Superblue

A couple of loan signings in January wouldn't be a bad shout, if it stops us paying over the odds before the summer market. Somebody earlier today mentioned Jovic on a loan with an option to buy and I think that would be a cracking shout. If he can recapture anything like his Frankfurt form from last season he would be a potentially superb addition to compete with Tammy. I also heard on the radio earlier that Rakitic might push for a loan move in January prior to the Euros. We have three top midfielders at the club but it's already been seen this season that we're one injury away from looking incredibly thin and a couple having to work overtime. If somebody with that level of class and experience is available just as a short term option we should definitely consider it.

I don't think he'd be a terrible buy but I do think from what is being quoted (circa £80m) that better options are available for similar or a little higher. For £80m I would be looking at an 'X Factor' like signing and I just don't think Zaha is that. The question is for that fee, would he improve our starting XI and I'm on the fence with that because I don't think he's any better than Pulisic and Willian at this moment in time is very important offering a role as a more defensive minded winger to retain the balance. I also worry that he thrives as a big fish in a small pond. Obviously those worries will never be founded until he moves to a bigger club but it's an expensive risk to take. The one thing that he does offer that is attractive however is versatility that he could be used primarily as a winger and could be used as backup as the central striker for Tammy (much like how Anelka used to operate) and thereby filling two roles in the squad.

If we get the ban reduced and we have identified main targets that are attainable in January then I'm all for us strengthening. What I hope we don't do however is buy 'alternatives' simply because they aren't cup tied and can still play in the Champions League. Case in point would obviously be someone like Zaha. Up for debate if he's an upgrade on what we already have, although he would make our squad as a whole that much stronger. But I'd much rather we took a better player even if they were cup tied this season. We need to stop thinking short term stop gaps and add strategically and clinically to the massive potential this squad has already got within it.

I think Lampard will be backed and likely in a way similar to how you've laid it out. If the ban is lifted for January I could see us possibly eyeing up an attacking player and thus paving the way for Giroud and Pedro to possibly leave. (Pedro may decide to stay until the end of the season but I think Giroud will be keen to move in January for football prior to the Euro's). The big business will come in the summer though. I personally think the club will look at working on a budget of around £150m which is pretty much the Hazard and Morata funds and then selling off a few fringe players we may push closer to £200m if the right targets are available. I would be surprised if we went bigger than this, but you never know with Chelsea. When things seem to be getting reigned in we seem to go and pull something out of the bag unexpectedly and there is a lot of talk that Roman seems to be getting his mojo back watching a young, exciting team being developed under Lampard. What will be more interesting beyond the transfer budget is the targets. With a plethora of young talent and a couple more either in the academy (Guehi, Gilmour, etc) or out on loan (Ampadu, Gallagher, etc), we don't really need to be adding to that unless the player looks top drawer already. The club could really benefit in my opinion from buying a couple of top targets at a prime age in their career (say 25-28) to really boost this group. It's whether the club would be prepared to spend, say £50-100m on a player that is 26, 27 years old and will not likely carry much sell on potential after our outlay. I can fully understand the philosophy behind the transfer policy in recent times and I'd rather usually work within those guidelines of identifying younger players with many more years ahead and/or a good resale value. However I feel this summer at least we're in an enviable position of being stacked with younger talent and a couple of prime additions to this group could elevate us enormously.

Wasn't it the Southampton keeper who made his debut against us last season and had a stormer? I've got a horrible feeling of deja-vu. We seem to always attract world class goalkeeping performances from bang average opposition keepers, it's like a plague!

Has to be Giroud for me. Bats is dreadful when he starts. He's always good for a late cameo against tiring opponents because he's usually pretty sharp in and around the box, but you could even see against Valencia when he came on earlier than usual that he struggled. Pulisic, Mount and Willian are all very capable of getting a couple of goals and I think would link better around Giroud. It does go to show though how important Tammy has made himself this season because we look distinctly weaker having to try and replace him when absent.

