Superblue

If the prices are comparable, which is the better target Dumfries or Walker-Peters?

Personally think he's above competent as a defender. He's no Ashley Cole by any stretch of the imagination so wouldn't fall into an 'excellent' category but I'd probably label his defending in the 'good' range. His defensive metrics and stats are strong and he does seem to possess a good defensive awareness which is key for me. I personally don't think competent or average would cut it as a defender to be able to play within the back 3, whereas you can get away with that as a wing back. Completely agree with you on the too footedness aspect, it should be a minimum requirement for any footballer to be honest. The one thing I would say watching some clips and videos of him is that whilst I wouldn't class him as two footed, he does seem more than comfortable to play with his right foot, certainly more than Chilwell and Alonso from what I have seen. I have actually seen a few people on social media believing he could cover on the right side too. Not sure about that but I don't think he'd leave us restricted with an inability to use a weaker foot.

Hop aboard the train mate. It's my biggest gripe with the Chelsea set up over recent seasons. That 2012 - 2014 period where we bought the likes of Courtois, De Bruyne, Salah, Lukaku, Hazard, Oscar, Azpilicueta should have offered a blueprint as all of those players went on to success whether here or elsewhere. Instead whether through incompetent scouting or a change in recruitment planning, we moved away from this and would seem to rather see a player move to a next tier club first and prove their worth and pay the extra instead of taking a punt on a player for 2 or 3x less money but a less developed version of that player that needs time and patience. But even in the second scenario, a player could be loaned out for a year or two for that development like Courtois, De Bruyne and Lukaku all did so it shouldn't be a deterrent. I'm really hoping it's something the new ownership consider moving forward. They strike me as the sort of people that would be questioning why some of these players we're looking to buy have made moves in the last couple of years for a fraction of the price and will want to try and address that situation by positioning Chelsea to identify these players and try to recruit them earlier.

Yeah but whichever way you look at it we're still dependent on a wing back from either side being capable and comfortable playing in the back 3 to provide cover as if the incomings and outgoings take shape as being reported we'll have 5 centre backs at the club in a back 3 system and one of those will be 38 years old.

With all the rumours swirling around, definitely seems to be a lot of moving parts on the go at Chelsea and it is important to strike that balance between securing deals in place for both incomings and outgoings fluidly so we're not left with either too many or too few in areas of the pitch. Cucurella joining will almost certainly allow Emerson and Alonso to move on, but there also seems to be strong links away for Sarr, Colwill and Azpi. So even if we bring Fofana or Gvardiol in as a major centre back signing, we'll be bringing in 2 to see potentially 5 leave in the defence. I guess with the flexibility of James and Cucurella being able to play in the back 3, it should give us enough but then we also need to ensure we have sufficient cover at wing back in case either of these have to play a sustained period in the back 3 due to injuries. I think a move for an attacker will only happen once we know the situation with the likes of Werner and Ziyech. If a couple get moved on we'll likely go back to the market for someone but if only Werner leaves, I could see a situation where we stick with what we have, especially if there are no obvious options on the market.

So what would your thoughts be on Cucurella?

Class from both.

Or if the back 3 formation is truly here to stay then having genuine quality depth in both wing back roles becomes just as critical as the depth in the 2 or 3 roles in attack, because it becomes probably the key position in the formation. The drop off in quality last year when James and Chilwell went down was alarming and definitely one of the bigger issues that seemed to derail our momentum mid season. Despite the number of players at left back/wing back in the squad, Alonso is still the best choice as backup to Chilwell and we can't expect nor assume Chilwell is just going to walk straight back into the team and carry on where he left off after his injury. It'll likely take some time and he's not played a huge number of minutes in pre season. Bringing someone like Cucurella in makes a lot of sense to have two genuine quality options in that left wing back role. And unlike Chilwell and Alonso, Cucurella does have some experience playing in a back 3 last season at Brighton to a very good standard. As @Tomo pointed out having more of a full back option as one of the three centre backs can be beneficial a lot of the time because they become the spare player from deep in an attack. If they have the quality they should have, they should be able to present an option sometimes to cross the ball in from a deeper position or send a ball over the top of a defence. Azpilicueta got a lot of assists playing in such a way, especially with Morata in the early days before he hit his struggles. It's a similar reason as to why Reece James can also thrive in the back 3 as his delivery is exceptional and that shouldn't matter where on the pitch he is. If anything in the back 3 he'll get more time and opportunity usually to deliver compared to as a wing back. I think having that as an option to Tuchel on both sides of the back 3 adds to the variations and options he can look to utilise in games where we'll dominate the ball.

