Jype

https://gianlucadimarzio.com/en/atalanta-Chelsea-to-have-meeting-on-monday-to-discuss-potential-abraham-transfer Di Marzio is saying Atalanta are interested in Tammy and are planning to sit down with Marina if Inter get Zapata off them as Lukaku's replacement. Getting Lukaku could have a domino effect that ends up with Tammy being sold to Italy for a decent enough value (says there Atalanta would have a budget of €40M for a striker). Think Abraham would be good at Atalanta if they can gather up the money and Tammy himself is willing to go to Italy. Under Gasperini their team create A TON of chances to their striker and if Tammy gets service without having to do much in the build-up he will shine.

https://www.repubblica.it/sport/calcio/mercato/2021/08/04/news/effetto_lukaku_sul_campionato-312957659/ Says on there Inter have decided to accept offer of €120M + 8M bonuses, and Inter have already begun searching for a replacement. Not a done deal yet but looks like it should be completed in a matter of days.

I don't think that's true. Earlier reports have all said Zouma would be happy to join West Ham, but perhaps they just couldn't offer him a good enough contract or something.

If the guy is right, Zouma.

Why? Lukaku, if signed, will already play more minutes than Tammy+Giroud combined under Tuchel. If Lukaku is injured or rotated, there is still Havertz and Werner who can play instead and that means more minutes will open up for the likes of Pulisic and Ziyech. If anything, I'd say there's still one player too many for everyone to be fully happy with their roles.

Lukaku, while not perfect either, is a much better overall football player than Tammy Abraham. I don't see how that's even up for debate?

Well considering that's still more than twice what our highest scoring player got in all competitions last season I'd say that's a reasonable amount to expect from Lukaku. I'd be delighted if he got more, but 25 across all comps would already be enough for me. I don't buy the 'Lukaku will make the team play worse overall' arguments. He's there to put the ball in the net and last season the main strikers failed at that job. Whether it was Tammy, Giroud, Werner or even Havertz playing in the striker (or false 9) role the team created tons of chances for the attacker but the biggest problem was putting them away and Lukaku will help massively with that. The system under Tuchel is not all that different to how Conte plays his teams, so Lukaku should be able to fit right in. I don't think the football Inter played under Conte with Lukaku was shit to watch and I don't expect it to be shit with Lukaku under Tuchel either.

Seen some rumors that Spurs were also after Milenkovic, so given choice he'd probably join them ahead of West Ham and the hammers would have to come back for Zouma. Don't think Milenkovic would be 'far cheaper' though, surely he'd also go for +20M?

They need more than one new CB though, don't they? Alderweireld has gone, and Nuno likes to play a back-3 so even with Romero their options are lacking. Sanchez, Rodon and Dier are not good enough to challenge for anything above European Conference League places. Still, I wouldn't sell Spurs a cancer let alone a decent defender like Zouma. They refuse to do any business with Chelsea as far as their own players are concerned so our club shouldn't do them any favors either. Let's hope West Ham cough up the money to buy Zouma.

Havertz will still no doubt sit out games due to rotation. Lukaku, Havertz, Werner and Mount rotating for three spots would mean plenty of playing time for everyone. It's the likes of Pulisic and Ziyech that have to be worried about their roles, but if those two (or even one of them) step up as well then Tuchel will have a positive problem to think about.

Didn't you get the memo, all players turn shit overnight once they hit 30 and the decline already starts multiple years before that magic number? 🤣 From a financial perspective I totally understand going for a younger player with more re-sale value if needed, but if with the younger player the numbers don't add up the re-sale value means fuck all. For Haaland the higher transfer fee, Raiola fee and dad's fee all add up to so much more than Lukaku's transfer costs that it's very likely it doesn't even matter if he doesn't have a meaningful re-sale value. Even if the club loses full transfer value on Lukaku but Haaland in a few years would still command a hefty fee like 100-150M then adding up all costs together Lukaku might still be the 'cheaper player'. Also, PSG must be jumping with joy that Mbappe is still a young player with high value when it's looking like he'll run down his contract and leave on a free transfer and there's nothing they can do about it. Around the same time they bought two expensive players, one 18yo with higher re-sale value (Mbappe) and one player in his prime (Neymar) who'd have had quite little value at the end of his initial contract (after hitting the much dreaded 30yo mark). Now it's likely they lose Mbappe on a free but still have Neymar who happily extended his deal and in the end will give them a much better value for the money they paid, even though Mbappe was probably thought to be the better deal. This is very much true. Lukaku has to hit the ground running and continue being a top performer for at least the next 3-4 years to justify the outlay. If he struggles badly, the club are fucked like before with Torres. But I have faith in Big Rom.

