in desperate needs for cash and you get hugely inflated fees. Both clubs not having to worry about their midfields for the next handful of years makes overpaying worth it, though. Especially us. Caicedo is not even 22 yet! A couple of years younger than Rice!