Pizy

Whether it's Morata or Belotti or whoever, I just hope we get Costa out ASAP and bed in the new striker as quickly as possible. It's probably the position more than any other where the player has to build chemistry with his new teammates. Waiting until at or near the deadline and not allowing our next striker a lengthy preseason would be unbelievably stupid. If we indeed matched United's bid for Lukaku then we know they club has the money ready for a forward. No excuses.

Please, God, I beg of you. Let this happen!

You have to assume that all of our new signings will have their own little corny intro video. I actually don't mind it, really. Definitely think this one was intentially cheesy.

Speaks fantastic English so should have no trouble at all settling in.

I think he's much more likely to knock Moses out of the starting XI than Cahill, with Azpi moving to RWB and Rüdiger playing at CB. Whether we like it or not Cahill will almost certainly be made permanent captain and be one of the first names on the team sheet this season.

Welcome, Toni! Hoping for him to develope nicely under Conte and surrounded by a higher quality of player. We were similarly weary of Marcos Alonso last summer and he turned out great. Maybe we'll get the same here.

I think the same. Not a word from any of the sources that said we were "in discussions" with him or made an actual offer to Juve in about 2 weeks now. This ain't happening.

Exactly. Of course he is going to say all that shite. He wants all his new fans who are skeptical about his ability to fall in love with him so he's saying all the right things. Next is the inevitable "I wanted Man United all along and was never thinking about or in contact with Chelsea. I've always dreamed only of Man United."

I mean...can you blame people? Our board seems excellent at one side of transfer dealings (selling unwanted players for nice fees) and terrible at the other and more important side which is buying players. Two summers ago was an absolute shambles and we know what that caused and last summer was nearly a shambles but for a couple of extremely late deals. Already this summer our supposed #1, sure fire target has a deal wrapped up with a direct rival within a couple of days when we've apparently been working on him for months. I think people are right to be weary at this point. A couple of these deals were supposedly close to come off in the next few days and we'll be fine.

Good point. It doesn't make much sense for us to be after a striker who's basically the polar opposite of Lukaku or Diego Costa. Aubameyang would suit Liverpool or Arsenal like a glove which is why it made sense when Liverpool were linked with him. We need (and Conte usually favors) strikers with a bit more power, tenacity and physicality. Auba doesn't fit the bill.

Wonder what we'd do if he does go elsewhere. We haven't been linked to any other midfielders, have we? I don't even know who's out there that would be a top class addition to slot straight in our team.

Wouldn't shock me at all. With Alex Sandro next. We'd deserve it too. We've been linked with him for weeks, if not months and still haven't signed him.

From the outside looking in it doesn't seem like their fans like Bale much at all.

Don't really think he's the sort of player that Conte will target. I think he'll want forwards rather than a #10.

City have signed 2 new starters, United have signed 2 new starters, Arsenal have signed 2 new starters, and even Liverpool quickly went out and spent £40m on Salah. We've so far signed a 35 year old backup keeper who will be lucky to make 10 appearences all season. Still technically "early," but getting very frustrating already.

£50m is seemingly the standard fee for City these days. Remember the fuss we caused when we spent that on Torres? City will probably have about 4-5 players in their side next season who cost £50m or more. Insane.

The fact that we panicked and matched it at the last minute when it was far too late tells me that we were indeed caught completely off guard here. We probably figured we could sign Lukaku whenever we felt like it because he wanted to come here and no other big club was interested. Foolish and incompetent but as others have said, maybe a blessing in disguise that will kick our board into gear.

I think the board naively thought that we could just wait and until Costa was sold. I actually can believe they were totally blindsided by United coming in as is being reported. They figured Lukaku was desperate to return here and only had eyes for Chelsea. But I think about 90% of the reason this transfer happened was because of his best mate Pogba. They've probably been on holiday fantasizing about playing together nonstop. Add to that the phone call Mourinho surely made to him saying "you're coming to the biggest club in the world and you'll become a global superstar," as well as that greedy cunt of an agent Raiola pushing him towards Manchester. They probably made him feel über important and special while our board was farting around taking their time.

If we lost out on some transformative player to them I'd be depressed, but I don't really see Lukaku in that way. If this was Alex Sandro who looked like he was coming here and then suddenly turned up in Manchester I'd be shitting it. But is going from one of the greatest strikers ever (who was scoring at an elite level still) in Zlatan to Lukaku an upgrade heading into next season? Zlatan is miles and miles better technically that Rom is. So while Lukaku will surely score plenty of goals for them, I predict a lot of frustration when he's off form. Awful touch, losing the ball a lot, pretty lazy at times, and when he's having a poor game he's really poor. Zlatan could pull a moment of magic out of nothing even when playing badly. Not sure Lukaku will do that.

Watching all his goals from last season on YouTube and it felt like about 90% of them were tap ins from crosses (many from the excellent Dembele). If we got Alex Sandro to add to Hazard on the left side to feed him I think he'd be excellent. I'd personally prefer Belotti since he's much younger and is more suited to our playing style. Wouldn't say no to Auba, though.

This honestly doesn't feel gutting at all for me. Nothing like the feeling when KDB went to Man City. Just have to trust that in its embarrassment our club will go out and get our own striker.

Make Chelsea Brazil again!

While I'd be happy with Morata I definitely think he's riskier than either Lukaku or Belotti. He just doesn't strike me spas the alpha dog, leading man type. More of a nice piece of an already good side. Suppose he hasn't really been given the opportunity at Real Madrid so that can change here of course.

Now we look even worse than we did by not bidding. We went in at the last minute like desperate mugs and still lost out on him. Belotti, please!

Welp. Everyone's been briefed.