Superblue

We stay in house and tell Broja to get his head switched on and fight for a place in our team. There's a huge opportunity there for him if he wants it.

If we were going down that rabbit hole we'd be better off getting Adama from Wolves for likely a fraction of that price. But ultimately we can't just keep buying players for the sake of it, this feels like the position we're in now this window. It's not ideal but we'll just have to keep Azpi if it comes to that. I'd rather make do with him this year until better opportunities present themselves. I feel if we buy Dumfries, this time next year he'll be on the list of players we should be looking to replace and probably can't then shift because we overpaid for him and his wages here will price him out of lots of clubs. The question has to be asked - is our scouting department working to try and help Tuchel at all? Are they not perhaps finding a couple of younger players who we are scouting who maybe aren't quite at the level required yet but have a lot of potential and instead of watching them move to Porto/Benfica or a mid tier German/French team and thrive before we firm our own interest up then at now 10x the cost, surely there's a couple of players in this bracket who wouldn't represent as big risks because they're not going to command massive fees and massive wages. As I said previously, my understanding is we were scouting Raphinha and Kounde when they were still playing in France. Why don't we ever pull the trigger with such signings. Are they meant to be beneath us? Are we happy to pay multiple millions more to wait and confirm they can step up to higher levels?

If we do that then we're only worsening the current problem of a bloated squad with too many on big money and not enough quality. Tuchel is like every other manager, he won't be happy that the club hasn't sufficiently strengthened this summer but he might just have to buy into a bigger picture scenario. That's up to the ownership to sell to him. Can he make do with what he has this season and just try and get us into the top 4 again? It's not ideal but it's going to take a couple of summers and expiring contracts to move on a lot of these players that shouldn't be here anymore. We don't want to be adding another 3 or 4 to this list with 3-4 year contracts and realising next summer we have the same problem with these.

It does very much feel like a Chelsea thing whereby we seem to be being linked with one player, where we're actually scouting a different player on the team that we have in mind. No idea how attainable he'd be. Leipzig, like most German clubs, are very fair negotiating when prepared to let a player leave but if they want to dig their heels in with both him and Gvardiol it's a near pointless effort.

@Vesper info on player please!

Ok so what's the answer?

I forgive him. You on the other hand, not so much. You're giving me a headache.

I believe this boiled down to a club and Tuchel decision that as a short term measure it was easier to bring Emerson back than buy a new left back who would almost certainly end up amounting to another backup to Chilwell once he returned from injury. Made complete sense then. If Tuchel rated him that highly he wouldn't have been loaned out in the first place as the clear and obvious third choice in that position.

But that's the problem right there. Why should we weaken ourselves by selling Alonso to keep Emerson purely on the basis because he can be sold and Emerson cannot? Either find buyers for both and buy a new LWB, or keep Alonso as backup. Emerson either finds a new club or he sits out this season. We can't afford to let these players we want to move on just get a free pass into the squad or worse make space for them in the squad. Same goes for Batshuayi. I'll bang my head against a wall if he's still here by the end of the transfer window and Broja isn't.

I can understand Tuchel's reluctance to sanction moves for both of them though if he's not confident we'll pull deals off to replace them.

With the greatest respect to Azpi and Alonso, we're probably doing Barca a favour blocking these transfers if true. Having said that if we struggle with getting players in, both players still hold a position within the squad and aren't the worst options to have to "make do" with next season if we were forced into such a position. I'd rather Azpi in the back 3 than Sarr and I'd rather Alonso on the left instead of Emerson.

I think that talks will start taking place now we're back from America and the plan will be to get this finalised shortly after the transfer window has ended. All reports suggest this is a priority to get done, and James and Mount have both come out this summer and committed to the club, essentially confirming they'd like to sign new contracts. From a PR perspective the club might well accelerate this and get it sorted asap when we're struggling to secure targets in the window. From James and Mount's perspective they might be happy with talks dragging out over the rest of the window to see how successful the club has been with reshaping the squad. The worser it's deemed, I'd argue the stronger their hands are in negotiating.

I struggle to see just where Kounde fit on our list of centre back targets. If he was near the top everything was there to get him tied up at the start of the summer, so he had to be a target below the first 4 or 5 at least for us to only now have been negotiating for him. The worry is just how far down the list are we supposed to go to get a target. Are we just compounding the current problems by adding a decent or good player to the ranks but one who isn't or ever likely to be top level, and likely need replacing/strengthening over in a season or two.

The problem is we don't and probably won't ever know the full story of whether Marina and Cech were pushed or jumped themselves. There was talk of Marina leaving as soon as the takeover was completed when Roman first put the club up for sale, so I'm really not surprised she left as soon as she did. It was far from ideal but from what has come out since, it appears if it was down to her and Cech then Lukaku wouldn't have left this summer. This immediately creates a cause of friction if Boehly wants to back the manager. You are bang on the money though that it has to be a real eye opening experience for Boehly but whilst it doesn't feel like it now, maybe it will work to the club's benefit further down the line. We obviously need an experienced sporting director in to deal with transfers and help map out a plan to reshape this squad but Boehly getting a taste of experience of this first hand this summer can only help with his understanding and future support for what a sporting director and the club as a whole might need. Everything he's done in just a couple of months is more proactive and hands on than anything the Glazers, Kroenke's, etc have done in years. It's not perfect and it never was going to be, but I have a lot of respect for Boehly that he was willing to tackle everything head on this summer. It would have been easier for him to make minimal changes and tell Tuchel he'd just have to make do this season to give the hierarchy time to put everything into place, but he's doing the best he can to try and get us competitive as possible this season. Difficult to knock the man when he's effectively been placed in the eye of a storm.

