OneMoSalah

People got excited thinking it was done because the player “was convinced” or it was heavily reported. Did think it would be too good to be true as these sort of deals are never easy. Plus lets be honest, if it were the summer, he would never even consider us so just seemed like a marriage of convenience more than anything as he wants to move now after the WC and we were the only ones willing to make an offer (or it was perceived). Looks like the offer was always €85m but we apparently told Fernandez’s camp we would meet his release clause to agitate him to try pursue a move more forcefully ie. hand in a request/go on strike/whatever. Thinking him wanting to leave would lower Benfica’s price and it has backfired. Not surprised. They hold all the power and always have. I’ve been skeptical of Boehly since he sacked Tuchel. The failed/prolonged recruitment of various footballing people, some of the things he suggested ie All Stars Games, the 443 stories, and more recently now the links to Mudryk who has heavily hinted at and apparently is closing in on a move to Arsenal after they have been pursuing him for best part of a year. He does seem amateur. I wont lie, I dislike how he’s operated so far. He is clueless. But hes not dropped the ball re Enzo. The situation was always going to be a difficult one, I didn’t see us ever offering more than the release clause and getting anywhere due to how we would want to go about structuring payments. It was never going to benefit Benfica in the short term. Even more so being midseason, their still in the CL and the fact Benfica spent €30m on the player and have to pay so much to River Plate, the fee would have to be in one installation to make it viable for them just now. Unless we went and offered something stupid like £175-200m in instalments but I’d doubt that. The signing of the Monaco CB also heavily hints at us not getting or pursuing the Croatian CB from Leipzig. So seems we've given up on him also.

Why are we now competing with Arsenal for Mudryk? I mean if we really really wanted him to start with we should of made an offer before Arsenal did, not after. Not after they’ve been speaking to him for months or after hes been heavily hinting at wanting to move to Arsenal since the summer. Honestly. Todd Boehly is fucking amateur. Useless - like a fucking woodpecker with rubber lips. Its almost as if he has no clue so he’s going after players other clubs are miles ahead of us in negotiations for. Pains me to say it but Gary Neville, Graeme Souness and all the naysayers were right in the summer. Absolutely pathetic.

I actually disagree. I think the signings of players like Ziyech, Werner and Pulisic would of suited us under Sarri a lot more than any other coach because 2 of the 3 of them, they were the sort of players we missed/lacked/needed to upgrade. Werner would of certainly got chances with his movement in a Sarri team in the same way Jose Callejon did and even Pedro did. Ziyech would of been a wide playmaker in the way that Insigne was also. Which suits him well. Guys like Mount and James would of also been significantly important to Sarri also like Hysaj and Zielinski/Hamsik. In the final third we were hopeless with Sarri but really Pedro was the only attacker that suited his system well. Hazard was world class and on his day as good as he wanted to be but him and Willian were guilty of coming towards the ball too much, taking far too many touches or not running off the ball in behind teams. Yes Hazard also had the dependency of the other players to deal with because he had been the key man in the team for years but as a collective relying on him for so long specifically under Jose I think made us such a blunt side because everyone knew the plan was give it to Eden, let him do the rest. In the first two thirds of the pitch under Sarri we made significant progress in terms of building out from the back, passing sequences and working the ball into areas just up to the final third. Even then, goals have always been an issue since we sold Diego Costa so to say Sarri’s football stifled our attack that badly, when really, in the past however many seasons, we’ve struggled to be prolific in a lot of aspects is just selective.

Hopefully yeah. Convincing Benfica will be another thing though. Players will always want to leave certain leagues and want to come here but still I think the “we’ve convinced him” is more like that we are the only club at present who genuinely seem interested in paying the clause/more than the clause. Because its well noted he wants to move this window. If it were the summer window and all the big boys were throwing their cheque books about, we’d likely be 3rd, 4th, 5th choice lets be honest. Lets hope we get it done but not very hopeful re the negotiations with Benfica.

Even with the Spurs result today and Liverpool yet to play, I’d fancy them, Man United and Newcastle with much more of a chance of making top 4 than us at this moment. Mental. I mean even United were an absolute shambles for what 3 years but got a new manager in, shifted Ronaldo and now, it looks like they’re gonna leap frog us this season when nobody would of probably given them the chance. Good to see Conte having a moan about spending money at Spurs though hopefully he leaves there so they go backwards again 😂

We were lucky to go 2-0 up at Bournemouth because you seen again what we saw tonight in the second half against them: a lack of aggression, a lack of compactness, huge gaps down the sides. Set pieces also wow we are so fucking abysmal at them.

Been a bust. Looks like Benitez was right about him, his concentration levels are so so so poor for somebody of his age and experience. Just seems to get sucked in and done far too often. Massively disappointing.

Just said to Sky when they asked for his take on the game right at the beginning “Its a hard earned point” ….. then said we took a step forward against Bournemouth…… Jesus christ. Honestly, he should be sacked for that. This isn’t Brighton. A hard earned point against the team in the bottom 3 of the league. Embarrassing. His mentality isn’t right for the level in which we should be reaching for.

No improvement with Potter. In fact we've regressed. Can blame players for off days yes or not being world class but to be outfought, outdone tactically and look like a team near the bottom of the table in terms of how we defend and how we attack the blame ultimately lies with him. Said it before sacking Tuchel made this season deadrubber. But hey maybe by 2030 Boehly’s big masterplan will have worked….

Defending has been terrible barring Thiago Silva. As bad as it was under Villas-Boas. You’d think we were Brighton against Forrest here. Not Chelsea v Forrest. Abysmal.

We are atrocious. Wow.

There is no such thing as unlucky, clearly its no coincidence someone who suffered a long term injury, only “recovered” recently got injured in their first game back. Perhaps yes he could of got injured in those 25-30 minutes but its also naive to assume throwing someone in after so long out and expecting them to play 65-70 minutes is a brilliant idea.

