Pizy

Yuck. One of Ruben’s most annoying traits is his awareness (or lack thereof). In midfield he gets caught napping or just slowly jogging around nonchalantly. Having him do that as a wingback for any extended length of time sounds terrible. It was always probably unrealistic to expect us to sign another super expensive LWB in Cucurella as well as a new RWB. But it leaves us pretty short of quality if James does a hammy or something again.

Yeah, if Reece gets injured we’re in trouble once again.

So that’s probably Azpi starting as the right sided CB for the foreseeable future until we sign another CB, then. Someone who has looked past it for 18 months now. 😒 Never would’ve imagined we’d be starting the new PL season with Azpi or Chalobah as first choice players still. I guess Azpi playing at CB is slightly better than him playing wingback…

After multiple outlets reported that Cucurella was done and dusted yesterday followed by the Brighton denial, I feel like if we don’t get an actual announcement today we should be worried that the deal has collapsed.

Love the look of Carney and think he will be our midfield signing this summer, not De Jong. It seems from all these quotes that he’s staying here and not going out on loan. We still need to shift RLC, Barkley, and Billy in order for him to get some nice minutes, though.

The concern I guess is that he’s one of those youth players who feels he’s too good for Brighton and will only go to a big club. Of which there are probably plenty in his ear.

Kind of contradictory, no? Cucurella is “done” but Colwill isn’t. But the move can only happen if they sign Colwill. Which they haven’t. So it can’t be done. Is it done in a sense that the price and structure is generally agreed to or done as in everything is signed? Kind of a difference.

Wasn’t the reason he struggled at the end for Arse due to Arteta sticking him out wide instead of playing him up top?

In the one hand, Auba has looked pretty decent in a Barca side that provides him service. On the other, he looks shocking at the end of his Arse spell. If this was a season long loan it might be interesting. Hopefully we exhaust all other avenues first, though.

Please say sike

This is one of the GOAT’s. So damn beautiful.

Appears the Cucurella side of things is more or less sewn up and done. It’s the Colwill part that isn’t. Hope that’s just a matter of structure and clauses and not Colwill having cold feet about Brighton and thinking he’s “better” than their level.

Sounds to me like someone on the Chelsea side got a bit overexcited and briefed a bunch of people a little too early when nothing is completely done yet. And that clearly pissed Brighton off, hence the statement. Hopefully they aren’t pissed off enough to scupper this.

Fucking hell. Not just Romano, either. Several other reliable journalists were told the same thing. The sort of people who wouldn’t report bullshit usually.

Conflicting info now. Done according to several, not done according to Athletic’s Brighton reporter.

On the surface it’s crazy money but then I just remembered that United paid £50m for AWB who can barely dribble a football and City paid £50m for Mendy who didn’t amount to much when he was there.

Nice. Hopefully he’s had a nice preseason with Brighton and won’t need long to get up to speed.

So no Richarlison, no DCL, they’ve made no real noteworthy signings and the mood around their club is probably pretty miserable. But this is Chelsea at Goodison so….

Seems like all 3 of the main deals we’re reportedly pursuing (De Jong, Fofana, and Cucurella) will be very, very tough to negotiate. All 3 could drag on for a while.

In that case surely Mount will be 1 of the 3. So that leaves two others still.

If, and that’s big IF we signed De Jong I wonder what the preferred pairing in midfield would be. He and Kova would be the most exciting. He and Kante would be the most secure. He and Jorgi would give us total dominance of possession against just about anyone. Gallagher I assume would then be thought of as a more advanced midfielder who competes and rotates with Mount where he’s more effective anyways. Idk. Just seems a bit too good to be true. Midfield is the most crowded area of our squad and the last place the club would be looking to spunk down €80m.

I think he’s been genuinely desperate to stay at Barca. But I’ve thought all along that Barca will essentially force him out and United would eventually get him because they were the only suitor. If we’re genuinely interested I have no clue who he’d prefer.

True. I think the wages bit is key, though. It’s at the point of desperation for them and the humiliation of missing out on a guy they’ve been chasing for 3 months would turn that place toxic from day one.

On De Jong, it would kind of be insanely impressive if we pulled that off. The main reasons I’m extremely skeptical about it are that United not only have his former manager who seems hell bent on turning them into Ajax by targeting all his former players, but they can also offer silly, ridiculous wages that I doubt we’d go near. I’m seeing stuff about £400k a week which is absurd. Plus, he’d be treated like a savior and hero there. Would he turn that down?

I think at this point in the window with the season mere days away from starting we have to accept that we’re going to overpay for any PL player. No English club is going to want to lose their best player. But I’d much rather us overpay and get Fofana done. I love Cucurella but anything north of £50m is nuts.