So where is Mukiele fitting in at PSG? Backup to Hakimi? Can never know how true some reports are, but I can remember reading somewhere that it was reported Hakimi regretted moving to PSG and would leave if the opportunity arose. Beyond unlikely, but when these centre backs are being touted for upwards of 50-60m, if there was any shred of possibility that he was unsettled we should be throwing that money at him instead and shift James into the back 3.

Wow I didn't realise how bang average the right hand side options are. Looking at those, I think not taking a punt on Clauss was a bit of a mistake given the price he was available at. Adama Traore might be another option perhaps? He's not really my cup of tea with such an inconsistent end product but he is someone we've been linked with in the past in such a role and I think Wolves wouldn't be looking for stupid money to sell him. Ultimately though it's a pretty poor pool of players.

Szalai may be an option to re-look at who shouldn't cost a fortune (think when we were originally linked with him he was being talked about in the £15-20m bracket). I don't think a left footed CB is as desperate as it seems. We were after all looking at buying Kounde for the right hand side which would have left Koulibaly for the left anyway. Not quite sure that makes too much difference and opens up many more options though.

The Barca links seemed to be the other day in response to Kounde likely coming to us. This is the sort of link I was worried about. I don't think he's that good, I don't think his skillset suits the Premier League where I think he's more likely to get caught for pace and bullied a little. For how painful it could be, I'd much rather roll into next season with what we already have if this is the best option at the best part of 50m. Surely there's a better right back/wing back option which could allow us to place Reece in the back 3?

The one thing I'm guessing from this window that can be thrown at Boehly and he's learning a hard lesson about is just how different transfers are in football compared to American sports. In NFL especially, you're always getting top players move to some of the worser teams in the league if they're willing to pay them. I wonder if he thought it would be much easier to get Raphinha, Kounde, etc by coming in and outmuscling teams with money. There has to be more than that when it comes to football, it's not just one league and one title being competed for, and there's a much greater feeling in football for players to play for the likes of Barca and Madrid, compared to say playing for the Packers or 49ers in the NFL.

I think he'd more likely walk away than just "phone it in". Last season was the perfect opportunity for him to do that and he stuck with it in testing times.

I do really hope this to be the case but there has to be a bit of concern that will creep into them and their plans now. Whilst teams miss out on targets, for us to do so in such a public way does not look good whatsoever. It creates a negative outlook for the club whereby there will already be doubts and scepticism in some quarters as to what the future holds for Chelsea post Roman. They will also be fully aware that whilst they've received a warm welcome from the fans, there is still an affinity there for Chelsea fans with Roman and the feeling that we've had him forcefully taken away. If they don't hit the ground running and things do take a backwards step, I think there will be a worry that the fans might turn pretty quickly. And now to add to this, the cracks are definitely starting to show with Tuchel. From what has been reported they view him potentially as the most important person they've inherited at the club and with that in mind, the last thing they'll want is to see him run out of patience and walk away. I'd rather we take a step or two backwards and fix everything piece by piece. The idea of just placing a band-aid on things simply doesn't cut it anymore. Like you mentioned on another post, over the next couple of years these big earners we can't shift will move on when their contracts are up but it isn't something that is going to correct over night. Throwing more money at quick fixes doesn't help anything. But we all know just how emotional football is, and how easily decisions can be made based on that.

At least the squad is already back in England rather than poncing around America for a few more days, I guess a bit of recovery or light training tomorrow as they acclimatise back to our clock and then back at it Tuesday. Regardless of transfers, we didn't look fit yesterday. I fully understand the needs to go on pre season tours and I would assume they can be beneficial for staff and squad to bond and build relationships which will hopefully show on the pitch. They're not going to be training all the time and completely understand marketing the club, doing some sights, etc but it's not a good look when you then put a performance like that one in. Big couple of weeks now to get the team ready for the new season. I feel we can't afford to start slow and be playing catch up.

One of the most frustrating aspects is just how far our scouting/recruitment has dropped off in recent years. It's not a million years ago in a relatively short span of 2 or 3 years we signed the likes of Azpi, Cahill, Courtois, De Bruyne, Salah, Oscar, even Hazard to a degree from what would be perceived as 'lesser' teams. We've moved away from this in recent times and seem to prefer to see if a player can move to a mid tier side and impress first. The only one I can really think of recently falling into such a category would be Mendy and that feels it was more of a case of finding a cost effective alternative to Kepa. There's been talk that we've scouted Raphinha since Rennes and Kounde since Bordeaux - if this is the case why aren't we pulling the trigger on some of these players for a fraction of the price that they're being quoted once they've made a move.

Personally I struggle to see what Saint Max would give us for the price being touted. He's direct and at times will cause problems with his willingness to dribble but there's a lot of times that he'll either dribble into a blind alley or when it comes to an end product, it's frustratingly inconsistent like our current attacking contingent. He's not adding goals to this team either as he's only scored 11 in the league in his 3 years at Newcastle. You have to also ask questions, given where Newcastle are and where I'm sure they'd like to get to, why would they be entertaining selling him?

Agreed whether we buy Kounde or someone else, we're likely spending the best part of £100m on centre backs to replace two that have left on free transfers. The worrying thing with attackers is there's not a great deal of depth on the market. Unless we took a massive dice roll with Ronaldo for a year which could easily go a similar way to Lukaku, there's no one that stands out to me that is nothing more than a punt. Hence why it just makes more sense for us to keep Broja this season who will offer a more direct threat in the number 9 role than Havertz (a genuine number 9 option) but is willing to work and press for the system which was an obvious problem with Lukaku.