Pizy

I mean, what else would their manager say? He’s been told that unless we pay what they want he stays. He hasn’t said definitively that Caicedo will 100% stay no matter what. Basically reaffirms what we’ve known for months. Pay up or shut up.

Even though he doesn’t have the resume of the elite managers he just seems to really command the respect of players. I bet you it’s probably a night and day difference in training between Poch and Potter. Whereas Potter seemed from day 1 like he knew he was in over his head and just trying to be everyone’s friend, Poch is apparently almost military-like with his training sessions. And that’s what this underperforming group needed desperately. To kick their asses into shape and most importantly actually have patterns and tactics. I hope that he can have a similar effect on our team that Ten Hag did last season where he completely turned them around over the course of just 1 season. United had the talent but were managed by a totally clueless amateur in Solskjaer. Then a proper coach came in and those same players that were embarrassingly poor were almost all transformed. It SHOULD be the same for us. We have some ridiculously talented footballers. It doesn’t have to take that long to turn us around if the players fully buy in to the coach. Which they clearly didn’t with Potter.

We’ve been “weighing up,” “considering,” and “talking directly with Brighton” for weeks now. These journalists may as well not even say these things if nothing has changed. They’re just repeating themselves a hundred times. I saw someone remark how strange it was that we went crazy buying loads of players that we may not have needed the last couple of windows and had no issue putting up the huge fees. Now there’s a player that we desperately need and we’ve been haggling for ages. That’s what’s most frustrating about the Caicedo saga. If the club wants to haggle and play stubborn hardball for targets in positions we’re steady in that’s all fine and good. But our midfield has 1 top class player + a bunch of literal teenagers currently. So why are we dragging our feet on the most important position in the team?

As someone who absolutely hated the new kit I must admit that it looks MUCH better actually on the players than it does on a hanger or in promo shots. Maybe it’s just because the No sponsor look is really classy. Hopefully now we don’t ruin it with a shit sponsor logo.

Yes, but they now have Emery’s favorite competition to contend with which he will obviously take VERY seriously. They will be very solid, no doubt, but they’ll have a real juggling act to maintain their levels in so many competitions. Clubs that overachieve like they did tend to struggle the next season when they have Europa League football.

Yep. Very good signings for them so far. They’ll be a genuine top 6 threat.

Yet another day goes by with zero transfer news. Is Caicedo our one and only target for the entire rest of the window? Is that why we don’t see more activity?

Gone silent on ALL incoming business. Well actually we might be buying a £30m French striker……that we aren’t even planning to use this season. 🙄🙄🙄 We’ve done an incredible, almost impossible job of getting rid of all our unwanted players but already feel like we’re 2 steps behind all of our rivals in bringing much needed players IN. All of the midfielders our rivals have signed have already been playing multiple preseason matches and have been training for weeks.

I imagine Poch has quite the task trying to decide what to do with the LB situation. Selling Cucu before his chance at redemption would be hard and I doubt we could get a great fee for him. Maatsen looks great here and starred for a great Burnley side last season. Would be super tough to send him back away. And then there’s Hall who won’t find a place in our midfield so probably continues to be considered a LB. What a headache…

If we don’t massively accelerate the Caicedo deal tomorrow I’ll start to genuinely worry.

Yep. When we spent £50m on Torres it was seen as like some stratospheric, game breaking fee. Now £50m is a common fee clubs pay for any promising players. Not even for someone proven.

Trev is fine ONLY as a squad player and injury cover. If he’s starting for an extended period I don’t think he’s good enough. So weather or not we bring in another CB probably depends on whether the club trusts that 39 year old Silva can stay fit all season. Honestly, the more I think about it now the more I think we probably DO need an additional CB. And I’m sure that probably really makes things tricky for the club since we were perfectly set in that area before Fofana’s injury. As for Caicedo, that Brighton tweet sure doesn’t make it seem like anything is happening soon, huh? What in the actual fuck are we doing? Glaring holes in our squad and yet we don’t appear close on ANY incoming transfers.

Even from Guehi’s POV I’m not sure why he’d agree to come back and sit on our bench. He’s one of the main men at Palace.

Didn’t he regress significantly last season after being very impressive his first season there? That’s what I heard anyways. If anything, we should go for their other CB Andersen.

In an ideal world, perhaps. But I can’t see any clubs paying the sort of prices we’d ask for either. Again, I’m fine seeing if Cucu can recapture the Brighton form that made us buy him in the first place. Gallagher I couldn’t really be bothered about leaving. Cherki would be an instant upgrade on him.

Already seeing talk of Maatsen going back on loan to Burnley so I don’t think there’s any way Cucu is sold. And tbf, I think he deserves a chance to turn things around. Gallagher seems completely determined to stay here so unless Poch tells him he’s not in his plans he’s going to stay.

I think he’ll eventually relent and go to Saudi Arabia. Juve probably won’t be able to move Vlahovic in a time frame that suits us.

True, but this just looked like standard fitness training. I wanna see some actual tactical and technical training. This was basically just a warm-up.

With the match today, almost certainly fuck all. Shit, knowing our luck we’ll get a new key player injured in the first preseason match. 🤦‍♂️

Palinha is a pure, 100% destroyer. Not much else to his game. Watch his YouTube highlights and it’s like watching a dude who wants to go out on the pitch and kick everyone’s ass. It’s actually kind of amusing. Good player, though. As for Kimmich, the only place I can ever see him going if he left Bayern (which I doubt he ever does) is Barca. Or if they can’t afford him he’d reunite with Pep. He’d be pretty redundant with Enzo here even if he were open to coming here.

He’d get 8 red cards in a single season in the PL.

Spending money on a striker that we won’t even use anytime soon when we desperately need a ready made striker NOW. 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

I’m just too concerned with the midfield and even the striker situation at the moment to stress about CB’s. If we signed two top quality midfielders it’ll help mask the other issues. But yeah, looking at the squad overall at this moment in time it’s hard to see this team even sniffing top 6, never mind pushing for the top 4. The midfield is nearly nonexistent when it comes to proven quality after Enzo and we’d be 100% reliant on wingers/attacking midfielders and a totally unproven young striker for goals. We are still about 4 signings away from having a squad that’s capable of being in the mix. Two midfielders, a striker, an maybe a keeper or CB if some opportunity presents itself.

I agree that rushing out and buying a CB this window makes little sense. It isn’t a concerning area at the moment. If this was the usual 60 match Chelsea season then yes. Maybe, just maybe we bring someone highly experienced on loan for the season if some opportunity presents itself. Someone who is 30+ and knows ahead of time that they likely won’t see much playing time.

1) Doesn’t Maguire play on the left side or perhaps in the middle of a back 3 if you use that formation? If cover for Fofana’s injury is brought in it needs to be a right sided player 2) Why would Maguire want to hop from a situation where he’d be on United’s bench to our bench when he could go to a West Ham or and Everton and start every match? 3) He’s fucking shit and why would we want him anyways?! If we ever get into an emergency situation where Trev and Chalobah are injured at the same time we can always temporarily play a back 3 with Reece as a right sided CB. I don’t think it’s worth spending money on anyone at this point. As for Fofana, imagine how unbelievably soul destroying and demoralizing it has to be to now miss multiple entire seasons due to injuries ag such a young age. Genuinely gutted for him. Had he been injury free for these past couple of years he could’ve been coached into one of Europe’s best. 😩😩😩