Pizy

Going to need a really big and disciplined game from Enzo today. That Palace attack is very dangerous and Wharton is very good in the middle of the pitch. We saw them cause Liverpool and City loads of problems. Enzo needs to help out and be smart positionally. If he gets caught too high up they’ll kill us on the counter. With these CB injuries it’s imperative that we keep the ball as much as possible as to not expose them unnecessarily.

Just thought that with Jackson being younger and being a PL proven goal scorer he’d have multiple bery interested suitors bidding for him. Whereas with Nunku’s injury history + having not played much for us in the PL I thought we’d have an extremely tough time selling.

Wonder if we’ve convinced Bayern on a sale rather than loan. There’s a good chance that he gets yet another injury this season so a loan is too risky. Need him gone for good.

Indeed. If you had told me when the window started that Nkunku could move before Jackson I’d have been stunned.

So basically this will be his farewell game for Palace. Opening match of the season, his farewell match, London derby, against us who are missing multiple starting level CB’s. He’s going to be massively up for this one. Hopefully we are so dominant and on top of them with intensity that it won’t matter. 🙏🏼

The Veiga situation is so weird. We still don’t have any clue why he isn’t even being considered. Did he forever lose Maresca’s respect for demanding to leave in order to play CB? It’s basically a Chelsea tradition at this point that if you’re a young player who has a successful loan you’re at least given a chance to make it here. Mount, Gallagher, Andrey Santos, Reece, Colwill etc. Yet Veiga was apparently really solid at Juve and isn’t even being considered. If he’s good enough that the likes of Atleti were seriously considering him why isn’t he given a chance I wonder?

The hierarchy can believe we have enough all they want. But if the manager says that we need a new CB, wouldn’t he know much better than they would? Guess we’ll find out tomorrow who is right.

If Josh looks really solid in these first couple of games before the window closes then we surely won’t buy any CB.

Let’s see if the sentiment holds if our CB’s look shaky tomorrow.

Wolves, West Ham, Burnley. There are some abysmal looking sides in the PL if today is anything to go by.

Hasn’t been decided yet apparently. There’s a chance he doesn’t but it’s not 100%.

Whoever is playing at CB tomorrow, the likes of Mateta, Sarr, and Eze if he plays are going to be licking their lips bevause it’s going to be a makeshift pairing that hasn’t played together. 🤦‍♂️

I joked about it right after Levi went down but I do seriously wonder now if bringing back Thiago Silva for 1 season is viable. He’d have more protection and a much better team in front of him now than he did last spell so you’d expect him to have much less of a burden on him. May sound silly but I would at least ask him if I were the club.

Sounds nice for sure. That would be great if it happened. But the difference between us and Barca is that in La Liga they’re vastly superior to every opponent they play every week except for 1 or 2. They can afford to bed in younger players and still don’t really have to worry about finishing any lower than 3rd every season. We go into the season with some learner drivers in defense who are making a bunch of mistakes as they develop could see us finishing like 7th or something. For Barca, UCL football is never really under threat.

Unfortunately, the timing of the Colwill injury is just as bad as the injury itself. This late in the window I don’t know who we can go and get that’s top class. What club is going to sell a cornerstone of their team just as their season is starting? We would probably have to pay Wes Fofana money again to get someone good enough that we wouldn’t miss Levi.

I think it’s pretty clear that while Liverpool are obviously amazing in attack, they’re vulnerable in defense. I don’t think they’re going to run away with the league and finish miles ahead of the rest like last season. They get 1 or 2 key longer term injuries to VVD or Gravenberch and they’re suddenly really beatable by the other top teams. I can already foresee lots of matches like that one we just watched with them this season where they look subpar by their standards, they concede a couple, but then they have so many monsters up front that they’ll grind out wins.

Absolutely shocking defending there. How in the hell did the CB allow Salah to get that ball? He slowed down and just let him have it ffs!

Ekitike looks really dangerous. Gonna be weird if he starts super well and then Isak comes in. I don’t see how you play those two together. Ekitike would be wasted out on the left.

Don’t know if it’s even worth bothering to watch this match. Premier League gave Liverpool a free cupcake of an opening fixture to slaughter. Probably be long over by half time.

I get the club trying to hold out and get as much money as they can as any business would. But the\is late in the window there’s a real danger of being too stubborn/unrealistic and having the interested clubs turn elsewhere. Then we’re winter stuck with unwanted players or forced to panic deal right at the deadline for much worse terms than we could’ve received earlier.

I’m going to assume that there IS a scouting team pouring over the data for CB’s in case there’s a “market opportunity” late in the window. But if it happens my bet is that it’s an inexpensive older player who’s more of a 1 season stop gap. If Xavi and Garnacho come in surely we won’t have the ability to then go out and spend 60m+ on a top CB.

Both Carney and Nkunku are very injury prone. So again, we should not be agreeing to loans with options for these guys. They get injured as usual while on loan and miss large parts of the season and the clubs won’t activate the buy clauses. Then we have more players next summer who are a massive pain in the ass to move on once again. Any loan we do MUST have mandatory buy obligations.

Do not agree loans for players on big wages, please. We’ve seen with Sterling and Chilly how hard they then become to shift if the clubs loaning them decide to not take up the option to buy. Shift Nkunku permanently even if we have to accept a cut price fee in the 30’s.

Has it been made clear whether Nkunku needs to go in order to get Xavi due to the squad being too full or strictly because we need the money? Because if it’s just about making room then I guess a loan with buy obligation wouldn’t be the end of the world. As long as the buy clause is ironclad.

That’s what I mean. Use the £35-40m we’ll be spunking on Garnacho to put towards a CB instead.