Superblue

Exactly like you said, I think Tuchel would utilise his versatility. He could get regular game time at LWB as Chilwell can't play every game but also double's down as a centre midfielder, which presents an option in that area of the field this season if our main options there don't become available. I personally like the look of Raum as a left wing back but I wouldn't be against Zinchenko. He's technically very strong. Defensively he can get caught out sometimes (notably in the Champions League final against us) but that's covered a lot more in a wing back role. The problem is at least with Sterling he only has a year left on his deal. I think City will be less receptive to letting Ake and Zinchenko leave to us when there's still time on their deals.

Apparently we're interested in Zinchenko too. I guess if you can't beat them, buy them.

Reports from France suggesting we've now made a contract offer to Dembele. Of course this could be more agent spinning from his camp, but from what it appears over the past few days we've shown interest to him this whole time without putting our cards on the table. It's not left us in a bidding war with other clubs and in particular Barca which it seems is what Dembele's camp were expecting to drive his demands up more. It looks like this has backfired spectacularly if reports from Barca's end are correct with regards to the offer they've made him. If we did manage to get him, I'd expect it to be a far more reasonable and manageable contract position now. If he decides to take the pay cut and stay at Barca then we move on.

The importance is putting a plan in place throughout the club. There's never been a trend with our managerial appointments for starters, which is why we're so regularly left with so many players ill suited to the man in situ. Just look at the last 4 managers - we've gone from a back 3 counter attacking system, to a progressive back 4 system, to Lampard trying to play rock and roll football, back to Tuchel's back 3 but in a more possession, controlled based approach compared to Conte's system. When Klopp and Pep both walked in they made a lot of changes and were backed to let players leave who had cost the clubs big money. Finally backing a manager who has already been here for the last 18 months is frankly what we've cried out for ages. I'm hoping over the next summer or two the decks will be swept and a number of players that no longer fit the club will be moved on. Moving forward with the recruitment, there needs to be synergy between the director of football and the manager. But then in the event Tuchel moves on in the future, we need to ensure then our recruitment of our next manager is also suited to the group of players at the club rather than simply bringing in the next 'flavour of the month' manager. In turn if there's an ethos and philosophy running throughout the club with regards to recruitment, coaching, etc this will also help the academy in developing players for the first team, rather than changing formation and styles every year to try and mirror the first team. We're fortunate to get Reece James and Mason Mount, players with the potential of being pillars of the club's foundation for the next decade. The academy isn't just going to churn out players of that quality at will, but it is and should continue to be capable of bringing through players to play squad roles in the first team and fill positions that otherwise we'd have to spend potentially tens of millions to cover (Chalobah, potentially Gallagher, Colwill, Broja, etc). There's very much a sense of the unknown here and it is quite a daunting prospect of life after Roman, but some changes have been needed for a long time with regards to the recruitment, scouting structure and long term planning around the club and I'm hoping that the new ownership gets this right.

I agree on the rotation of the attack I think it's been excessive at times and does impede the chances of a player getting a good run. Tuchel probably needs to be stricter in this regard and get a bigger run of games with a preferred front 3. Maybe buying one or two of his own players will help with that. It's not like attackers have regularly failed under Tuchel though. Aubameyang and Dembele thrived at Dortmund, Neymar was at his best at PSG under Tuchel, so I wouldn't point the finger entirely at him being unable to get the best out of attackers. I do think our attackers as a group have a consistency problem but ultimately it is up to Tuchel to get the best out of them.

I'm not sure myself about Ake. I see him in a similar way to Kounde in that I think he is suited to a back 3 but I wouldn't trust him to be a centre back in a back 4. I think if we did go for him, he would essentially be replacing Christensen as the utility defender that can cover a couple of the positions and I think my thoughts on it would really depend on how much he would cost. De Ligt for me is the big one we need to finalise, I think he has enormous potential to grow into one of the best centre backs of his generation. I'm not a fan of paying £80m+ for him but if we could get him for a reasonable price and Werner or a player we're willing to trade then I think it's worth going for.

I think there's arguments about his system with regards to attacking players (especially when we lost Chilwell and James last season) but all of these attackers were inconsistent under Lampard too. They've all had periods of blowing hot and cold under Tuchel which is the most frustrating aspect.

