Jype

Getting ahead of yourself there? Spurs game is only next week with a win tomorrow.

Rory Delap's son on the bench for Man City tonight. I feel old now.

Guendouzi has one of the most punchable faces in football and has the rotten personality to go with it. There could be a good player in him if he develops as expected but I don't want him anywhere near the club. Arsenal have been offering him everywhere all summer and there's a reason why no one has bitten yet.

Send him to rot at Vitesse.

Man City spunking yet another £50M on a new defender, this time some guy from Sevilla named Jules Koundé. If that signing goes through, they'll have paid €450M in transfer fees for their current defense alone.

Yep. Reguilon at £32M with a buy-back clause vs. Chilwell at £45M. Not really that hard a choice for me.

Karma for United. It's about time they get fucked with a dodgy VAR pen against them, they've got so many decisions in their favor.

Yeah, it's certainly not an ideal situation for him. He needs minutes to even have a chance of getting back to his best but then again in most games the team can't afford to play someone who's so out of form at the moment. It's really sad how unlucky he's been. Last season would've been perfect for him to build on his 2018/19 good form and really start cementing his place in the team but then he went and missed the whole year to the injury and is still very much playing catch-up on others competing for the same places. I wouldn't give up on him just yet but let's see how it goes. For now he should only start in cup games and maybe play a sub role in some comfortable league games to get back some match fitness and confidence. If he starts getting better, his role can be increased later on.

I'd give him a full season post-injury. It was always going to be a long and difficult road fully recovering from the achilles problem and he's played what, 300-400 minutes? Last season was a total write-off for Ruben because even though he managed to sneak in a few sub appearances and a couple starts after the restart, those were him taking his first steps towards a return after more than a year without football so he was never going to be good immediately. And he's still clearly not there and severely lacking match fitness. Should also be noted that against Brighton it was not only him who was bad, many others looked rusty as well although not so much as Ruben. If only there was a normal full pre-season with many friendlies, RLC could have really benefited from that coming into the new season. So this season I'd use him in a rotational role in the league and a starter in the domestic cups to see if he gets any better. Chances are he'll never fulfill his potential because of so many injuries but that doesn't mean he can't still be at least a decent squad player for the team. And he has a good fighting mentality, under Sarri he was restricted to a backup role but eventually forced his way into the starting lineup through hard work. Not saying he's likely to do that now with the likes of Mount and Havertz competing for the same positions but if he shows the same mentality now, he'll not be happy with his own performances either and try to work harder to improve. Wouldn't play him against Liverpool in this form but next week's league cup game should be a good opportunity for him. If by the end of the season we've not seen enough improvement a move can be considered, especially if Gallagher has played for WBA and needs to be included in the squad.

There's a league cup game against Barnsley next week, assuming the deal is finalised in time that should be a good opportunity to introduce Mendy to the team and get some much needed match fitness for others too (Silva, RLC, CHO to name a few). Maybe Chilwell could play a part too if he's fit enough.

That last bit based on his one game against Newcastle? He looked good just over a month ago at the end of last season, I wouldn't put much consideration in one game after a really shortened pre-season. Or if you're judging Rice to be 'lost as a player' on just one bad game, you must already be shitting your pants over Havertz too because he was not good on opening weekend either. Or is it one agenda on a German player and another for an English one?

What's the point of paying more to remove the clause if the player himself is already desperate to go back and actually wants the clause included? It's one thing buying a player who might one day in the future want to go to one of those clubs but it's a whole other thing buying someone who makes it crystal clear from day one that they intend to go back as soon as possible. Reguilon and Chillwell are close in ability level and same age too. Maybe Reguilon is that tiny little bit better, I don't know because I haven't seen him enough, but with these facts I'll rather take Chillwell any fucking day of the year at €20M more than someone who's already desperate to leave and isn't even in the slightest committed to the project at the club. Some Spanish journos saying the buy-back clause is just €35-40M and assuming the deal goes through Spurs are already paying €30M themselves. That's basically a glorified loan-deal, if the player does well Real Madrid will buy him back (even if it's only to sell for more profit in case they don't really need him) but if he flops then Spurs are taking the full financial hit. They must be really desperate to agree to that. But I'm sure Mourinho won't care since he won't be there anymore in two years anyway.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2020/09/15/tottenham-looking-re-sign-gareth-bale-real-madrid-potential/ Now Matt Law is saying there could be a swap deal that sees Dele Alli to Real Madrid in exchange for Gareth Bale to Tottenham. What the fuck, why on earth would Real Madrid want Alli?