Any news on Tammy yet?

Understand the height concerns with Ake. To be honest I think he's slightly shorter than Tomori and at times I think Tomori looks a little short for a centre back. However Ake does seem to have a good spring on him to challenge aerially. The hope is always going to be Rudiger getting back to full fitness and being the leader and dominant force in that defence. If he can do that then I think Ake and Tomori would both compliment him rather well, whilst Zouma would essentially be Rudiger's backup as the strong, powerful centre back (whilst Zouma is not quite top level, I do think he's shown more than enough this season to be a good enough squad player). I agree left back must be a priority. The way that Lampard has us playing, having two full backs capable of getting up and down the pitch and offering great delivery would improve the number and quality of chances we are creating ten fold. For the release clause Werner would be a helluva buy but I can imagine he would be in huge demand. I'm very intrigued by Haaland. I know that Leipzig apparently have an opportunity to buy him but I guess that would be dependent on if he wanted to move there. He's one of those players that is still largely unproven but has shown so much potential so far that he could be a star in the making, at a time when I don't think the striker market is at its best with regards to depth and availability. If Tammy keeps improving and keeps scoring throughout the season it makes it much easier to take a risk on someone like him when you already have the fall back of a striker scoring goals. And then we obviously need an 'x factor' type player I think to take things up a notch or two. I personally would love us to buy Havertz who looks seriously good but I'm not quite sure how or who would need to make way to get the best out of him within our side. The other issue we have is given how attack minded we are at the moment someone like Willian is pretty important to maintain the balance of the side. So if the aim is looking to replace him next summer it's not just trying to buy someone with top attacking quality but also someone whom maintains the whole balance of the team.

I don't think it's given Mount some thinking to do because although the last two games have been away at better opposition, I think we've missed the attributes that Mount possesses and brings to the team (particularly his willingness to press and his ability to link the midfield and the attack). I actually think Kova has given Jorginho and Kante more to think about because at present if we revert back to a midfield two (which I think we should in our next run of games), for me it's Kova + 1. It felt like this same situation a few weeks ago though where it seemed to be Jorginho + 1 and Kova has raised his game further as a result. That level of competition with three midfielders who I don't think would look out of place in any of the top teams is very healthy for us and I think can only help with making sure they all continue to play at the levels expected of them.

I personally think we'll buy Ake back. There may be some players above him like you mentioned but I think the board will look at the chance of buying him back for £40m (when you have reports linking him with other top clubs for the £70-80m bracket) as very sound business. I actually think that the other top clubs would be more interested in targeting him (in my opinion he would slot in at Liverpool and City) but I think its well known that we have a buy-back clause on him and it's probably widely expected that we'll look to trigger that clause. The only way I guess this wouldn't happen is if someone could broker a deal with Bournemouth in January when we're still banned but I don't know the legalities of that if we have some form of 'first refusal' within the contracts. And even with the other options there are some question marks around them too given their potentially large price tags. As you mentioned Dias isn't playing in one of the top european leagues at present, Konate is another very young and relatively inexperienced defender (do we need to be adding such to what we already have) and with Skriniar and Romagnoli, I always worry about buying players from Italy. In recent times, not many go on and have great success in other top leagues because I feel the style in Italy is so much slower. Jorginho took time to adapt to the frenetic pace of the Premier League and I would worry a bit about centre backs coming from there and being able to instantly excel over here. Ake for me is a really interesting one because when I've seen him this season he's looked very good and looks a cut above Bournemouth with all due respect. The question will be can he elevate his game further to play at the very top level. A number of players find that next gear and relish playing with more pressure and alongside better teammates. Liverpool are probably the biggest beneficiaries of this in recent years when buying the likes of Robertson, Van Dijk, Wijnaldum and Mane. We've had our fair share over the years (Duff, Joe Cole, Cahill, Kante to a degree). But there are some players who get 'found out' moving up to that level and struggle. Drinkwater is the pretty obvious one in recent times for us. It's actually my biggest worry if we were to buy Zaha who I think relishes the big fish in a small pond situation he has at Palace. I think Ake has the attributes to make the step up, but until that chance is taken you don't know. But I think in today's market (and given the Maguire transfer), £40m is potentially shrewd business and if you asked me who I think Lampard would move on if Ake was to re-join then I would probably say Christensen who I think is now 4th choice in the pecking order for Lampard.