Zaha is 30 in November. The feeling to me is that move should have happened a couple of years ago and would have if Zaha hadn't committed to such a long term deal. Unless Palace are prepared to sell him for a very reasonable fee, which they haven't to date, I'd be surprised if anything would happen.

Not sold on Dumfries, he's a tireless workhorse up and down that wing and he'd probably get a few plaudits simply due to the shift he puts in but his technical ability and final ball are too inconsistent to be dropping so much money on him. There's not a huge pool of games there, but from the end of last season (particularly the Southampton and Madrid games) and just watching him in the game over the weekend, RLC is a better option for the RWB squad role this season. He seems a little bit better suited in that position where he has a bit more time and more freedom than he has in the pivot. If a good offer come in for him this summer it would need considering, but otherwise I think we're better off saving our money and utilising him there rather than sinking 40m on Dumfries. I'm also resigning myself to the likelihood we won't shift 3 of the 4 left backs/wing backs at the club currently to buy an alternative to Chilwell. If this proves to be the case, we'd be better off holding on to Alonso for another season and then letting him leave next summer on a free than sell for a couple of million this summer. If it came down to the other two, I'd genuinely take Kenedy over Emerson. Get Gvardiol or Fofana and I think we have enough across the back this coming season.

Problem I find with the German clubs is there usually isn't really an asking price if they don't want to sell. They seem to generally hold their ground pretty firm in that regard and then seem to reward the loyalty of players who stay for another season or two with a fair valuation in the transfer market when it comes to sell. I just have a feeling out of the two, Fofana seems the more attainable deal to make with both club and player. That shouldn't stop us laying the ground work this summer for Gvardiol though as we still have to plan for the eventuality of replacing Thiago Silva. Whether we stand a chance next summer if other clubs come in is another matter, but most of the top teams are pretty well stocked in the centre back department and with the price he's still likely to command again next year (unless there's a release clause) we might find ourselves as a front runner for him. Loaning them Werner this season could be something that helps with those talks next year if he went back and had a successful season. Both are on a very shortened list of the best young centre backs across Europe. To get either will be a real coup for the club in the long term.

Yeah of course on a platform like here you're more likely to have 'real' Chelsea fans to go to the time and effort to discuss things on a forum regardless of their nationality and that's why people shouldn't be generalised in such a way as "American fans overate Pulisic". On social media platforms like Twitter it's a minefield and unfortunately you get a lot of people on there who will back Pulisic as the captain and pin up of the national team and to be honest whoever he was playing for would probably get the same backlash if he wasn't playing regularly. Every Chelsea fan wants him to do well but the longer it goes on, the more that run just after lockdown looks more like a purple patch than a standard he can regularly and reliably reach. His raw numbers at Dortmund in terms of goals and assists were never anything to rave about and unfortunately his numbers at Chelsea seem to have remained fairly consistent with his Dortmund numbers rather than breaking into the next level. Last season it felt like there were two places up for grabs alongside Mount in the front 3 because no one was really making a spot their own. This season it'll regularly be one plus Mount and Sterling in my opinion. Unless there's a dramatic shift, I think he'll struggle for minutes more this season than last.

We're at a stage now where we seem to be heading too far down the target list in some positions it may be better for us to explore whether we can bring a player or two in on loan to help this season. It's not the most ideal scenario but we saw last year with Saul if they don't work out then the commitment hasn't been too big. Ultimately the ownership need time to put things in place to really tackle the transfer market and rebuild the squad moving forward. I'd rather us be armed better for future recruitment than wasting money this summer on players that will only end up exacerbating the problem we're in right now with too many squad players we can't get rid of. Some people have mentioned Depay. I wouldn't be dropping money on him, but I wouldn't be opposed to taking him on a season loan and exploring that deal next summer if he's been a success. Barca might have to move a couple of players out on loan just to free up some wages.

Pretty sure a couple of people have mentioned him in the past on here.

Quite a fan of the "ramdam" on Chelsea's interest in Koundé when Tuchel did not want the player. Nice trick to raise the barça level. Behind the player's agent (Jonathan Kebe), it was Jorge Mendes who was influential in the deal (and the press...) I'm sure there will be all sorts of conspiracy theories, and there's no doubt the pot is stirred all the time by agents, but it did seem that a lot of things weren't adding up with Kounde. It was reported early in the window that Tuchel wasn't that keen on Kounde and it was a club target, not his so did seem strange and a surprise we were seemingly going back in for him, especially when Tuchel also suggested his preference was to find a left sided centre back. The story of the hold up in the deal from Sevilla's end was also that Chelsea had come to the table and whilst verbally agreeing a price, never actually then sent the official written bid in to them, so maybe from our end we weren't as invested as was being suggested. Add to that the questionable deal Sevilla accepted which was a bid apparently lower than ours to a domestic rival. The deal has seemed a bit suspect from the start. Anyway, that's done now. We move.

