Pizy

Over 30 minutes in and it feels like Sterling and Kai haven’t even gotten to touch the ball yet. That’s how terrible our midfield and attack have been. And Timo is as bad as ever. I’ve now officially lost hope for him.

This is an effortless training session for Arse. They’re passing around us like training cones. We can’t even get the ball and make two passes to blue shirts.

Chalobah……. Fucking hell.

The quality of our passing is straight up embarrassing. Just blindly booting it up then pitch to nobody. Do we train at all?

They’re easily outplaying us. We can’t string 3 passes together or deal with their pressing.

Can’t find a damn stream

He’ll score about 25 of that exact same tap in for them this season. 😩😩😩

Looks like we’re going 4-3-3 to start with! Should get a good early test of how Old Man Thiago does in a back 4.

As a side note, Bayern and City are also currently playing here in America and just about to kick off. The stadium looks about 85% Bayern fans on TV. 🤣🤣🤣

It being Florida, storms can pop up at any time. Should definitely expect a delay or even a stoppage after kickoff.

Things are coming at you in a totally different way than you’re used to, maybe? It may not be that different when you’re on the ball but the game is coming at you from an angle you’re not used to.

He would have been literally the perfect RCB in our team. Like, the best one we could possibly have gotten this summer. People can downplay it and say they aren’t bothered. That’s fine. But I think this is a huge bummer. His age profile, his skill set, his versatility would’ve been brilliant. Getting a RCB like Koundé would’ve been perfect also because it meant Koulibaly being able to much more quickly get up to speed in the PL by playing on the left side where he is used to. All the other targets we’re linked with (Gvardiol, Kimpembe, Aké) are left footers. Meaning KK will have to go to the right side and take who knows how long to settle.

Not sure I’m buying this “Tuchel has no pull” stuff. He’s not current Mourinho or some coach who is infamous for playing turgid, defensive football. And every player raves about how pleasant he is on a personal basis. We can see how classy he is in every media appearance. He’s a CL winning manager who is hugely respected. We have just been super unlucky that just about every target we have gone after this summer is also being sought after by the only 3-4 clubs that are more attractive than Chelsea. If we were losing out on our top targets to Arse, Spuds, other other clubs beneath us stature wise I’d be worried. But this is Barca and Bayern we’re being gazumped by. Two iconic clubs. What is surprising is that Tuchel doesn’t seem to target any German talents being a German who is well familiar with that league. You would think he’d be pretty useful in convincing them to come.

Only thing that would make up for this L now is Gvardiol who I’ve wanted since before the window opened and we were linked. But even if offered Leipzig 70m at this point they’d probably turn it down since they know we’re desperate.

Nothing Boehly or a Tuchel can do if his mind is made up. Perhaps if he was in a different league. But he’s been right there in Spain and sees how big of a deal Barca is first hand. If they make a huge effort to sign you and play the “come play for the biggest club in the world” card there’s not much we can do. It continues to astound me that he or ANY player would jump at the chance to go to Barca in the immediate future until you get a read on their financial situation. The fact that Koundé is apparently going to turn down a hugely superior wage to go there is even more puzzling.

Wonder what kind of trolling Barca are going to do in their official announcement or the videos afterwards… 😒 Fucking bastards.

Eh, I’m not sure. I think the club were sure that he was coming here. I blame them for waiting this long in the first place, but they’ve done everything in this instance to secure the signing except for apparently convincing the player himself to choose us over Barca. If these reports are true we’ve offered a MUCH higher fee to Sevilla that will be payed all up front and we’ve offered Koundé MUCH better salary that he’ll actually be guaranteed to get unlike at Barca. This is all going to come down to yet another player being seduced by the “mystique” of Barcelona. Not much else we could’ve done except for getting this done months ago.

Every time some player talks about their “dreams” it’s about Barca or Real Madrid. So I think we can cross this one off just like Raphinha. If we would’ve sealed this last summer or earlier this one we almost surely could’ve fought off Barca. But now that they’ve got their money injections it’s seemingly impossible when they make their intent clear.

It seems like most of them are actual hardcore fans of the clubs they report on rather than impartial journalists like you see in other countries.

Wish Law, Jacobs, and Ornstein would wake up and update us.

I think the most likely outcome is us panicking and spending an absurd amount overpaying for Kimpembe or even going back with something unforgivable like £55-60m for Aké.

Yeah, bidding for Skriniar now seems like a good way to get burned and have PSG do the same thing to us. We’ve left things so late that we’re in a tough spot. Yes, there are still 40+ days left in the window, but the season itself is much closer. Teams aren’t going to want to sell top players so close to the start.

Every source that said yesterday that it was essentially done are silent. Some of them are here in America so it’s the crack of dawn and they’re not awake yet, but still. You’d think we’d have a bunch of explanations from the English side. What fucks us over is that Tuchel was surely going to use KK on the left where he’s used to playing and Koundé on the right where he would’ve been perfect. So now if we switch focus to Gvardiol for example, he also plays on the left which creates a bit of a headache. Not to mention he’d cost considerably more than Koundé.

Embarrassing, humiliating, and totally fucks us over. Now watch them drop interest in Azpi and Alonso (thus forcing us to keep a couple of past it players) and then sell United De Jong (thus considerably strengthening a direct rival). I fucking despise that club. Again, maybe we’ll learn our lesson now not to bid for any player without getting their commitment first?

Our supporters have been talking so much shit and rubbing it in Barca’s face so gleefully that if we lose out on Koundé now it’ll be so cringe. 🤣🤣🤣 Apparently Barca haven’t 100% given up, the annoying bastards.