Superblue

We can all argue about the transfer fee, could it have been spent on another area of the pitch, etc. The fact is we needed to replace Courtois this summer. His AWOL this week confirms keeping him in his last year of his contract just wouldn't have worked. Yes our team still has areas of potential weakness, and hopefully these are areas which will be addressed in time. But goalkeeper needed sorting now and the club has acted accordingly. Rather than just trying to plug the gap with a short term solution or a player that the club wasn't entirely sold on but was relatively cheap, we've gone and paid a premium price for someone that we have identified as the man we want regardless of the large fee and hopefully locking down a key area of the pitch for many years with a player who is highly rated and being tipped to be one of the very best around. They are certainly not immune to criticism but in this instance I think the board should be commended with the bold approach we've just taken.

7 year contract is clever by Chelsea. Not just tying him down long term but amortising that large fee over as many years as possible.

It'll be interesting how Real fans take to him having spent 3 years at Atletico. I can't see Atletico fans being too pleased either to see him joining Real. And there won't be many Chelsea fans who like him. He's shaping up to be the player version of Mourinho!

You could argue from that list only Alonso and Morata are first choice in their respective positions currently and hopefully with competition they either compete or are replaced. I don't mind the rest as squad players.

In an ideal world there's an option to buy which we can trigger if he's successful next summer. But if there's not then so be it, we are getting a top player for a season whom could help us massively. If he fits into the team, has an excellent season and has a big impact on us getting back into the top 4 and back into the champions league, or even winning some trophies then it will be worth it and we'll cross next season when it happens. There has to be a mid to long term plan at the club, but what we don't want to do is allow such a plan to allow us to forget about the present. We don't know what other teams may do in a couple of seasons time, or if any of our players choose to leave, get injured, etc. There has to be a focus on this season, in what will likely be a transition season, to get back into the Champions League. If Kovacic helps with that, option to buy or not, then I'm all for him joining.

They're more likely to hoover up the next sensation in the Bundesliga though. PSG are the only ones who will be sniffing around a top keeper over the next year or two but hopefully getting Kepa signed up to a long term contract will tie this position down for the next few years without the need to worry.

I think the centre back spots are well up for grabs this season and Ampadu deserves to be in the conversation. I can see Luiz getting the nod initially, alongside Rudiger. But I see enough of Luiz's limitations at the back to believe that Christensen and Ampadu could well get ahead of him in the pecking order over the coming months.

It'll be interesting to see what he goes with. I think if Sarri uses any of the players who have just returned it will obviously be Kante and Hazard, and even then I don't see Hazard playing anywhere near the whole game. Morata is far from ideal but none of the other strikers are ready and tuned to the system yet. Will be interesting to see whether Kepa comes in and gets the baptism of fire. I'd be inclined to do just that when the alternative is Caballero.

If the Kepa and Courtois moves go through, the vast majority of top teams will have young high quality goalkeepers which could suggest there may not be huge movements in this market over the next few years. The only teams that really spring to mind are PSG and Bayern (depending how Neuer comes back from his injuries and even then they generally buy from within the Bundesliga).

Ederson and pickford both moved before Neymar went to PSG and the market went crazy. Even at that point they both broke goalkeeping transfer records at the time (pickford most expensive english keeper and ederson world record for a keeper) and both were seen as a lot of money for 2 keepers relatively inexperienced and unproven.

Roman has never accepted second best. We've beaten City to their number one target this summer and look prepared to break the world transfer record for a keeper.

He's better than this. He's already commented that his relationship with Conte was strained and he has committed to the club. If he had held his hands up and said it was silly and an emotional reaction at the time, it would look so much better on his part.

Apparently Sarri wanted him a year ago at Napoli as the long term replacement for Reina. If this is the case, it would go with Jorginho to signal that the board are prepared to back Sarri with some very big and expensive signings.

If the club go ahead with this it would be a statement. I think we all moaned about the transfer strategy last summer, buying a lot of squad players and overspending on some average signings. Although the club may end up only bringing in 2 or 3 this summer they will have at least spent good money to buy the best players they could in those circumstances. It's definitely a step in the right direction and whilst there are still gaps in the squad the hope will be that the board have their eyes on this being a project that will bear fruit more so over the next 2 - 3 seasons as opposed to the first 6 months and by adding genuine quality to it over that time will have far more long term benefits. The squad should be filled out through our academy preventing the need for buys like Drinkwater and Zappacosta.

Even without an option to buy it gives Sarri that extra body in midfield this season and more funds to sort out our keeper situation. If kovacic is holding out for a loan move now, comes here and loves it he'll no doubt try to force a move next summer to our benefit. About time madrid suffered like every other club does when they try unsettling players. Anyway lets cross that bridge when it comes as we don't have time now to mess about. Just get him in.

We were prepared to pay the Alisson fee reportedly to sign him but he wanted Liverpool. If this is true then perhaps the links to Kepa and Oblak aren't as far-fetched. We will be recouping a fair chunk of their fee by selling Courtois. In my opinion if we can pull off a deal like this then make it happen. As much as most of us don't like him, Courtois is one of the world's elite keepers and losing him means losing one of our 'world class' players. Those types of players need replacing properly. We've been blessed with Cech and then Courtois for the best part of 15 years. However IF something like this isn't possible or the club isn't prepared to pay such a fee, then I hope we don't go for a middle tier goalkeeper for big money. Someone like Schmeichel I could see costing the best part of £50m as it is which would be disastrous as we'd be committed to making him work then given the price just like we have before with the likes of Torres and Morata.

