Jype

So in unsurprising news Conte seems to have fallen out with the Inter board and is about to leave the club. That likely puts Lukaku on the market because Inter could definitely use the money and Lukaku wanting to stay was more or less rumored to be down to Conte still being at the club. If (or rather when) the club try for Haaland and Kane but fail, Lukaku should definitely become a target if Tuchel fancies him at all. Conte is really something else, isn't he? He could have continued his work and made Chelsea a force in the European scene but instead chose to pick fights with everyone and ended getting sacked. Now he won the title convincingly with Inter and could try to get back-to-back titles for the first time in forever or maybe even mount a European challenge but instead chooses to pick fights with everyone and leaves.

Not a pre-season tournament but rather an end of the season play-off for European spots (kind of like Championship promotions) for teams in places 4-7 so they were definitely meaningful games and part of the league season. Mount scored a hat-trick in the semi-final first leg, a goal in the semi-final return leg as well as a goal and an assist in the play-off final which Vitesse won to gain European football. For Vitesse he definitely showed up big time at the most important part of their season. Don't know why Transfermarkt show 8 goals for him, but his overall stats for the season according to multiple sources (Soccerway, WhoScored, Wikipedia etc.) are 9 goals and 8 assists in the regular season and 5 more goals and an assist in the European play-off, overall 14+9 in the league. Also worth noting that he took a while to get going (unsurprising for a 19-yo in his first season as a pro footballer) but after the turn of the year he got double digits in goals in less than half a season.

Can't really blame him for wanting. 😂 He made a big fuss about going to Arsenal and aiming to win the UCL so it must hurt him to see his former team mates have a shot at doing that the very next season while Arsenal finished 8th and have no European football to look forward to next season. He's had a shocker of a season so even if Arsenal want to get rid I can't see anyone biting due to his wages. Maybe the MLS can be an option for a 2022 move but for now he's stuck there.

Mount is Chelsea's number one in big chances created this season in the PL and number seven overall, only one behind third placed Kane/Son/TAA/Grealish who apart from TAA all got double digits in assists because their team mates can actually score goals. Can Mount really be blamed for others not doing their bit in scoring those chances? Mount's 'chances created' stat from this season is more than 50% better than he got last season btw but I guess to you it's all the same. He's also the youngest player in the top50 for that particular stat in the whole PL so if he keeps improving further it's not unimaginable that he'll among the very best creative players in the league in a few years. I do agree that Mount needs to improve his own decision making too and start being more clinical in his own goalscoring chances but even now he's putting up better numbers than the others competing for the same places in the team (especially Pulisic / Ziyech), and that's not even mentioning the work-rate for which he is miles ahead anyone else in the squad and gets a lot of praise for. It's no surprise fans like to see players who actually make an effort but it's really unfair to reduce Mount's impact to being just a workhorse player. Fans always used to complain about the club not being patient with youth and not giving them a fair shot in the team, but the minute it really happens and the youth players actually perform better than some of the big name signings over two full seasons, they still get hounded out for not being the finished article at 21-22. 🤷‍♂️

I already rated Declan Rice highly last summer and this season he's been even better by a big margin. If a transfer is doable with Tammy + money I'd say go for it. Great player and destined to be a great team leader, which is always a nice bonus and a really underrated quality when comparing different transfer targets. To some of the people 'hating' on Rice and crying for a non-British alternative at a cheaper price, didn't you already get burnt with the fraud that turned out to be Sergio Reguilon, the 'best left-back in La Liga'? After watching both of them in the PL this season how many Chelsea fans would trade Chilwell for him now? Chilwell might not be the perfect player himself either but Reguilon has been a joke. Sure for the midfield position there could be a quality alternative out there with good enough scouting but the best ones still cost a lot of money. Obviously talk of £90M or something like that for Rice is beyond ridiculous but I'd be really surprised if the actual transfer value was anything above £65-70M and if West Ham were to take Tammy in exchange that already covers half and would solve two issues at once because in this covid market there might not be many takers for Tammy at a fair enough value.

WBA away. 🙄

Anyone seen much of this Lacroix guy, @Vesper maybe? On WhoScored.com statistical-based ratings he's ranked this seasons third best CB in the Bundesliga behind only Hummels and Orban but that's about all I know of him.

Yeah. I'm hoping it will be the return of the fans to the stadiums chanting his name that helps Werner get his confidence back next season. He's doing so many things well even now but just missing that little bit of confidence or luck. His season hasn't been great but I still have very high hopes for him.