As an apparent Chelsea fan, I struggle to understand what you keep finding so amusing?

Liverpool hit a goldmine to be honest with the perfect mix of a world class coach and a sporting director who understood his manager and could perfectly identify targets for him. It'll be interesting to see what happens with both moving forward separately. Klopp is clearly world class but it shouldn't be forgotten that it took key signings to make everything knit together for his team. Can he sustain those levels over the next few years working with a different sporting director to identify the longer term replacements for a number of players who are now the wrong side of 30. Similarly is Michael Edwards work overhyped because he had one of the best coaches around to make use of the players he was identifying. Can he go to a different team with a different coach and build similar magic over a sustained period.

The coaching aspect is certainly credit to Klopp but from the scouting perspective, it's widely rumoured that there are quite a few targets that Klopp wanted and was persuaded into different players that would suit him better by Michael Edwards and the Liverpool scouting/data teams. But my point is strictly on the scouting side of things. Whatever you think of Klopp, Tuchel, whoever and their ability to get 'X' amount out of players, ultimately our scouting and recruitment, for me, has not been to a sufficient standard for far too long and a lot of this boils down to a seeming philosophy of waiting to see young players with high potential make a 'mid-tier' move first to track their development before being interested in them. With centre backs, Koulibaly I believe is the first we've paid money for since Rudiger and realistically if Rudiger and Christensen didn't leave in the summer it's arguable whether we would have left that position again for another year. 5 years is a long time to go without investing in what is a key area of the team, even if it was to bring a younger player in and give them chance to develop behind a more established pairing. I'm not saying we should only follow this path now and only buy young players but it's an area we should be leaning on much more heavier now that we no longer hold an obvious advantage over other teams to just spend more than them. The Sterling and Koulibaly transfers at face value feel measured and intelligent signings at reasonable fees because of their contract situations, but two that can slot straight into the team. If we can combine similar deals to them alongside trying to identify and cherry pick some of the top young talents before they end up at bigger clubs, this to me feels an efficient and stable plan to follow in the transfer market.

I know I probably sound like a broken record and in this instance I think Leicester paid about £35m for him originally, but once again it's another player who was highly rated and I'm pretty certain on our radar before he joined Leicester. I know you can't buy everyone (seemingly unless you're Barcelona) but I feel the best way of rebuilding key areas of this squad as a whole, we need to be better with spotting some potentially top players and snapping them up before they end up at bigger clubs and more established with massive transfer fees. It benefitted Liverpool in their early developments under Klopp by picking up some players in this way like Robertson, Mane, Matip. Can't expect Boehly to be doing this straight away because it's not been our policy for years but it's definitely something I'd like to see us focus on moving forward with regards to scouting.

They've both made some good signings but also some pretty average signings but it's being hyped up by the activity of both. I think Jesus to be honest is a cracking signing for Arsenal and could be quite a big difference in where they might finish this season as they didn't have a consistent goal scorer last year and if he can fill that spot it'll improve them. But overall the rest of their signings are fairly 'meh'. Spurs, I personally would have loved Perisic and Spence but as rotational backups to Chilwell and James. Those additions to Spurs don't trump what we already had. I do like Bissouma though I think he's a good signing although I'm not sure he's as suited to Conte's style as what they already had in Bentancur and Hojberg. The others like Richarlison and Lenglet though I think are bang average buys. I'm extremely happy with the two players we've signed. In my opinion if neither are in the world class category, they're both only a level down and walk into our team as upgrades. It would just be nice to have had a couple more in that bracket to have arrived as I think then that would be the difference for most fans between pessimism of fighting for top 4 and optimism pushing the two above us.

The funny thing is if that situation really did happen, Barca would probably have to realistically loan the player out for a season and have their wages covered and a small loan fee to cover overall costs. Just imagine the scenes if they had to loan us Raphinha or Kounde for a year 😂

I'm sure they will find some way around it, but it would be hilarious if they're in a position where they can't register all of them and have to pick and choose who they can add to the squad for La Liga.

I would agree. The question is Pau Torres 8/10 in both or is he in the opposite category where he's 10/10 on the ball but only 6/10 defending?

Fofana looks a real talent, but do have to keep a little eye on his injury record beyond that leg break. Season before that I think he missed around 8 - 10 games for Leicester and the season before that in France he missed 10 - 12 games too. As a developing young player he's likely to pick up small strains and niggles, etc but it is something to just consider.

To be fair I doubt there are many British families that could care less about American history. I personally wouldn't be checking things like that when going to name one of my children.