My only real issue with this is it doesn't go any way to helping our goal scoring problems.

Could he potentially play as striker. Obviously not a natural striker, but perhaps in a similar way to Firmino at Liverpool?

It's not that he wants to leave, its the manner this has been done. Be a man, and be straight with everyone. It's what has annoyed me with Hazard over the years and particularly this summer, the mixed signals to the media to just make sure that all bases are covered and you'll be welcomed back to Chelsea if nothing materialises. People cannot have it both ways. Football is far too emotional and tribal for players to have their cake and eat it. And those mixed signals will automatically give hope to fans that they will stay and only makes it even worse if they leave. The difference between Hazard and Courtois is that Hazard has seemingly backed up his talk this summer by coming back to the club and looks prepared to get his head down and perform for us like we need him to. Courtois on the other hand has shown himself up with comments about having no problem playing for Chelsea this season. It's a cowardly showing and is the reason why he will leave under a cloud and not likely receive a warm welcome back to the club like many of our old players have over the years.

Today has clearly showed the bar which Chelsea must work towards reaching. At this moment we are pretty far away but the overreaction today on this forum is incredible. Sarri has been at the club for less than 3 weeks in a summer where not even all of our players are back for pre season yet. To add to this we've travelled to Australia in this timeframe and also played games in France and Ireland. The change we are making is massive. It's not just "hey, we're going to play a more expansive, attacking style which all the players are going to enjoy and everything will be good!". Not only does Sarri want the team to play in a certain way with our passing and movement, but we are also being coached to press all over the pitch, in particular the final third which we haven't been doing previously under Conte and obviously the shift to a back 4 with a high line in comparison to a back 3/5 with a deep line. You could see today a player as tactically solid and dependable as Azpilicueta was even struggling tucking in way too much and leaving a lot of room out wide. These changes won't be learnt in a couple of weeks. Remember that Conte didn't implement his 3-4-3 until the end of September. He largely kept Mourinho's tactics which the team were used to and drilled towards playing until this point to give the best chance of getting some early results, but even that left us struggling. This is a work in progress and a lot of patience will be required. I understand some of the reservations regarding our squad and there are some players who clearly don't cut it, but this is still a good group of players, a large group of which have won 2 of the last 4 premier leagues. People say that Chelsea don't have the players that can play the way Napoli did but we're comparing to his finished article after 3 years work with them. Look at some of those Napoli players the year that Sarri took over and they would have been saying similar things. Jorginho was a backup player that Sarri ended up moulding the team around. Mertens and Insigne were nothing more than squad players too. The Napoli fans thought Koulibaly was useless and looked terrible trying to play the ball out from the back. They have all been coached and trusted in time to perform how they did for Napoli. The biggest issue is clearly up front for us. Morata hasn't played well at all and doesn't appear to be the answer, but Sarri hasn't had Bats or Giroud yet so has had no alternative. Let's also note that at Napoli, having lost Higuain he converted Mertens who was nothing more than a squad player winger previously. If there is a coach that is creative and willing to coach what he has to make it work then we have that man. We are not likely, or expected, to be challenging Man City for the title this season. But I do think we've got a good chance of making the top 4 this season. But it will take some time and patience for this to get to where we all want it to reach.

Just as important as getting used to the style of play with the ball is (1) the press - city are getting out way too easily and (2) the high back line - if we don't sort that out we'll get murdered this season with anything over the top.

Far from a fan of his but Chris Sutton just hit the nail on the head. This is a team coached for 2 years vs a team coached for 2 weeks. Add to that guardiola at least inherited from an attack minded manager in Pellegrini. Sarri has inherited our team from two of the most defensive coaches in world football. This is going to take time and patience.

I thought we had a clause with Napoli to prevent us buying their players?

Ramsey would be a far better player to buy than Vecino in my opinion. He would help shoulder the burden of goalscoring from midfield too, something we've missed since Lampard left. If he's fit and playing he should be scoring 10-15 goals a season.

The only keeper I see us realistically getting this close to the deadline, and for a semi-reasonable price is Butland. Leicester have shown with us over Drinkwater, Mahrez the last couple of seasons and Maguire this summer that they won't sell cheap and be bullied by the big teams. This close to the window if we went for Schmeichel we would be paying a hugely inflated sum. I'm pretty sure the club wanted Alisson and once he expressed a desire to move to Liverpool we were left with goalkeepers none of which we hugely favoured. I would rather we didn't spend silly money on a keeper we're not 100% sold on and in a year or two's time we're looking to replace them with a better keeper and struggling to recoup a reasonable amount of money in comparison to what we originally paid. So for me we either keep Courtois this next season. The best keeper option but completely depends not just on his attitude and professionalism but also if the fans turn on him this season knowing he'll be leaving would not be good for the atmosphere. Or we go for someone like Butland, an obvious downgrade on Courtois but a significant upgrade on our other options and who wouldn't cost ridiculous money. He would either make the step up to the next level but if he didn't I'm confident we could recoup most if not all the investment back on him in a couple of seasons time if we looked to change keepers (mid-table teams would be prepared to pay good money for him).