Pizy

I guess you guys are more romantic than I am. I don't think the modern footballer will take as much from winning or losing an FA Cup as they probably did years ago. People talk about how winning it can be a platform for players/managers/clubs to then go on and do big things. Arsenal have won it how many time recently? It has done fuck all for them. Would it be nice for Frank's confidence and give us all a great feeling for a week? Yes. Will it be some massive deal if we lose and set us back at all? No. Maybe it's because I'm not English but I just don't care much about this competition at all. Holds no real special place in my heart. All about the PL and CL and nothing else for me.

Yeah, I won't really be bothered if we lose. It'll be annoying, yes, but our goals for the season have already been met. I'm more concerned about the Havertz chase than I am this game. Winning the FA Cup would be nice for a couple of days (and AFTV would be gold) but it just doesn't mean as much as it used to.

I'm not sure since I haven't paid close attention to him. I remember he started off kind of shaky, but as I said those guys on AFTV like Troopz are always raving about him saying he's been their best player this season and they'd have finished even further down the table if he hadn't bailed them out a bunch of times. God knows Arse need the money desperately. And it's not like they'd refuse to do business with us since we sold them Luiz last summer.

Bernd Leno has been Arse's player of the season from what I've heard on AFTV. If that backup keeper of theirs plays a blinder tomorrow against us surely it would be hard to sit him back on the bench for next season? We should be in for Leno in that case. I'm sure he'd be happy to stay in London and play for the bigger, better club. I see he's back fit again after his bad injury.

CB market getting smaller and smaller. That's now 3 CB's we've been linked with (Ake, Ginter, Upamecano) off the market in recent days. Are we going to go all in on the Declan Rice as a CB route? Not ideal. Feels like a move for Rice would go like several sagas of past windows where we chase a big target all summer, fail, and then settle for a lesser player at the last minute.

One by one José is going to weed out the creative flare players and replace them with robots basically. I'm sure Spuds fans are delighted to see an exciting, highly technical player like Ndombele sold and replaced by that bang average Hojbjerg from Southampton.

If Jimenez were 5 years younger, maybe. He'd be the most saught after striker out there.

Damn. 😞 He's my top CB choice now. There really aren't many to turn to if Ginter is off the table.

So no chance he will be sold or just more expensive if someone does come in for him?

I want to see Chelsea sign a man mountain of a CB who is also good on the ball. Like Koulibaly or Ginter. Someone who will never be pushed around and someone who devours anything through the air that gets near them a la VVD.

What I'm saying is we already have CB's of a similar profile as Ake. If we already had the commanding CB then Ake would make sense as a compliment. What we need is a direct upgrade on Zouma.

We need a tall, powerful, commanding CB who can dominate in the air and has a no-nonsense approach to defending. Someone who doesn't make silly mistakes. I put Ake in the same category as AC & Tomori. Short for a CB, good on the ball, good mobility. But they aren't the Terry/VVD/Ferdinand on-pitch General we need. Ake is the type of CB you buy when you have that sort of CB next to him. Clearly if we wanted him back we could've done so. Which tells you Frank is looking for a CB like the ones I mentioned instead.

I think we can do better than Ake. If you've already got a great partner for him than he's a good signing. We need someone who's better than what we already have not on the same level. I don't think Ake is an upgrade. Perfect Pep CB, though.

I wonder which transfer saga will take longer, Havertz or Sancho...

I just think back to us with Hazard. From everything I've seen and read Havertz seems like a quiet, shy, and reserved dude. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who will pull a Diego Costa or Courtois and refuse to turn up and train or kick up a massive fuss. Like Eden, I think if Bayer says they will not sell him this summer he'd just get his head down and play the next season knowing he'll move next summer. He's not nearing 30 with one last big move before he starts to wane. There's no real pressure for him to have to move now.

The unhappy player thing is always overblown I think. Especially with a player so young and especially when he'll only have a year on his contract if he is made to stay. Bayer forcing him to stay just fucks them. They will get nowhere near what we can offer now and they'd probably be watching their crown jewel moving to Bayern where he'd haunt them for a decade or more.

Falk now saying the same thing. Bayer are telling him to play EL (as you would expect them to). Again, if you're Havertz why do you play? Tell the club you want to go and come to an agreeable fee. I've got so invested in this saga now that I'll be seriously let down if it doesn't happen. Looks like it'll drag on for a few more weeks at least.

We pulling an Arsenal here offering amounts we know they won't accept?

Pretty familiar pattern emerging. Every couple of days we get a news dump suggesting everything is close. Then we get news saying not so fast and it isn't that close. If he's as keen to come here as many journalists have reported I don't know why he is agreeing to play in the EL. He should be telling Bayer that he wants everything sorted ASAP and leave like Werner did.

If we can only afford one between Chilwell and Rice this summer I think Rice would be more useful. The other LB options we're linked with cost a third of Chilwell and may even be better than he is currently.

There's a reason he is sought after by literally every big club in Europe. If COVID never happened Real Madrid, Liverpool, United, everyone would be gunning hard for him. He just turned 21 years old and is already one of the best players in Germany.

Yeah, pretty weird how there was an explosion of news making it sound like it was only a matter of time and now not a single peep for 2 days. If personal terms have been agreed for weeks now I wonder what the big hold up is.

Keep in mind that he has been playing in a solid team with decent teammates. Nothing like the talent he'd be playing with here. So I can imagine him being even more effective with the likes of Werner, Ziyech, Pulisic etc.

Telles for me.

Ideally, yes. But how are we going to afford all this? Both Chilwell and Rice will cost Maguire money. Havertz is between 70-80m. Who knows how much a keeper is going to cost if it isn't Onana. Unless we have a big time sale or multiple big sales I can't see it.