Great performance from the big man today. He's really getting better at shithousery this season, the Atletico game and today being the prime examples. 😆

Obviously not, but from the 15 names on the list if they release even half it will free up a ton of wages. For example they have Sakho, Kelly, Clyne, Dann, McCarthy, McArthur and Wickham who reportedly earn a total of around £450K/wk and have started around 60 games between them in the league so averaging less than ten games each. While some of them have been regulars in the past they are not considered valuable squad members anymore but they still take up a big chunk of their wage budget that could be spent a lot better on some more important players. Also seeing as he's scored a total of two league goals this season they're unfortunately not going to take up their option to keep Batshuayi so that's another £90K/wk freed up for Palace. And while Christian Benteke, their highest paid player after Zaha, has had a sort of resurgence to form after years of being a total waste of space (6 league goals in last three seasons before this one) I wouldn't exactly be willing to re-sign him on those sort of wages again if I was calling the shots at Palace so there goes another £120K//wk. The ones I could see Palace trying to keep are Ward, Van Aanholt, Schlupp and Townsend. Perhaps Cahill too for experience alone if they're otherwise going for a younger and more inexperienced squad. That's still around £700K/wk saved on their wage bill if they release the rest so they should have plenty of resources available for a squad re-build, that's assuming their finances are not totally screwed over COVID.

Yeah. A list of players who have their contracts up at the end of the season: Cahill McArthur McCarthy Hennessey Sakho Benteke van Aanholt Henderson Townsend Dann Kelly Clyne Ward Wickham Schlupp Some will still obviously re-sign but releasing even most of them will free up massive space in their wage budget and they can get rid of older injury-ridden players who are still on big wages. Everything in their re-build depends on whether they have the money to actually buy new players or if they're stuck hoping to strike gold with other clubs' leftover free agents and loan players. Speaking of loan players, if Frank goes to Palace I wouldn't mind sending Gallagher there next season.

Nah, if there's any other suitors Levy won't sell to Chelsea. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't been paying attention, Chelsea and Tottenham don't do business together. There's obviously the infamous Modric saga and hijacking the Willian deal that has caused more bad blood between the clubs but those are not the only cases. Carlton Cole recently came out and said he even completed a medical in 2006 only for Abramovich to find out and pull the plug on the whole deal by saying the club don't do business with Spurs. The last transfer (not free agent which would be Cudicini) between the clubs was Gus Poyet in 2001 when both clubs were still under previous ownership. Levy might be desperate for money but he's obviously not desperate enough to go that far as to sell one of their biggest club legends to Chelsea. And even if he was, would Kane himself be desperate enough for a move to tarnish his legacy at Tottenham? If needed he'd probably stay at Tottenham another year and then move to City, PSG, Real Madrid or wherever. Or the most likely scenario he moves to Man City this summer already. I'd love for it to happen because it would instantly elevate the team into title contenders and it would be hilarious to see those Spurs fans' tears but I don't believe for a second there's any chance of it happening.

Lukaku has really developed as a player in the last couple years. From what I've seen his hold up play and even finishing has taken massive leaps since moving to Inter. He's made changes to his diet to improve his fitness and learnt to use his body better and for big physical players like Lukaku that usually only comes as they get more experienced. You can't use stats from the time when he was a young player at WBA/Everton to compare him to the player he is today and Man Utd during Lukaku's time there were a mess under Mourinho. In the BBC article you can see some stats of his link-up play at Man Utd and Inter, there's no denying he's gotten a lot better at many things. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/56966749 And even his 'big game record' has improved greatly during his time in Italy, especially this season. For me Lukaku at the moment is among the top 5 strikers in the world together with Haaland, Kane, Lewandowski and Benzema (in no specific order). The latter two are getting older and are probably not realistic signings anyway so that leaves Haaland, Kane and Lukaku. Sure I'd first go for Haaland and/or Kane before going after Lukaku but I get the feeling Kane is totally unavailable because of the relationship between the two clubs whereas Haaland might be too expensive or prefer to go elsewhere (and with him also comes the downside of having Mino Raiola to deal with). If Lukaku fits the player profile Tuchel is looking for in a striker, he'd be a great alternative if Haaland/Kane fails.

Mount has been named Chelsea's player of the year. Well deserved. 🤩

No reason to get even a little bit excited over Kane, it's obvious Levy doesn't do business with Chelsea and the feeling is very much mutual from Roman's side too. Ever since the Luka Modric saga around ten years ago there's been no hope of the clubs ever doing any transfer business together so why would they all of a sudden sell one of their best ever players to us? 🤨 If they're willing to sell at all, this one has Manchester City written all over it. As a club they're as boring as they get so there'd be no ill will from Spurs fans either, not to mention they have the money needed to make the signing and with Aguero's departure they have an opening in the team for a top class striker to come in. And for Kane himself City would give him the highest chance of winning multiple trophies in the short-term. Obviously I'd take Kane any day of the week but less than a 1% chance of it happening. It's either win the CL and go all-in for Haaland or alternatively try for Lukaku by taking advantage of Inter's financial problems. If all that fails then I have no idea what to do.