They don't have the same agent though. In 2017 when Lukaku moved to Man Utd he was still represented by Raiola but in 2018 he fired Mino due to some arguments, rumored to be regarding the move from Everton to Man Utd when Lukaku in fact would have preferred to join Chelsea even then. Nowadays his agent is Federico Pastorello, who also represents Malang Sarr and is said to have a good relationship with Chelsea. Pastorello will surely get a fee out of it as well, but nothing is suggesting he would get anywhere close to Raiola money. Raiola is notorious for brokering deals where he gets a big chunk of the pie, but most agents are not like that and while there are still agent fees involved they're nowhere near the same. And in Haaland's case his dad must be paid too for some absurd reason. Let's say the transfer fee for Haaland was 50M more and agent fees a minimum of 30M more. That is already a huge amount of money, and if it's true (latest Matt Law article) that Lukaku would earn around £250K/wk at the club, then his wages should be a lot 'cheaper' too. Lukaku at £250K would of course still be among the top earners at the club but he wouldn't break the wage structure in place. Haaland was rumored to be after at least £400K/wk which would have immediately made him the club's top earner, not only costing tens of millions more in wages but also surely affecting other players wage demands too. We've already seen at Man Utd how breaking the wage structure can have a negative effect, and how after Alexis Sanchez transfer they were forced to hand out ridiculous contracts to all key players (Rashford, Martial, DDG the main ones) when the time came to extend them. Like I've said before many times, I'd have loved Haaland at the club but clearly it just wasn't meant to be. And to the people saying he's a longer term option you're just fooling yourselves, because the player and Raiola will surely have an exit plan ready for 2-3 years if the team doesn't deliver him all trophies. Whether it's a release clause few years down the line or just a good old transfer request and going on strike, Haaland would never stay at the club for ~10 years like his age would suggest is possible.

Yeah it might be a stretch to expect an improvement from 67 points to around 90 points, but it's not totally unheard of: - Conte improved 43 points from 15/16 to 16/17 season - Guardiola improved 22 points from 16/17 to 17/18 season - Klopp improved 22 points from 17/18 to 18/19 season (still didn't win the league with 97pts tho) With a striker like Lukaku I'd definitely expect Tuchel to reach around 85 points, because not only would he have gotten some reinforcements to improvement the team but he also gets a full pre-season instead of having to come in mid-season and take over from the mess his predecessor left him in. Even with the same set of players I'd be very disappointed if Tuchel didn't make at least a 10 point improvement on last seasons point tally (where Lampard was in charge for half of the season), and with something like 200M spent on the market (assuming Lukaku and Kounde are signed) the improvement must be more than that. I won't berate him if he doesn't deliver the league title but if at the very least he can't get 85 points minimum he'll have failed and there's no way around that fact.

There's many things the board can be called but short sighted is not really one of them. Last night I wrote about how out of character this Lukaku signing seemed for them, because they almost always go for the players in age bracket 21-25 instead of players at the peak of their careers. In fact I did a check on the last 7-8 years worth of transfer windows and came up with a conclusion that really only Ziyech, David Luiz (mk2), Fabregas and Pedro were big money players signed at the prime of their careers, and none of those were even close to being the club's record signing. Sure there have also been older players like Giroud etc. being brought in as squad players for lower fees, but generally speaking the policy of the club is to always go for players who are still developing and have more re-sale value in case they're ever sold. Even now the squad is mostly built on these kind of younger players, so signing one player at the peak of their powers is not a problem in the slightest unless you've already decided Lukaku will be a shit signing and can do nothing right in your eyes, like you obviously have.

If true, can't fault the club for moving on. Adding in the agent fees for Raiola and Haaland's dad the total cost would have already been close to 200M€ even with the 130M€ transfer fee, and if that got rejected then there's really not much more to do.

It's really funny tho. "would rather we sign Danny Ings, who is every bit as good if not better than Lukaku" Would this be the same Danny Ings who has less than half the amount of PL goals as Lukaku in the same amount of seasons played in the Prem? And the same Danny Ings who has scored roughly a third of Lukaku's amount of career goals despite Ings scoring a significant portion of his goals in world beater leagues such as the Championship, League One and Conference South? The agenda against Lukaku is really sad to see. I know many are disappointed a move for Haaland didn't materialize in the end but cmon people, this is really getting out of hand. Does this forum still have the ignore option for individual posters? Seems like there could be some use for it...

From 2010 when Lukaku was 16-17. But you've decided Lukaku can do nothing right and is a cunt so you can't see past your agenda. It's getting really tiring, I just hope if Lukaku ends up signing that the majority of the club's fan base aren't as toxic as you.

