Pizy

Dortmund always do this with their prized assets. This is just the strongest statement yet of "pay up in full or fuck off." Unlike our stronger position with Havertz, Dortmund can afford to make him wait for a move due to them being a richer club and due to his contract length.

Be interesting to see him again tonight against quality opposition.

Player sales will have to fund much of it. Werner, Ziyech, and Havertz is mostly funded by the Hazard, Morata, and Pasalic sales. If we can get some suckers to take Emerson, Bakayoko, Batshuayi, and Barkley off our hands that's another nice chunk of change. Plus, Willian and Pedro were on sizeable wages which are now off our books. And that's not even taking into account the budget that is already set aside for transfers.

My ideal rest of the summer: Havertz, Rice, Reguilon, Onana Onana and Reguilon should be fairly simple deals since we know they're for sale and we know generally that they're inexpensive. Rice will surely be a massive saga that will likely last well into the new season. Can see a situation where we bid for him, WH turn it down, and Rice then becomes unsettled and plays poorly until they eventually relent and sell him.

Having just watched some Ben White on YouTube, the guy looks the business. Could be a great signing if Rice proves impossible. But as with the LB situation, I imagine we have to hurry up and sell or loan one of our CB's before a new one comes in.

After years and years of having workhorse wide attackers like Willian and Pedro it'll take some getting used to seeing wide players who are highly productive and creative instead. We should finally have multiple wingers scoring double digits in the league next season. Willian is a very, very useful player to have in your squad but for a team with ambitions to challenge for league titles and the CL eventually, he's simply not productive enough. Doesn't score nearly enough, doesn't assist nearly enough. He's a managers dream due to his work ethic and energy. That's well and good for a club like Arse who are just trying to stabilize themselves. We need statistical production.

This Ben White dude seems to be very highly rated and sought after. Is he Chelsea level?

As I predicted, the Arse fans were dumping on him, calling him shit, moaning that they were after a "Chelsea reject," and now that he's on his way I'm actually seeing a lot of them saying he'll be a great signing. Even saw a post on ArsenalMania saying "we're taking Chelsea's best player." 😂😂😂😂😂😂

And so the Willian era has passed. Solid Chelsea career full of highs and lows. No ill will for him and I wish him well. Good servant for the club. Gonna be SUPER weird seeing him in a red shirt after all these years.

If it's true we've only offered 60m (which I doubt) then surely it would mean a second payment next summer. There's no way our board are dumb enough to offer that little in total for a player they value at nearly double. That would be pretty disrespectful.

CHO, Ziyech, Werner, and CP for the wide areas. Havertz if he signs is comfortable wide as well. Still plenty of depth with Willian and Pedro gone.

Bayern can come in for him in a few years all they want. They won't be able to afford him if he continues to progress. He'll be a £150m player in 2 seasons. Not worried about them at all. It's Real Madrid looking for a Galactico that we'd have to be concerned about in 2-3 years. Even then, everything would have to align for them to be ablel to afford him. They'll be needing to replace Ramos, Bale, Benzema, Modric etc within the next couple of years. An attacking midfielder may be the least of their worries.

Yep, every journalist saying the exact same thing day after day. Expect things will become much clearer with Havertz and many other deals this coming week.

Really goes to show you how much work there is to be done to get to their level. It'll take at least another couple of great transfer windows.

That looks like a midtable PL XI! 😂😂😂 This may very well get ugly.

As long as we never see Jorginho in a midfield 2 against any to teams next season I'm perfectly fine with him staying. We should be actively seeking a buyer for Barkley, though. Don't see where he gets minutes if Havertz comes in.

All depends on how much Marina and the board are willing to accept for Jorginho. If we even want to sell him which isn't assured. I highly doubt anyone would pay what we did for him. But if we asked say 40m I think some clubs would be interested.

Seems Sarri is just too stubborn and abrasive for a big club. Napoli was his level. He probably thrives for a club where they are the underdog and the players fully buy into to his philosophy. That's now here and Juve where he never really got the players or fans on his side. I think Jorginho stays now which likely means no Rice unless we can sell the likes of Bats, Emerson, Bakayoko, etc for more than we've expected.

Exactly. And once our season is officially done today I think we'll start to see some of our deadwood start to go to raise money for those signings.

So, just what we've known for a while now. If we pay up after they're done in Europe he's ours. They aren't going to force him to stay or anything. Hopefully everything's already negotiated and ready. Having our 3 big attacking signings in and ready well in advance of the season could be crucial. Other clubs will still be scrambling later in the window while we did our business early.

Fancy City to win it all if Bayern aren't in tip top form.

Real Madrid have looked horrendous this whole match. In fact, they've looked terrible nearly each time I've seen them this season. It seems as though they're so used to 95% of opponents being terrified of them and bending over that when a team of equal quality takes the game to them they can't take it. City haven't even been their best and could've score 4-5 here.

There's no chance Dunk would cost 50m. And there's no chance we'd pay that, either. We are still yet to be linked with a CB in the same strong way we've been linked to the likes of Havertz, Chilwell, etc. Only been weak speculation. Which tells me it's either going to indeed be Rice as a CB target or someone we haven't thought of yet.

With an effective defensive screen in front of him and a keeper behind him who can dominate his area I think we'd see the Rüdiger we all liked before this season. He's clearly a good player. Just need him to simplify his game and not play like David Luiz aka a rash, headless chicken.

I think swapping out Jorginho in our midfield with Rice while keeping the same CB pairing we have now is a huge upgrade in terms of our defending. That extra security in front of them would make a massive difference. We would no longer be totally exposed in the middle of the park whenever the ball is turned over because Rice can actually move about. I really think his skill set would be partially wasted as a CB. Partner him in the middle of the pitch with Kante/Kova/Billy as the deepest midfielder and I think our team improves drastically. Pulisic-------------------------Werner------------------------Ziyech --------------------------------Havertz------------------------------- -------------------Kova/Kante----------Rice-------------------- New LB------------Zouma-------------Rüdiger-------------James -------------------------------Onana------------------------------ For me this XI has it all. Loads of goals, excellent creativity, plenty of steel in the middle of the pitch, and extremely athletic back 4. We can challenge for the league with that team.