I'm not advocating Ake, but a lot of people felt the same way about Rudiger when he waltzed back into the team when Tuchel came in. Christensen stepped up, Chalobah stepped up, a 37 year old Thiago Silva looked about 25 years old. I trust Tuchel and the system he uses to bring the best out of the defence and whilst I think there are better options available I do think Ake's skillset is well suited to a back 3.

No idea but he grew up in London and was only round the corner in QPR's academy so it's very possible.

Maybe they want a new signing to be front and centre of the promotion of it. To be fair Sterling given his standing in the Premier League, the national team, etc would fit that bill pretty well.

De Ligt reminds me of John Terry when he was 21-22 years old pre Roman. Exudes a real presence and leadership mentality and maturity at such a young age, gives off this impression he'll eat you up if you let him. I think his ability on the ball is very similar too, as in it looks like it's there but needs refining. JT for me became every bit as good as the likes of Rio Ferdinand and these other defenders deemed to be 'ball players' without the credit but that part of his game took a while to come together and really blossomed into his later 20's and beyond. JT had the opportunity to learn under the wing of one of the very best in Desailly and De Ligt has had similar schooling from Bonucci and Chiellini, with a further opportunity alongside Thiago Silva if he signs here. If he continues to mature like I hope he will, I think he could end up not just becoming a top centre back but also an obvious leader.

I'm not sure if he's creative enough to fill that role. With coaching he could possibly take on Kante's role in midfield of the 'hunter' for the ball but in my mind he's screaming out for a 4-3-3 system. I agree on Emerson and Kenedy though. I still believe both will go. Emerson was an ideal plan in January to keep our powder dry but ultimately there's a reason Tuchel let him leave on loan and that's because he wasn't good enough. His loan spell hasn't changed that. If we weren't going to sign anyone and Alonso is definitely on the way out, I'd rather use CHO in that position.

There have been a number of players down the years we've signed who were out of favour at their clubs and have ended up having excellent careers here. I'm not advocating Ake but I think he would be much better suited in a back 3 and would actually probably be a lot better here than at City. On a flipside of this, I'm quite worried about Gallagher coming back here and fitting into the current system. He feels a square peg in a round hole unless Tuchel has some different ideas for how Gallagher would fit. Players need to be the right fit for a club and system.

But like the new owners he had no previous experience within football. The people that he surrounded himself with at the highest level too (Buck, Tenenbaum, Marina) had no real experience within football either. Very much learning on the job. He did make some key appointments like Peter Kenyon, Frank Arnesen, etc with a lot of football experience in key roles though, it's important that Boehly gets some of these appointments right in roles within the club (chief exec, sporting director, etc)

Surprised to see Cech leave, was hoping he'd stay on but with the other departures it was also a real possibility. Biggest worry now is that Tuchel feels exposed. We've all unheard how unenjoyable he ended up finding the PSG and Dortmund jobs with regards to having to manage upwards and from what has been reported the Chelsea structure with Marina and Cech protected him from that and allowed him to just get on with coaching. Based on what has been reported regularly, Boehly will back Tuchel and I assume part of that will also be to build a structure around him that doesn't leave him isolated.

I read a few days ago Juventus wanted Koulibaly to replace De Ligt.

Let's see how they fare with European football to navigate this season. The Europa League could easily throw up some pretty remote and long trips around Europe and I think that could have an impact on their season next year. The season couldn't have aligned better for them last season and they still didn't manage top 4.

Juventus fans can laugh all they want but I wouldn't bet against the club being interested. Dybala has left, I believe Morata is going back to Atletico too so they need to do something in attack to supplement Vlahovic.

Yeah I'm not expecting something to happen with them all but even if one or two did, it may allow us to do more business this summer than may be initially anticipated. The De Ligt/Werner one seems like it has some legs at least. I genuinely think the club has 3 or 4 targets it wants to sort out and will look to strike the best possible deals for them and see how things fall with regards to departures to see what is left in the budget to go for Rice. There's too much smoke without fire with him. I think he's the club's primary and only real target in midfield and I think the club knows it'll take some bid to get him out of West Ham this summer so they'll see what else they can do first. If Tuchel and the board do indeed hold him in this regard and can't buy him this summer, then I'd rather they wait and roll with what they have this coming season in midfield. We have to view this rebuild over the next couple of years and some patience may be needed. The club needs to look at the bigger picture long term which I don't think its done enough in previous years.