I think it's the former. It made sense to try and pack the midfield against City and similarly away at Valencia, it just simply hasn't worked. To be honest I'm not against Kante being the one who misses out against West Ham. We need to get back to a pre international break when we were dominating teams in midfield (and as a result leaving ourselves much less open defensively) and creating more clear cut chances with the four attacking players.

Christensen has regressed a lot in recent times. He looked so classy in Conte's back three but he just doesn't look assured enough any more. What I felt was a big mistake tonight was also switching Zouma to the left hand side to accommodate Christensen. In my opinion if Christensen was coming in you keep Zouma settled on that right hand side to keep some form of consistency. Zouma was clearly not comfortable all night with his positioning and having to be on his left hand side with the ball. I'm also disappointed with how the midfield three has worked the last two games. I can understand the reasons for it in these two games but it has left us much less fluid, and we miss the link that Mount has provided between midfield and attack. I hope over the next couple of games at home to West Ham, Villa and Lille we revert back to a midfield two with Mount sat in just in front.

I also find it incredibly difficult to compare the United and Leicester games to the Liverpool and City games. At the start of the season Lamps was still finding his feet as a coach and we had a lot of players either injured or only just returning for pre season. We were creating chances but alarmingly open in midfield and at the back. United took advantage and Leicester really should have done the same. Since then, our performances in the big games have improved dramatically. We've still shown we can create chances but have been far less open. It is still very much a work in progress and the teams we've played since the early part of the season are City and Liverpool, the two teams that are well ahead of the pack at present and have masses of quality to open teams up through their own creative strengths, let alone punishing mistakes. I'm positive we'll win a 'big one' very soon and in the meantime so long as we're battering the rest of the league, we'll be keeping the chasing pack at arm's length.

Agree. A team will always get lucky from time to time and win a game that they have struggled to impose themselves upon but ultimately we need to show progression that we can regularly compete with them moving forward. Following on from the United game (and the Leicester game to a similar degree), we've matured quite a bit in a short space of time to show that we can still play in an expansive manner and try to impose ourselves on the top teams without being ruthlessly exposed with alarming regularity. The City and Liverpool games have ultimately yielded nothing points wise, but they have shown that we are on the right path and I think Lampard's comments after today's game confirms his belief in that too.

