Pizy

It feels crazy that we haven’t sealed a midfielder yet. It’s as though we’re asking for other big clubs to start up a bidding war for whatever targets we have. Why hasn’t Caicedo been wrapped up yet when the sales of Kai and Kova alone will have brought us £90m, never mind the extra money we’ll be getting for the 3 Saudi deals? We don’t even have to dip into whatever transfer funds were available outside of players sales yet.

Having a coach in well before preseason, telling the club which players he doesn’t want, telling them which players he’d like to sign, and then having a full preseason to drill the players in his idea should automatically mean we’re better than last season. Remember how calamitous our preseason was last year? The signs were there right away when we got smoked by Arse in America. By all accounts from his Spuds and Southampton days he has been described as the sort of coach who demands superhuman fitness and discipline from his players. He’s got a clear idea and plan. This is what we were missing completely under Potter who seemed in WAY over his head and was battling from minute 1 to try to earn the respect of players who most of which had never heard of him. Depending on who we buy I’ll be super confident that we’ll be in the mix for top 4.

RLC was never going to become anything worth keeping at a club of our ambition. Didn’t score, didn’t assist, not mentally switched on enough to make it. And he’s always injured over the years. At his absolute best he was nice but even then he was essentially Kova with a bit more power. Wasn’t getting or creating goals. Just good at carrying r ball. That’s not good enough.

Getting rid of ALL of your deadwood in one summer is the stuff most big clubs dream of but can never do. But we’re actually doing it! A couple of months ago when some of the Chelsea reporters talked about how the club were going to sell an absurd number of players this summer I just rolled my eyes and thought to myself “uh huh, sure. There’s no way we’ll be able to move most of these dudes.” But we’re actually selling every player I thought would be impossible to shift.

Expected a big flurry of outgoing announcements today but we get nothing it seems…

If I had to choose between Lautaro and Vlahovic I’d take Lautaro. But I don’t really want either 😪 Feel like Lautaro’s playing style could mesh better with the attackers we have. Though I suppose after working with Kane in the PL Poch would fancy Vlahovic more since he’s more of a classic striker.

Whatever it takes for me to never see yet another manager think to themselves “hey, maybe RLC is good enough for Chelsea” again for the 15th time. I just want him gone.

Is it? Much like KK and others simply getting him the hell off our books with those huge wages is a massive win. I don’t see some small PL club being able to offer him well over 100k per week. He’s a one in every 10 games sort of player.

I and a few others here agree. Osimhen is a great finisher within the box and is a powerful, classic #9 that would do well in the PL. But he’s not a £100m+ player for me. Not even close. He’s average with the ball at his feet and doesn’t offer enough besides goal scoring to be worth mega money. For a striker to be worth that sort of money they need a world class all around game like Kane or Benzema. And if they don’t they need to have alien like production every season like Haaland. Osimhen is no Haaland.

We should never engage with Napoli again unless one of their players has a release clause. Reports suggest that De Laurentiis will demand like £150m for Osimhen so we can forget about that. In my opinion, we should avoid ever paying huge money for a striker or keeper again unless they’re coming from another PL club and have been killing it there for a number of years. We can’t afford another embarrassing, mega money bust in these positions.

This is going to be a crazy week for outgoings. Let’s hope it’s got a couple of incomings as well. Jackson is a given obviously, but can we get a midfielder in this week?

Saw Barella trending on Twitter and clicked on it hoping it was something Chelsea related but instead all the posts are about Liverpool moving for him. Man, I really hope we don’t let him go there without fighting like mad. Really, we should be making him our primary midfield target before Caicedo when the prices being talked about are similar.

Is Havertz getting married today or something?

Nope. Having a club suddenly ripped from the hands of one owner, having the government seize control of it, and then find a new owner within such a short span is totally without precedent. We’re seeing right now how long and complicated a process of new ownership is with a massive club like ours with the Man United situation. It’s been how many months since the Glazers started the process? And there’s still no clear picture there.

Mount really does seem intent on destroying all the good will he built up with Chelsea supporters here.

Problem is, a midtable PL side couldn’t afford his huge wages unless he just agrees to take a big pay cut in order to start playing football again.

Barring any last second fuckery (which we know can happen with this new club negotiation group after the Ziyech & Ugarte moves) it really is incredible that we’ve sold off so many unwanted players so quickly and easily. I thought it would be nearly impossible to move Koulibaly this summer. Mega wages, was only here for 1 season, and he himself had expressed his intent to stay and turn his bad fortunes around at Chelsea. At BEST I thought we could perhaps loan him to a Serie A side. I figured Ziyech and Mendy would drag on all summer because they’d be merely fallback options for clubs that failed to get their primary targets. And again, thought we’d only be able to loan them. Mount and Havertz I expected to be kept and used by Poch as squad players. That we’re going to get £120m combined for the two of them is “pinch me in case I’m dreaming” stuff. The final hurdle we now have in getting rid of the last of the deadwood is finding solutions for Lukaku, Pulisic, RLC, and CHO. And unfortunately these 4 are probably the hardest to move. One of them (Lukaku) is a stubborn asshole and will only accept 1 club. Pulisic will probably have many options but seems perfectly happy to stay and be a squad player so I could see him staying. And CHO & RLC are on massive wages so will be extremely difficult to move permanently.

Whether Bayern want him or not it’s moot. He clearly wants United and only United because they’re probably offering him wages that nobody else will go near and he has surely been tapped up by a bunch of his English mates in the United squad.

Saw you mention that kid Arda Güler, @Vesper so I just watched a video of him. Good God, he looks insane! 🤣🤣🤣 I’m genuinely shocked that with this massive buying spree of young super talents we haven’t gone in for him.

Just move Mount on ASAP so that Poch can get his squad settled as quickly as he can. £55m is a fantastic deal for someone in his situation.

If we lose out on Caicedo I hope our alternatives are proper ballers in a technical sense. Super technical, tidy footballers with excellent first touch and great in tight areas. I’ll be super annoyed if we go out and get midfielders who are mostly just big, powerful athletes first and foremost and have questionable technical ability. Like if instead of going big and trying to get Barella we instead go for Onana from Everton.

Didn’t Leipzig change their mind because it was too late to replace him? I can’t recall.

City gonna spend 100m on a DM when they’ve already got the best one in the league and then they’re gonna spend another 100m on a CB when they’ve just won the treble with 3 different CB’s having spectacular seasons. Not that we had a prayer of getting close to them this coming season, but it’s difficult to see how anyone does for the foreseeable future when they can do this. If it hasn’t already happened, the PL will soon just be the Bundesliga on steroids. Yes, the overall quality of the league is MUCH higher than in Germany but the champion will be the same every year.

Until we see something from Ornstein or Fabrizio about United & Caicedo then there’s no point in thinking about it. Mount and Caicedo are completely different players so moving on from one and going for the other as an alternative makes no sense. They ain’t giving up on Mount after completely convincing him to come and agreeing everything with him.

Yep, I think we learned our lesson wit Kepa. Diogo Costa looks amazing with the ball like Ederson or Allison but I don’t think we’d ever spend huge money on a keeper again. Not having seen how difficult it is to move one if he doesn’t live up to expectations.