The difficulty comes with there having to not only be significant interest from both clubs in a player(s) from the other club but also a willingness from the players to all be prepared to move too. I think for FFP reasons an agreement is probably reached to maybe treat the deals separate as once a player is sold their full remaining amortisation is realised. I noticed that City signing Phillips they've also arranged a 'separate' deal for an academy player to join Leeds for around £5m. I think this is quite clear that formed part of the Phillips negotiations. The hardest part for us is the wages some of our players are on. If the club has been or is able to move out the likes of Saul, Lukaku, Werner, Kepa, possibly re negotiate Kante's contract or even he moves on it doesn't just free up a lot of wages but it also gives the club the opportunity to prevent wages spiralling and possibly a bit of a wage ceiling in place. I think this summer presents an opportunity to try and move some players on who are on the fringes of our squad and want to be playing and performing regularly to get a chance of playing in the World Cup in the winter. It could well help smooth the likes of Werner, Kepa, Emerson taking a decision on maybe earning a little less in exchange for game time.

I think for me, genuine quality depth in the wing back areas is more important for next season than a 2nd centre back signing. There's risk attached to that, we'll be relying more on Chalobah to continue to develop on a very promising season last year. We'll be relying on Colwill to potentially come back and probably end up playing a good number of games (similar to Chalobah last season). We'll also be relying on Thiago Silva staying fit and playing at a high level for another year leaning heavily on him and possibly retaining Azpi for a utility role across the defence. Better quality in the right wing back role also allows us to push James back into RCB some games too. But the wing backs are so vital if Tuchel is planning to keep the formation, I feel that we have to invest in this area. I definitely like the look of Raum on the left side and I think he'd be someone that could genuinely rotate and push Chilwell for being first choice. There's talk of him being available for around £30m and I think that's good value given his age and profile. On the right side we've been linked with Clauss and I haven't really seen much of him but his attacking numbers for a full back (and not necessarily in one of the 'big' teams in France) look impressive and he's cheap. He's not going to be a long term option (personally I'd love us to buy Djed Spence and have mentioned him for ages but I'm not sure how interested he'd be coming in essentially as backup to James) but for the price being touted, a couple of years out of him would be all we need.

The budget might extend that much further if the club can actually manage to broker some player exchanges within deals. Unless Bayern came in to replace Lewa, we're not finding a buyer for Werner at £30-40m. But if he shaves something like that from a price for De Ligt then that could have a big impact on our ability to trade deeper (If Sterling were to be £40-50m, it goes a long way to covering his transfer fee). There's a few players we've been linked with who's clubs have also been linked with our own (not necessarily advocating all of these players, merely going on rumours): De Ligt - Juventus linked with Jorginho, Emerson, Pulisic and now Werner Milinkovic Savic - Lazio linked with Kepa, Emerson, RLC Rice - West Ham linked with Broja, Gilmour, RLC, Barkley Richarlison - Everton linked with Gilmour, Gallagher and Broja Kimpembe - PSG have always had links and interest in the background with Kante Dest - Barca linked with Alonso and Azpi

There was an Athletic article the other day that mentioned Boehly started looking at the Lukaku deal in a baseball way with regards to seeing if Inter could do a player trade if they werent prepared to put money down on a deal. Now we have last night reports that we've offered cash and Timo for De Ligt. This is interesting because player swaps aren't very common, I assume partly due to how they may be treated for FFP purposes with amortisation, etc but I also read somewhere Marina wasn't a fan of them as it usually leads to devaluing a player when packaging them into a deal. However, there's an argument if players from both sides want the moves to happen its a logical solution and it has always been a popular move in American sports. It allows us to potentially move on players we'd otherwise struggle to do (i hardly see there being a big market for Werner), whilst maximising/extending transfer budgets. Interestingly if this works I see us thinking along similar lines of how we can sweeten a deal with West Ham for Rice. They've been linked with a few of our players over the last 12 months - Broja, Barkley, RLC, Gilmour.

He seems very close to Mount and Chilwell too so I don't see any problems with that.