Definitely this. If used correctly, I'm all for using video reviews to correct the bad refereeing mistakes. For things like penalties and red cards I think it's made the game better but for offsides the way they use the technology has gotten absolutely ridiculous. When VAR was announced it was said it will be used to correct 'clear and obvious errors' in refereeing but in most of the tight offside calls there's nothing clear and obvious about it. Hell, even the technology itself is flawed in such tight cases because you can't judge mere millimeters from a 50fps broadcast camera when players are running at full speed. There will always be a margin of error between two frames and for example in the Chilwell goal the ball had already left Silva's foot in the frame they used to make the offside call. In the previous frame 0,02 seconds before the ball was more than likely still in Silva's possession and Chilwell was not in an offside position so it's pretty much just a matter of preference which of the two frames the VAR decides to use and neither of them are 100% correct so they should have no right to rule out the goal. And that's even without considering decisions like Werner goal against Liverpool where they just pulled out of their asses the position from his body where to draw the line and that's always up to the video referee's personal decision on how badly he wants the goal to be ruled out. In that one they got it wrong because they drew the line from Werner's elbow which can't even be used to score a legal goal anyway and if they'd drawn it from his shoulder or even bicep like they're supposed to he wouldn't have been offside anymore. If they change VAR so that the video ref needs to judge it from a freezed frame without the lines altogether or even more preferably from a slow-motion video then I'm in full support of using the videos as a tool to make the game more fair to everyone. That way the decisions will still be in the spirit of the game and the review shouldn't take too long either because you can either tell immediately whether it's a clear offside or not and if you can't then the original on-field decision stands. I definitely wouldn't bin VAR completely but something needs to change and fast. The game is going in a very worrying direction with the way it is and I don't think any fans or players themselves fully enjoy it this way. The old system pre-VAR wasn't all that great either because there were simply too many high profile mistakes from referees but if this is current model is the best alternative they come up with then I'd go back to pre-VAR times any day of the week but the best option would be to make just slight adjustments to the way they implement it and then it's great.

I for one am not fully blaming Kepa for the Leicester goal because it really was a great shot byTielemans but still I don't think it's too much to ask a keeper to produce saves from shots like that even occasionally? Sometimes a shot is too good that it goes in and there's nothing that can be done about it but with Kepa it's like you just need to hit the corner from distance and it goes in like literally all of the times due to his short reach (with a hint of bad positioning too?). Maybe the Tielemans shot would've gone in regardless of who's in goal but with someone like Mendy between the sticks there's at least the possibility of producing a great save every once in a while but with Kepa not so much. Also, opposition players must fancy their chances when facing the keeper who's conceded most goals from shots outside the box in the last few years so I'd suppose even their coaches (assuming they've done their homework well enough) encourage their players to shoot on sight and then they just need to get lucky and/or get a clean hit on the ball. With a better keeper in goal they might not even bother trying to shoot from that far out and instead try to go forward and build a better chance inside the box. And like someone commented, the players sure look like they feel a lot more comfortable playing with Mendy behind them. With a higher quality keeper in goal the defenders know they don't have to block every shot from distance and the big man will gather most of them with ease, so they can focus instead on trying to prevent a chance from being created inside the box. With Kepa they need to do both things at the same time and the defending gets unnecessarily complicated.

What a nightmare this week has been, every single fucking result going against us in the worst possible way. Man Utd - Leicester 1-2 Chelsea - Arsenal 0-1 Man Utd - Liverpool 2-4 Chelsea - Leicester 0-1 WBA - Liverpool 1-2 From those league games even one result going our way would've pretty much settled it, or at least made the remaining games that much easier and relaxed. Now got two absolute must-win games coming up and I'm not confident at all about winning both of them to reach top4.

Second choice keeper pretty much always plays the domestic cups at most top clubs though. Kepa played every FA Cup game before last night and only conceded one goals against Luton during that run, think it would've been harsh to drop him for the final. I feel the same nerves with Kepa in goal but as long as he's at the club he's nailed on to play the cups, if for nothing more then to keep some level of match fitness and perhaps attract some interest from other clubs who could be willing to take him on.

I'm fully in support of that Man Utd lineup. After getting 3pts against City at the weekend I'm not in the slightest worried about missing out on top4 anymore and this royally fucks over Liverpool so I'm all for it. 😝

Lamptey wanted to leave and had 6 months left on his contract, that's why the valuation was low. If he'd stayed and played U23 footie for the remainder of the season he'd have been a free agent so 3 million was definitely better than nothing for a player who had a grand total of 45 minutes professional football under his belt. The club offered Lamptey an extension but he refused because he wanted a clearer path to first team football and Brighton were willing to give him that. With a reliable veteran like Azpilicueta and a hugely rated youngster like James in the team I really can't blame the club nor Lamptey himself for the situations around his transfer.

Looking at Reguilon for Spurs, is anyone still unhappy Chilwell was signed instead?

@Vesperthose look way too nice to be real. 😂 Rumored away shirt below. Always liked yellow away kits.

Went a week without being able to post anything. When I clicked the reply button the text box just never appeared. No idea what was wrong, tried on multiple devices too (home laptop, work laptop and mobile phone) but the result was always the same. I'm pretty sure I wasn't banned either. 😅 Did you guys change anything or did the problem just disappear on its own?

The five before them aren't so bad though. 3rd April - WBA (home) 10th April - Palace (away) 17th April - Brighton (home) 24th April - West Ham (away) 1st May - Fulham (home) Next three games will be vital. Still being in a good position top4-wise after United, Liverpool, Everton would give a massive confidence boost going into the 'easier' run of games.