Dont get me wrong, I'm not for one minute saying we shouldn't strengthen. It's abundantly clear we need to improve and some of that will have to come from the transfer market. But I do feel a lot of Chelsea fans have next to no patience. I suppose it's hard to be critical of this when the club has shown such limited patience over the last 15 years, but we are in a period where we need time. Bearing in mind it felt we were pretty lucky to finish 3rd last season playing some pretty boring and uninspiring football, with a toxic like atmosphere making things overall pretty depressing. If after that Europa League final, we would have been given a screenshot of the first 3-4 months of the new season being: Lampard as the new manager with just one year of experience; not contesting the transfer ban for the summer, Hazard and David Luiz leaving, Kante barely played, Rudiger and Loftus Cheek been out all season, and a reliance on Tomori, Mount and Abraham I think a lot of people would have expected us to be struggling to make the top 6. I think what we've done so far is phenomenal and shouldn't be over-shadowed with our lack of wins against the top teams. Flat track bully's is fine for where we are at the moment because if we continue to roll over the rest of the league then we'll get top 4 this season. I've no doubt that results will come in the big games as this team (including the manager) grow and develop. Bearing in mind that Arsenal and United have tried experimenting similar this season by blooding through some young players and they are massively struggling with dispatching mid and lower sides. We've dominated most of these teams and beaten most more convincingly than the scorelines have often suggested. Of course the end game is something tangible (a trophy) but at present this feels more than that. It feels like a new culture is being implemented at the club. And it's something that isn't likely to really bother our Chelsea fans here from different countries, but there is a huge amount of pride seeing Chelsea currently developing young players not just for our squad but for our country too. I've always felt for English clubs there is that extra special sense of pride with 'one of our own' and at the minute we have a few. Last season I would have said we were probably 7 or 8 players away from City and Liverpool and that was before losing Hazard. Now I do feel that if a couple of players can be added to this squad, with a year under the belt for half a dozen of our young players too, we will run them even closer next season. Spurs were in that position 2 or 3 years ago with a young side and manager knocking on the door and if they had spent some money and brought a couple of key additions to the club rather than concentrating on the stadium then they could well have been in that bracket with City and Liverpool rather than falling away. Unlike City and Liverpool who have managers in their 4th or 5th year and likely will not be around for much more than a couple of seasons and their best players are mostly in their later 20's (prime years), we have a much younger and fresher squad and manager who lack a bit of experience and need that time to develop and tweak the squad through a couple of key additions. The aim should be to get to where Liverpool and City are in Lampard's 3rd year because I believe their squads by then could be very different and the managers themselves may not even be there by then.

I don't agree. I think he's largely been excellent this season and needs commending for stepping up given Rudigers absence. It's difficult to judge a 21 year old playing away at city against mahrez, sterling, de bruyne and aguero when he's played about 15 games in top level football. Like the rest of our young players he will get better and in my opinion will be a big player in the future of this club.

Yeah let's just all act spoilt and want the club to ditch some very talented kids at the first opportunity and blow another couple of hundred million on players. Give it some time we are in a huge period of transition, but it's exciting and enjoyable watching players that are our own coming into the side and performing this season. There will be some harsh and steep learning curves along the way but the likes of James, tomori, mount, Hudson odoi, pulisic and tammy are all excellent players within their age group and will continue to get better. This whole mentality of wanting everything now is unfortunately a negative from the years of success we've enjoyed and is also a big reason we lost the likes of de bruyne and salah in previous times.

I'll come back later or tomorrow. We didn't play great today but the season we've had so far and the commanding gap we've built in the top 4 places, for there to be a near complete meltdown on this forum because we lost to city away is a difficult read. Some comments I've read about replacing the likes of tomori and tammy because they're either not good enough or we cant wait for them to grow and develop is quite frankly pathetic.

Behind a paywall mate, do you have the article in full?

Spot on. It's how City are able to keep such a strong contingent of midfield and attacking talent happy because they all get regularly rotated in and out with the exception of one or two who are pretty much mainstay's. I like our options at present. What Lamps has done by bringing through and trusting the younger players is not just freshened up the first team but also hugely improved the squad depth. A couple of astute additions in the summer alongside a more experienced group of young players and possibly one or two more youngsters ready to be integrated into the first team squad and we could be in a real good position to challenge again. With regards to the striker situation, I think Bats is a very good and ideal second choice. He definitely isn't first choice quality but he does seem to offer a good impact off the bench regularly and he's always good for a goal. Whether he would be prepared to continue such a role after this season I'm not sure though. If we were to get another striker in the summer I think it will depend on Tammy. If Tammy continues to score all season long and gets 20+ goals which he is well on his way to doing then I find it difficult to argue about trying to upgrade on a 22 year old scoring that many goals for the team. In which case you are then looking for someone who can challenge and push him for the starting berth but without the expectations that they would be automatically a first choice. However I think if Tammy keeps banging them in, the club could take a bit of a calculated risk with who they buy as opposed to a more proven commodity. In my head I'm thinking perhaps someone like Haland. He'll be in big demand and although some crazy figures are being quoted around at the moment, I still see him realistically moving for £40-50m (possibly more if a bidding war ensues) so it would be a big transfer splash. However if Tammy is already our 'proven striker' in the Premier League, the risk is much easier to make. He could just be on a hot streak of form (thinking Piatek last season) but he could also very well develop into one of the best strikers in Europe.