Watched Bale against Finland in the Nations League a couple weeks ago, he was fucking shocking and got subbed at HT. Here are his stats from the game:

"Marca earlier suggested Man United could pay more to have no buyback clause, but this may be about the player too. It's been made clear repeatedly that succeeding at Madrid is his dream, and he didn't want to let go of that." Hope the people crying over Chillwell signing take a hard look at that quote. Accepting a buy-back clause is small time to begin with, but especially so when the player himself is also desperate to go back the very first chance he gets. Spurs finally accepting their role as a stepping stone club. You love to see it.

Pulisic, Ziyech, Kovacic, Chillwell, Thiago Silva missing and pretty much zero pre-season for the rest of the team (many starters from today were even in quarantine for pre-international break training). Yeah, in these circumstances I'll happily take a two goal away win despite a crappy performance overall. RLC is starting to worry me. It's sad seeing him play like this when I know what he can do at his best. But the only way to get back to his best is by playing regular football so it's a dilemma for Frank. Think he'll be restricted to sub appearances and cup games once everyone else is back in the team, remains to be seen whether that's enough to recover his form. Havertz was not good today but wasn't expecting immediate fireworks after just a few training sessions with the team. Werner on the other hand looked sharp, he's been training since July with no holidays in between and it really shows.

When you're a Premier League midfielder putting up the kind of performances Rice did last season then sure, you'll be considered too.

This is an interesting one. Tomori was Derby's player of the year under Lampard and he had a good first half of the season last year but all of a sudden he disappeared completely. Sure he was injured for a bit but that doesn't explain why he never got another chance after recovering when all the other CBs were playing horribly every week too.

It's not only the manager's supposed 'English bias', it's also things like squad chemistry. With a bunch of young English players in the squad already (Tammy, CHO, Mount, Chillwell, James, Tomori) a guy like Rice would fit in the group perfectly both on and off the pitch. For Rice being a member of the Chelsea first squad is his lifelong dream and he'd give everything for the shirt but for a player like Zakaria it would most likely be just another job. Don't know about you but I give some extra value to players who passionately want to play for the club, even if they cost a little more than some other option. That little bit of extra motivation can go a long way in tight situations and they're also way less likely to agitate a move elsewhere if they reach their full potential and become good enough to be starters for the likes of Barca, Real, Bayern etc. And I wouldn't say there were 'far better' options for Chillwell. Cheaper definitely, but not necessarily better. Same goes for Rice, I don't think the other alternatives are miles ahead in their ability. Zakaria is two years ahead in his development though (23yo vs Rice 21yo).

Sure, if he plays the way he did last season he won't be there forever. But Rice is still under contract till 2024 with club option of another year so West Ham have no need to sell yet. If they can keep him for even another year or two they'll probably be more than happy with that and unless his development stagnates completely they'll still get good money for him in 2021 or 2022. I fully understand their stance on the matter. They won't sell unless someone offers crazy money (thinking £80M) or Rice himself puts in a transfer request and demands to go. I've always thought the most likely timing for a Rice transfer would be 2021 and stand by that. He won't be coming this year unless the club somehow manage to flog off Jorginho for €40M and decide to go all-in for Rice by offering +70M.

Difference is, they know how badly Chelsea want to sell Emerson now with Chillwell already been bought but they don't want to sell Rice given how important he is to them. The way I see it, if they buy Emerson they're doing Chelsea a big favor. Depending on the price of course.

Yep, maybe they thought they need cover for RB too. And if they trust Justin's development it makes sense to bring in a player who can play both sides. Castagne, Pereira and Justin seems okay for a team like Leicester.

Mendy not playing for Rennes today.

How come he would be safer? I would assume Mendy has been scouted based on his performances in the last two seasons while Martinez only became even slightly relevant less than three months ago and before that he was considered Championship level. If anything, I would consider Martinez a huge gamble if the decision to buy was based solely on performances over ten games no matter how good he did on those. And either way I doubt Arsenal would accept same bid from Chelsea than Aston Villa.