Pizy

I guess we can't take a hint. Their hierarchy said he wasn't for sale, Allegri said there's no chance he leaves, and the player has kicked up no fuss and has played throughout their preseason and opening match with no problems. Wish we would stop wasting our time chasing a ghost and go just as hard after the next best option as we seem to be with Sandro.

Don't see a single quote from a player saying they "back Costa over Conte." He's still friends with his teammates and talks to them. The Daily Mail is absolute gutter trash. As for that piece from The Times about Conte and the board being at odds, I can 100% believe that. Conte wants experienced, ready made veterans who are the finished product and can help him win immedietly. The board wants players who are probably in their early 20's, are not the finished article, and who have huge resale value. The thing is, we already have LOADS of young talent on our books! If we can get good players who happen to fit the boards criteria, great, but to refuse Conte his targets just because they're "too old" and can't be resold for huge profit in a few years is annoying as hell if that's what's going on. You can't really expect Conte to be thinking super long term like the club are since he knows the average life expectancy of a Chelsea manager is a couple years. He wants to win NOW!

Oh, FFS. This rumor is like a zombie that won't die.

Hollywood FC. Wouldn't be Chelsea without drama at all times.

Drinkwater > Fabinho 😎

Yeah, not happening lads. I'll bet someone will panic on the deadline day and reach an agreement between 50-60m because they won't keep him after that statement he made. Probably will be Liverpool in the end,

The club want him to come back and get fit enough to be sold for an acceptable price. Just think it would be unbelievably awkward to have him training in the same facilities as the rest of the boys. Even if he's training on his own he's sure to run into the other players, no? Can't imagine they'd set aside training staff just for his personal work outs at a separate time of the day.

If it was only a case of him offering up impossible targets, you'd think that we'd have brought in his second or even third choices by now. We haven't even managed that yet. We had to wait until deadline day last season for Luiz who was probably not even on his radar until then. Maybe we'll have to do that again and hope to striker gold like we did then.

Would it? They're both outright #9's who have the ability to play with other forwards but are best as the leading man imo. I'm not sure either would be happy with that setup.

LOL! 😂 Even if we were living in dream land and Costa/Conte kissed, made up, and Diego stayed we'd have another huge headache with he and Morata who doesn't look nearly as good playing wide.

Shouldn't that be how it works, though? Mourinho goes to his board and says "I want Pogba. Done, £90m. I want Lukaku. Done, £90m. I want Matic. Done, £40m." Same with Pep. Stones, Mendy, Bernardo, Walker, Danilo. All first choice Pep targets bought for whatever money is necessary. These are the clubs we're meant to compete with but are not showing the same ambition. Conte 100% had a list of wing backs that he had in the boards hands ages ago and there's been nothing. We sold Matic and have still not replaced him which should've been done before we even sold him. Now the manager is basically begging for players in his interviews. I could understand the club being reluctant to spend 90 or 100m on single players but I can't imagine the targets he's giving them are anywhere near that expensive. So what does that mean? They're shit negotiators or is Roman tightening the purse strings?

Unfortunately, I think Cahill will indeed go straight back in. How awful would it look if we drop our new captain after 14 minutes of a new season? Probably the sort of thing that would divide the dressing room. Can't see Conte being as cold and ruthless as us fans are about Cahill.

No, no, no. If the players start downing tools and there's mutiny in the ranks like 15/16 then he'll get some of the blame. I can't see anything like that happening. From the outside looking in the players all look like they're behind him. If he's doing his best but simply isn't given the tools to compete with the other top sides I can't blame him if we struggle to put in a title challenge

He gets a total pass for me. His authority in many matters was undermined from the start when he was named "First team Head Coach." This tells you immedietly that he has very minimal, if any control over who comes in. His job is simply to coach the first team and let the club work on transfers. He said as much again on Saturday. As mentioned above, he will have had many targets identified and in the boards' hands for months. They deserve all the blame for allowing our squad to become so tissue paper thin. Don't think what happened against Burnley was any fault of Conte's either. We would have comfortably earned 3 points had Cahill not been a mindless idiot.

I've been all for bringing him in to immedietly take Cahill's spot in the XI, but after seeing Cristensen perform so well at the weekend it would probably limit his minutes going forward significantly. He himself looks better than Cahill. I think we're well enough stocked at CB currently. Use the money on midfield and wing backs.

Fellaini, Matic, Pogba, Carrick, Herrera, and Blind who can fill in adequately in midfield. I'd love to have 6 midfield options here. I'd be pretty disappointed if he's available and we don't get him whilst an already stacked United side get him. Sergi Roberto is infinitely more talented and a much safer buy than Drinkwater.

The fuck would United be after another midfielder?

Wonder which position he'd play here. Arsenal fans I'm seeing on Twitter saying his best position is probably going to be as a RWB in the future. I think I'd prefer him on the left here so he can cut in and shoot on his stronger foot.

Speaking of Arsenal players, though, what's the deal with Jack Wilshere? Is he currently injured yet again? He could probably be had on the cheap. When he's fit he's still super talented an may be worth a punt.

We've been "closing in on" and "confident of landing" Ox and about 15 other players all summer.

Well now. Now that you lay it all out like this I'm questioning everything as well. Still, if it was Conte's decision I'm glad the club backed him. If he thought he was too big of a risk then we were right to move on. Anyway, I hope this all gets resolved quickly so both sides can move on. Last thing we need is more distractions and for the manager to be undermined.

Conte and Costa seemed to get along perfectly fine and were often seen smiling and joking with each other before that China stuff happened in January. Why would Conte suddenly decide out of nowhere to not want Costa? Something serious had to trigger that. The most obvious scenario is what we were led to believ all this time. That Costa had his head turned at a critical time in our season, wanted to go, and Conte didn't take kindly to him trying to derail our title March. Essentially sacking him via text was ill advised, sure, but Diego trying to make Conte and the club out as the bad guys is something else.

I hope now that Costa has come out to slander Conte in public that Conte himself speaks about the situation. He's got to defend himself here. This interview makes it sound like a lot of our players are on Diego's side and we can't have a rot forming through our squad again. Nip it in the bud.

What an absolute dick. It's all the clubs fault and not him trying to force his way out multiple times. And now he's trying to turn everyone against Conte.

We're praised sometimes for being such a well run club and then the times where we have something positive to build upon and squander it. Our club has been run by a bunch of incompetent fools this summer.