Graham Potter and coaching staff: please learn from this. Pretty sure GP said Reece was never going to play the full game pre match but why not throw him on for 25-30 mins at the end and play it safe? Just seems amateurish.

I am sorry but this is one of the worst takes I’ve ever seen. Ever. Firstly, Thiago Silva - he won next to NOTHING in Italy, Brazil, Portugal and Russia prior to going to Paris. Then won 23 trophies there. Paris enhanced his career if anything in terms of winning trophies. So it hardly saved his career leaving, if anything it took his career to the next level making the move. Verratti also close to being one of the most decorated Italian football players of all time with around 30 domestic trophy wins as well as winning the Euros at international level so again, to say a career wasted particularly playing for Paris, couldn't be further wrong. Was playing in Serie B also prior to the move. Just an extremely arrogant take, yes Ligue 1 isn't outstanding team for team but look at the players who play there and have played there in the last 10 years. I think a lot of players see Paris as a much more attractive option than most PL teams barring City and Liverpool too. And its hardly a surprise either, look at their squad, how many trophies they win. Players want to win. And in Paris they win.

Will be performance related bonuses in also probably to push it up yeah but £37m upfront is what their saying, which for a player of that calibre is impressive business once again from Liverpool. 46 goal involvements in 41 games in Holland since start of last season also pretty impressive, despite the quality of the league. And you can see at the World Cup he’s a very diverse player in terms of how he can play as a focal point, a 10 or from the sides. Not the level of Suarez (and maybe wont ever reach that level) but I would say a very similar type of find in terms of the age profile, the flexibility he can offer, the experience he’s already got also.

Proof that being a top player doesn’t make you a good manager. Everton are pretty awful to watch. He will be gone by the end of the first week/middle of January you would think.

Good player who suits Liverpool to the ground IMO. £37m is a snip and proof you don’t need to spunk £50-60m to get good players. Plenty scope for improvement, shocked United didn't make him their priority when Ronaldo left although aye its maybe cause he’s not a natural 9. Not buying us getting this Fernandez deal done - 120m euros in January, or higher on a structured deal which they may not even accept, is incredibly unlikely. We’ve spent £60m on Nkunku already for the summer, signed Fofana for somewhere between £10-15m (apparently), Andre Santos is close to coming for £13m and the CB from Monaco is apparently another £30-35m. So I doubt it. Just seems very football manager/FIFA career mode to spend £250m in the summer then spend another say £230-250m in January.

Seen somewhere reporting it would cost £15-16m all in for half a seasons loan fee and his wages for any club who wanted him. Then theres the will there be or wont their be an obligation to buy. Think the express already reporting Todd Boehly considering adding it…. which again, not convincing. Anyway, 33 goals in 129 games for Atletico. Then 1 impressive World Cup performance and another half decent game. Would say avoid. Funnily enough the clubs he’s mainly linked with, us, United and Arsenal all either have injuries to CFs (Jesus & Broja) or just got rid of a striker (Ronaldo). Then Newcastle and Aston Villa are also linked.

If we somehow structured some sort of deal with them, for around 70-80m maybe but I severely doubt they’ll settle for anything less than their release clause. Even before the WC I would of doubted so. His WC performances have just reinforced their player value. Both Benfica and Porto are notoriously tough negotiators and always have been when they know theyve got huge talent. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens if our interest is true.

Yep fully agree. You can still see clear clear flaws in his game though. He still runs into people with the ball too much and his finishing is also pretty bad for a high % of the decent chances he gets. Yesterday was the first game I’ve seen of him in recent times where he looked close to a reasonable level footballer. But yet again, in the first half, I think most of us on here could of played for us because Bournemouth were that passive and just sat off the boys. Also, is it just me or does Kai have this awful awful habit of pressing people into positions where they have next to nothing on and then fucking fouling them? To relieve the pressure? Its like he’s braindead.

Apparently his personal trainer criticised the club/GP for playing him on social media and him getting injured.

We aren’t going to sign Enzo in January for 120m euros. Not a chance. Also just like we aren’t going to sign Joao Felix on loan. I mean why would Atletico loan out someone who cost them upwards of 100m when it is clear he is open to leaving and they are open to a sale? Doesnt benefit then at all - I mean look at the whole Saul situation here, where we had an option to buy him, they aren't falling for that shite again.

We need to try and get the balance right. This team has a lot of guys who are coming to the end/downwards part of their careers (Silva, Aubamayang, Koulibaly, Jorginho, Azpilicueta, Kante) but you cannot necessarily just sign 5 or 6 18 year olds, throw them in straight away and expect them to plug that gap. They need time to grow. We need some guys who are say 24,25,26, a bit more seasoned and able to carry the can a bit in terms of experience and add/help maintain the culture when certain players leave also because we’ve seen in the past when players such as Drogba, Terry, Ash, Petr left that its not easy to replace them off the pitch. The signings of a lot of younger players is going to be an issue if we don’t get up and going with this multi club model. That is also a concern because it will be difficult to establish as we've already seen. The guys all wont play immediately and there are restrictions for the amount of loans you can do coming into play either next year or the following one.

So we are basically turning into Arsenal. Lots of young players. Unproven at a high level. With the idea of being successful 5-10 years down the line. Big risk.

Was only one full season of football though. But again, people get extremely ahead of themselves because someone under the age of 21, where sometimes they've only had one good season in their whole career, is instantly deemed some sort of star in the making. There are exceptions ie. Bellingham and Haaland but particularly PL based players under the age of 21, people are OTT. Not to say there aren’t good players but the amount of stars in the making comments I’ve seen over the years regarding players who haven’t/don’t become that level, it is frightening.