Great article. I can sort of see where some get the impression regarding CHO's 'attitude' but this article offers an honest and refreshing assessment over last season and how committed he is to the club moving forward. He seems very driven to become as good as he can be and I believe under Lampard he has the perfect manager to get the most out of him.

Chalobah and Musonda are difficult ones because they've been plagued with injuries and they have had some difficult loan spells. With the exception of CHO, all the other youngsters breaking through this season have come back from very successful loan spells (even the likes of Zouma and Batshuayi came back from good loans too) which I think has helped them to start confident and kick on. I think if Chalobah was patient he would have had a bigger role in Conte's second season as I don't think we would have brought Drinkwater without him leaving. With Matic leaving and Bakayoko's struggles, I believe he would have got some good game time. Ake for me is probably the biggest one of the group that got away because on the back of a good loan with Bournemouth, he should have been given more chances. Ironically if he had stayed at Bournemouth the whole season it would be interesting if Conte would have chosen him over Christensen or kept them both on. Luiz and Cahill both fell out of favour in that year too, opportunities would have arisen. The other one I guess which is a real 'what if' is Solanke. He obviously hasn't reached the levels expected at Liverpool or Bournemouth yet but there will be that question mark if he would have gone down the route that Tammy did, learning his craft in the Championship for a couple of seasons and likely returning a more rounded player. He was prolific at youth level but Tammy went a different direction to him in his development and it has worked out much better for him.

Agreed. This season will be very interesting to see if Lampard and the players can maintain this for the full season. Whilst there may well be a few periods of difficulty, I'm quietly confident that by and large we can due to the squad depth and we still have key players returning/to return which should help provide a boost where necessary. If this can be maintained for most of this season, then it answers one of the two main questions for me over whether we can start challenging the top two again. The other being can we take points off the other top teams. To get top 4 this season, I don't believe we will need to be taking huge amounts of points off the top teams. The likes of Arsenal, United and Spurs are all struggling against lesser teams and as long as we continue to put to the sword the rest of the league we'll be fine. Include Leicester now in this bracket of top teams and there are 13 teams then making up the rest of the league. If we took 80-85% of points from those teams then that is 62-66 points (currently 9 games from a possible 26, we're at 89%). Based on everyone else's struggles at present that might even be enough for top 4 but if not we would probably only need to be picking up 6-10 points against the other 6 teams in the league just to maintain the cushion. Compare this to United who seem to have a method and set up which suits playing against the top teams but they struggle against the lesser teams. When the lesser teams make up two thirds of the league that is the reason they are so far behind us at present. What we're doing currently if we maintain, is enough to get top 4. As both our coaching and playing staff become more confident and experienced, I'm sure that our results against the established big teams will also improve.

Yeah agree. Don't we have Valencia in between though? Also with the injury problems Kante has had this season, we should no longer be slogging him like we have in the past. The biggest thing to take from all of this though is we no longer should worry about being without Kante for the odd game. Take Rudiger, Luiz, Kante and Hazard out of last year's team and I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have coped (we'd have struggled just without Hazard). This season we have ironically flourished.

I actually think all three should be used against City and try to solidify that midfield. We've been very competitive in two games against Liverpool this season using all three and I think at present in the big games we have more chance of getting a result being a little more pragmatic, especially against Liverpool and City. Moving forward though I would tend to agree. Against the majority of teams in the league, I actually think we may be better set up with Kova and Jorginho to help us dominate games. The two have literally taken the piss out of everybody we've played in the league over the last month. I felt certainly in the first half yesterday, we really missed Jorginho.