Superblue

We had to pay £30-35m for Drinkwater. Leicester won't let Schmeichel go on the cheap.

It would be one of the worst decisions ever. It was bad enough Mourinho coming back and soiling his legacy, but Cech is way past his best now and the decline has never been clearer than this last year at Arsenal. I want to be able to remember him for the legend he is, all the top performances, trophies won, clean sheets and of course his monster performance in Munich. I do not want my last memories of Cech being washed up and error prone, with fans potentially turning on him because he simply isn't good enough any more.

Forster lost his place at Southampton. He's declined massively in the last 12-18 months. Still not sold on butland. If we were to buy a prem keeper the logical one would be schmeichel and even then I'd rather see alternatives in all honesty.

Yes but i would say a young inexperienced keeper is the riskiest thing to do, and at the moment i haven't seen any links to a worthwhile keeper in such a bracket. I think the worry is this late in the window being desperate to get a keeper we could end up overpaying. The other option would be negotiating cillesson into a Willian transfer. Not sure how good he is though but I've read some links with him.

If Alisson is off to Liverpool i would look to negotiate Navas into the Courtois deal. Ask for £15-20m and navas and see where we get with it. Otherwise we could end up frantically looking for a keeper late in the window and end up overpaying. At least this way we'd replace Courtois with a really solid and experienced goalkeeper for the next couple of years without being fleeced and be able to concentrate our energies and resources on improving other areas of the team.

You can't knock what he's done at the club on the grand scheme of things. He's played a big role in two league title winning seasons and also won as a starter in the league cup, fa cup, europa league and champions league. He certainly has limitations but he's made the most of his career here and at £7m he has proven to be a hugely successful piece of business by the club, and a bargain. He is definitely in the decline now though, and as people have said it would be best for both parties for him to leave. He gets a fresh start and can play week in week out at a midtable team in the latter stages of his career, with nothing left to prove, and we can move on and look to upgrade on him.

From what I understand Insigne can be quite a selfish player. Whilst this could be frustrating at times, he puts up good numbers for goals/assists. Despite how great Hazard is, the stick he is usually beat with is he should be scoring more goals. I'm hoping he stays, commits and gets better under a system and style of play which should suit him.

Comments like this baffle me. I wonder how Martinez would have reacted when he was at Everton and an international manager starting touting one of his best players saying they should move to another club. What a prick.

I'm not arguing with you, Lampard was unique and irreplaceable directly, and I feel Hazard is the same. What I'm saying is that the club will adapt to losing players and if they can't directly replace them, they'll find a way to indirectly replace them. If that means changing the formation, style of play, etc. I would rather keep Hazard without question, but changing to a more offensive style would hopefully help alleviate some of the loss of Hazard by not having to rely on someone to pull off something magic when we're playing so defensively. For example having purchased Jorginho will hopefully help us retain possession and control games more. This may mean that Hazard could be replaced by someone who can similarly match his numbers with regards to goals and assists without necessarily being the type of player that can replace his direct running, chances created, etc.

Fabregas replaced Lampard. Not directly, we were never going to replace his goalscoring prowess but we went down a different route by bringing in someone more creative to play in that midfield role and then trusting in the players further forward to make up for the loss of Lampard's goals. We've won plenty of trophies since Lampard left. It's the same thing with Hazard. We probably will not be able to directly replace him with but altering our style of play and getting perhaps a different type of wide player but that will suit Sarri's system may be able to adequately replace him and keep us successful without necessarily being individually as good as Hazard is.