Exactly. I think the financial side is a valid concern because let's face it, paying a €120M fee and most likely wages in the club's top 3 earners is a massive investment and he would be brought in as an immediate impact player whose re-sale value in 3-5 years is closing in on zero, so he absolutely must be a big hitter immediately and consistently to justify the big outlay. Generally speaking with younger players there's almost always time to wait for them to grow into the team and even if they never do, most of the time they can still be sold for a decent enough value later on but if a player like Lukaku fails then moving him on in 2-3 years could be problematic because of the wage and large amortisation value left on the club's books. I share some of those concerns as well, but I also really rate Lukaku highly as a player and would love to have him back so with a total lack of other quality options out there I'm all in favor of doing it and think he'd be a big success at the club. Getting Lukaku would be totally out of character for the board, who usually go for players in the ages between 21-25 who have more re-sale value if a sale is ever needed. The club have built the current squad mostly around these kind of younger players so I don't think it's a problem at all to make one big impact signing of a player in his prime with little re-sale value, as long as the player actually delivers on the pitch. Of course a player like Haaland would be preferable if it was a realistic option but I've already conceded a loss on that one and Lukaku would be one of the best alternatives out there. I also don't believe Haaland would join Chelsea next year either, so there's very little point waiting for him.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/aug/03/romelu-lukaku-Chelsea-fail-with-100m-bid-for-inter-striker Article by Steinberg and Romano. It says there the latest offer was €100M including Alonso, not €100M + Alonso. Also says Chelsea believe a deal can be struck at €120M. Tammy is said to be "subject of growing interest from Aston Villa".

No credible source is saying that. Even Repubblica which was quoted on last page says Inter's asking price is €130M, and I doubt the club are willing to go even that high.

Judging by all reports Lukaku himself is not pushing for a transfer. He seems like he'd be happy to join if the clubs can agree on a fee but he won't actively demand a transfer, even if he would get more money at Chelsea than he currently earns. Calling him greedy for this is just another example of the ridiculous hatchet job this forum seems to be doing on Lukaku. I just hope the match going fans won't be so unfair on him if he indeed does join. Just imagine the pressure on him if the atmosphere is already hostile towards him from the very start and people have already made up their minds about him before even kicking a ball. Impossible to succeed in conditions like that for any player.

Haaland is flavor of the month, and like we've seen many times in the past people love flavor of the month players. Last year it was Reguilon instead of Chilwell. Haaland is great and odds are by the end of his career he will likely go down as one of the best players of his age group, but I'm having a really hard time figuring out why having Lukaku would all of a sudden be some huge tactical problem for Tuchel to solve or else he'll be shit but then same people think Haaland would fit our team like a glove, even though they're actually quite similar players. I can understand being turned off by Lukaku on the financial side of things (high fee, high wage, little re-sale value) but what I really don't get is the outright abuse on Lukaku as a player like he's the second coming of Andy Carroll or some shit. The man has scored 305 career goals by age 28 while playing in top leagues since 18 and keeping up the same rate he's likely to reach close to 500 goals overall by the time he retires from the game. Shit players just don't do that.

Lukaku has already scored 113 goals in the Premier League over 7 seasons when he was younger, that's an average of 16 goals a season. I would expect +15 league goals from him even if he hadn't improved at all since his days at WBA/Everton or his overweight Man Utd period. Immobile has only ever succeeded in Serie A and failed on every transfer outside of his native Italy, so there's a huge difference. At 24yo he had only ever had one great season at Torino before his move to Dortmund where he flopped badly, and then found consistency at Lazio. Maybe he's one of those who gets homesick when he goes away from Italy, or maybe during his spells at Dortmund / Sevilla he just wasn't good enough yet? Either way it's a shit comparison and to this day Lukaku has already shown he's got what it takes to score goals in multiple countries / leagues.

Next year the release clause will be €75-85M depending on which source you believe, and when adding in the Raiola & Alf-Inge fees the total value of the deal will still easily be somewhere in the region of €125-145M. That's not a cheap transfer by any means, and if Haaland were to flop at his next club then the buying club would have to try recoup at least some of the agents fees too or otherwise end up with almost unprecedented losses on a transfer. Whichever way you put it, Haaland is just as much of a financial risk as Lukaku would be even if bought at the 'low release clause value' next year, let alone if he was bought for +150M this year.

Yeah, obviously Zaha's case is completely different. United paid £10M for him, only to sell two years later for £3M with the high percentage clauses included. They covered their own £7M losses with the sell-on clause in case Zaha made it big, and Palace were happy accept because they got a talented youngster for practically free. For Lukaku Inter paid a club record fee for a proven player nearing his peak years so of course they were never going to accept 25% sell-on fee to give United even more money than they already paid, which was already a huge investment for them. It's not like clubs were lining up to buy Lukaku at €75M two years ago so I'd be really surprised if Woodward, a club executive notoriously bad with transfers both incoming and outgoing, pulled off a blinder to get Inter to accept a huge sell-on clause.