Pizy

Inter fans apparently really rate Dumfries. But as mentioned he’s not a CB so I’m not sure why the hell he’d be a Koundé alternative. He’d be a very decent RJ rotation option but even then paying €40m for a squad player is nuts. Reading a bit more about him it seems he’s very mediocre technique wise but is a beast in terms of energy and physicality. Apparently he can run up and down the flank nonstop for a full 90 minutes. Could be useful I guess. But certainly not exciting.

This is shaping up to be another window in which we scramble and panic buy like 3-4 players right near the deadline just to get numbers in rather than identifying long term players. Players that will be useful in the squad but won’t elevate our level in terms of title a title challenge.

After telling WH no when they asked for Broja I can’t imagine they’d be too happy to sell us Bowen.

I mean, I agree but after Ruchel made such a big effort in January to bring Emerson back from his loan in France I think it’s safe to say he rates him. I think that’s why we haven’t even tried to get rid of him yet.

Can’t imagine how we’d keep 3 LWB’s in the squad and have enough minutes to go around. So blocking Alonso from going whilst keeping Emerson makes no sense. One or the other has to go. And we haven’t heard anything about anyone wanting Emerson.

Skriniar. Hurry.

He’s definitely a better pure defender but I think stylistically Koundé is a better fit for our formation and how we want our CB’s to play. Koundé is a more modern CB. Quick, smaller, great at carrying the ball forward and building attacks from the back. Skriniar is a classic beast of a defender but is slow and just pretty good on the ball. With both Silva and KK who are excellent on the ball I don’t think it would be an issue, though.

We never actually put money on the table for De Ligt I don’t think. But I’m sure we were just about to before Bayern quickly swooped in. Skriniar at least doesn’t seem like he’d be a big priority for PSG so that may play into our hands if we go for him. They already have Marquinhos, Kimpembe, and Old Man Ramos. So perhaps if we’re quick and decisive we can get this done.

We wouldn’t bid for a 3rd player this window without first getting a commitment from the man himself, right? Surely we’ve learned our lesson. If we’re going to go for Skriniar we need Tuchel himself on the phone talking to him like he did with Sterling and KK.

We don’t even seem to be linked with any attacking players anymore, never mind being close to actually signing one. We bid £60m or whatever for Raphinha, failed, and then just….said ‘okay’ and moved on to no alternative?

Only CB left we can now emerge from this window with thinking “wow, we made out extremely well in the end” is Skriniar. But we’d probably have to throw €75m at Inter for them to sell him, though we do appear to have a good relationship with them via the Lukaku saga. But offering money isn’t even the tricky bit for us anymore. It’s getting the goddamned players to choose us. We’ve shown twice now in a matter of weeks that we’re more than willing to part with £55m+.

So we’re fucked in the CB market and the right winger/striker department. All by one single club.

I don’t even think defending has anything to do with it. People call for Emerson because he can actually run pretty quickly to recover defensively.

As dire as things feel after these preseason games, I’d still feel pretty optimistic about top 4 if we can somehow get Koundé + a class attacking player in before the season starts. I just have no clue at all who a realistic attacking signing is from here. Even if we were to panic and bring CR7 in I feel like our midfield lack so much creativity that even he’d struggle for goals. Missing out on both Raphinha and Dembele so massively fucked us over. We desperately needed that kind of pace and extreme aggression on that right side to stretch teams and also score goals.

It just feels like once again our top PL goal scorer is going to have 8-9 goals or something pathetic like that. Mount, Kai, and Sterling will probably each hit that. We have nobody who is going to be truly prolific and clinical. I’m fairly confident that the defense and midfield will sort itself out as the season starts, but where the fuck is the reliable goal scoring going to come from?

Tuchel is as frustrated as we are with our sluggish transfer window and the extreme stress of having to coach and also be so involved everywhere else looks to have finally boiled over last night with these quotes. We looked exactly the same as our shit performances last season. Zero growth or improvement because as Tuchel said, it’s the same players. Werner, Havertz, Ziyech, and Pulisic look like the exact same 1 in every 5 games players. Batshuayi is still Championship quality. Chalobah still liable for at least 1 shocker of an error each match. Mendy likewise. There are no discernible attacking patterns or clear idea going forward which was clear as day to see with Arse. The exact same struggles we had as a team last season we have still. Struggle when pressed, struggle to string together passes, struggle to get attackers connected with the midfield. And the worst thing about all these deadwood players is that we’ve given them such huge wages that it’s seemingly impossible to shift them. Who’s going to want all these guys? Plus, even if we can by some miracle shift a bunch of them we’ve been so slow this window that we won’t get replacements in any time soon. There was a clear and pretty desperate appeal from Tuchel to Boehly for more quality additions. But who is there out there that can solve our goal scoring issues? Jesus would’ve been perfect for us… 😒

Werner, Havertz, Pulisic, CHO. All of them are passive, soft players who don’t have the mentality necessary to drive a title challenge and for this season I fear not for top 4 either. We don’t have a single killer. City will be City, Liverpool will be Liverpool. Arse and United have taken clear and easily noticeable strides forward during their preseasons and Spuds have basically an entirely new team filled with hand picked Conte signings. We look literally identical to the team last season that was completely toothless and had no discernible rhythm or pattern to our play.

I’m done. Humiliation after totally controlling the second half.

Squad so barren of forwards that Batshuayi could very well play a major part for us this season. You have to laugh.

Kova instantly solidified midfield. But I still don’t see where we’re going to get reliable goal scoring from…

Wasn’t talking about fitness. I mean with the sharpness of our passing and attacking patterns of play. They look like they’ve been working on those things for months whereas our players look like strangers who have never played before. Have we not worked on these things at all? Wtf is going on…

Not even overreacting or exaggerating, we made them look like the well oiled City side there. Passing rings around us with total comfort, pressing us so we didn’t have any flow to our passing, and easily winning the ball off us like a school bully taking some little nerds lunch money. We made them look like i\they were in midseason form and this was our first game in 5 months. What have we been doing in training everyday?!

Btw, I think I count 5 blind long balls to nowhere from Emerson so far. Literally just kicking it long and giving Arse easy possession back. My word…

As I’ve said here before, Chalobah is not a first choice player for Chelsea. He needs an upgrade via the window. Likewise Werner.

Mendy looks around and looks around and then passes it directly to and Arse player and they score. We are dire. Not getting top 4 without several more quality buys.