This isn't like a Matt Le Tissier at Southampton or Shearer at Newcastle, where they can offer nothing else than club legend status to keep hold of them. Chelsea is still one of the biggest clubs in the world and serial trophy winners, so Hazard moving to Chelsea has been more than justified at both ends. I don't think his personality suits a pressure cooker environment like Real Madrid, and I think he will always be more loved here than he ever would at Madrid because he'll never adequately replace Ronaldo whom he'll be no doubt compared to if he moved this summer. However maybe he feels he is comfortable, bordering on complacent here now and needs to move in order to push himself with a new challenge. I hope that he stays and commits himself here, but if he is that desperate to go I think we have to let him. It's absolutely pointless keeping a player that is unhappy with their contract winding down. However Hazard would need to show that properly by officially handing in a transfer request rather than constantly sending out mixed signals. That way everyone knows the situation and both parties can look to move on. It will be extremely hard to replace Hazard. I don't see anybody that would be available who is on his level at the moment, but the club will find a way to replace him, possibly in a different way. For example find a player that may not be as skillful or creative as Hazard, but will score goals. We've replaced the likes of Lampard, Terry and Drogba which at times looked like being an impossible task.

Whilst i agree with this, their priority and measure of success has always been europe which gives them the highest exposure. They did also win the league and champs league double recently too.

Was their last "galactico" signing bale? It's ironic this hugely successful period has been during a time when they haven't spent big and actually been very wise and astute in their signings.

Anyone got a Jorginho interview yet, like the Sarri one?

His English is very good. i knew he could speak the language, but I just assumed at a basic level like Ancelotti and Conte could do when they were first unveiled. He already seems far ahead of them and will only help him getting his ideas across to the players far quicker. From that interview you can tell that he is aware of how big an opportunity this is for him and that he'll give everything he's got to make it work. I have no doubt in time he'll have us playing a very attractive brand of football. I believe this will give him some time with both the board and the fans if people can enjoy what is being served. However that will only last so long, and even more so at a club as demanding at Chelsea. He is fortunate to have already here a core group of players that have won trophies in the past and are capable of dealing with those pressures. Hopefully that mixed with Sarri's football philosophy will be enough to give an attractive, attacking and winning Chelsea moving forward.

What does that last bit about Morata mean?!

Yep, start of the season for the top teams without some of their best players could be a bit difficult, even more so for us with a new manager. It's a huge chance for some of the boys already in training or back shortly to make their impression on Sarri before some of the main lads come back, because with the shortened pre-season they may not be properly ready to start the new season.

I'm still certain Real Madrid will prioritise Neymar or Mbappe over Hazard. If anything I think Mbappe may well be their first choice now over Neymar.

Lacking cover when his midfield partner is "the man, the myth, the legend" Paul Pogba?! Surely not!

It is difficult when they've got Juventus in their league, who went and took their best player in Higuain. Perhaps they should have gone for one of the cups but I don't think they have huge squad depth and have focused primarily on the league from what I understand. The development in that Napoli team compared to when Benitez was there is clear to see, and I rate Benitez as a very good coach. I think if we got into a position where we had a chance of winning a trophy, despite Sarri's lack of experience getting over the line, our squad has got plenty of it so I would not be worried about that.

He looked pretty decent in the World Cup, has a lot of energy. Where does he play though we already have about 300 midfielders and are still being heavily linked with Golovin. How much would he cost? I guess he would offer backup to Kante in a box to box type role, but I wouldn't expect him to be a starter. Perhaps the club are ready to cut its losses on Bakayoko?

Courtois' comments last night about perhaps staying at Chelsea for one more year - I would not at all be surprised if it's a way to try and force the board's hand with selling them both. If the club is pushing for Alisson then they have probably accepted that Courtois can leave but Hazard can't and Courtois' comments suggest he'd hold on this year and leave for nothing next summer costing us a lot of money and leaving us unable to reinvest his transfer fee in Alisson. i.e. sell them both to Real or they'll sit another year and one leaves for free and the other for a fraction of his transfer value.

I didn't hear this myself, but apparently the bloke on Sky Sports Transfer News tonight said that Chelsea do not want to sell Hazard this summer and want to keep him and convince him to stay. If Hazard was to push the move, Chelsea would demand at least £200m.

Him and Emerson are as good as new signings for us this season. We've taken the risk with buying them both off the back of bad injuries but got them both at very reasonable prices given the circumstances. Both are in pre season training and hopefully fit and raring to go this season.

Everything that I've read has always suggested though that Perez has never been that keen on Hazard.