Jype

It's weird, just a few days ago it was reported Milan are open to a permanent deal or at least a loan with obligation.Obviously they want Bakayoko badly and player himself is desperate to go there so why would Marina roll over and accept a deal like that? Only way that can be a good deal is if the loan fee is like €8M with a cheap €12M option to make the move permanent. That would cover Baka's amortisation value for the year and the price for next year would surely be cheap enough for Milan or someone else to bite. But a €3-4M loan fee and €20M option is a bad deal. I can already see them refusing the option and then trying to negotiate a move for less than €10m. Let's wait and see if we learn any of the figures before judging.

Those ratings would have looked a lot different if United hadn't messed up all their glorious goalscoring chances with bad finishing. Their defense as a whole conceded a ton of chances and Reguilon was a part of that.

Hahah, I'll try to stay more active here.

Yep, same here. I'm not 100% sold on Chillwell's quality but all possible LB signings right now (Chillwell, Reguilon, Telles, Tagliafico) are gambles and at a much lower price than the £80M initially reported I'm more than happy with getting Chillwell if that's who Lampard really wants. Surely Lampard and the rest of the coaching team have watched him extensively and know what they're getting to ask the club to commit that much funds for his signature. To say it's "English bias" is just lazy because Lamps has already gotten Werner, Ziyech and looking to get Havertz. He could easily have just gone for English alternative like Jack Grealish if being English mattered that much but it doesn't. Thing is, around 50m seems to be the new normal market price for that kind of player. For full-backs that price has been paid for Walker, Wan-Bissaka, B. Mendy, F. Mendy and Cancelo in the last couple years. As far as the fee is concerned it matters fuck all whether it's a LB or RB. And Lucas Hernandez went for €80M too, although with Davies playing as well as he has Hernandez has played primarily CB at Bayern. The add-ons for Chillwell were reported at €5M. If Chillwell is a big success, does it really matter if the club have to pay a few million more to Leicester in a year or two? And if he doesn't come good, it's very likely the add-ons will never be paid. You keep bringing up the games against Mahrez and Lamptey. Don't you think you could find similarly bad games for literally any player on the planet? Reguilon was shit defensively just this week against Manchester United but I don't see many people constantly bringing that up, instead everyone just creams their pants over his goal assist in the game.

I'd much rather trust their opinions from the time when it wasn't yet clear he was going to be sold and everything was still on the rumor stage of things. Don't know about you but I've been following these transfer markets long enough to recognize the mental gymnastics many fans go through when a key player is leaving. It's the football version of a dude desperately trying to hit on a girl at a bar and after getting rejected he goes 'oh well, she wasn't really that good looking anyway'. I'm not saying all their fans are like this and some may have had bad feelings about Chillwell for a longer time but the overwhelming majority liked him and wanted him to stay. All that revisionist thinking after the transfer is more or less done already is irrelevant. Perhaps. But fact is Drinkwater was signed at 27yo and it was clear his level was never going to improve. Pretty much everyone thought he'd never be more than a half-decent backup / rotational option and I don't think anyone was ever under any delusion that he was going to be a big hitter for us. But even so I don't think many saw him being a total train wreck of a signing that he's turned out in the end. After all we were talking about an experienced PL level player at his peak years, one who only a year before was a starter in a title winning squad. His career got really fucked when Sarri never fancied him even for the backup role and I'm not sure but I think he may have developed himself a drinking problem during that season, seeing as he's had many alcohol-related incidents since then. I admit I was excited about Bakayoko and got proven wrong. But I'm pretty sure you can find just as many threads about players who fans were initially not that keen on but who proved them wrong (ie. Pulisic who many considered just a marketing stunt for USA). So who would you have gone for that is significantly better than Ben Chillwell? And please for the love of motherfucker don't say Sergio Reguilon. He is not considerably better and RM want a buy-back clause on him which is the only reason he's available for a somewhat reasonable price. Without a buy-back we'd probably be looking at Chillwell type money, give or take a 5-10mil. The likes of Alex Telles and Nicolas Tagliafico come with just as many question marks as Chillwell, if not even more, and being 28yo neither of those are ever going to improve either. Personally I couldn't care less whether a signing costs 25m or 50m, as long as the club can afford it without it affecting other transfer targets. The only scenario where that money difference comes into play is if the player fails and needs to be sold, which is easier to do if he's cost less money. But if the club can afford it I'll happily accept the manager's personal choice because it shows he has a plan and the club are backing it, even if it is more expensive than some other option. All I'd like is for fans to actually give him a proper chance and not fucking abuse him on social media even before joining. He's not the one who sets the price tag on him. Slagging him off before he's even kicked a ball for the club is only going to increase the pressure on him.

https://www.foxestalk.co.uk/topic/122605-ben-chilwell/#comments Go have a look. I read the first ~15 pages of posts from May and like 95% were saying they'd be very disappointed if he was sold for any price. Also read some of the posts from last night when the news broke and even then most of them were saying they think the price is not good for them and Leicester should've held out for more money. Sure there's also some who think 50m is a good deal for them but certainly not a majority opinion. Over there some think he's absolutely great, some think he's a good player who has some flaws but can still improve and only very few people are saying he's actually a bad player. Chillwell divides their opinions like Willian here at TC. But saying they (Leicester fans) are collectively happy about Chillwell gone is simply not true and you need to have a serious agenda against the player if you can read that forum and conclude they all think he's shit and are happy with the sale.

Was anyone claiming "explode out of nowhere" though? That term is reserved for the likes of Jamie Vardy (factory worker and non-league player at 25) but from what I understood they just meant that players still improve after age 24, which in almost every case is very much true and most players peak at 27-30. It's very rare for a player to peak before 24 and those usually involve bad injuries etc. Or do you disagree? From our previous core players what level were the likes of Terry, Carvalho, Ivanovic, Lampard, Makelele, Matic, Kante, Drogba, Costa and countless others playing at 23-24 age? Did they or did they not improve massively after that age? Chillwell at 23yo is a good PL level player. Whether he takes similar steps in his development and becomes a great player like the ones I mentioned is still very much out in the open but he's more or less the best we could realistically go after in this window so I'm more than willing to take that chance. Even at his current level he's an improvement over Alonso/Emerson. That alone is worth some of the investment (30M net after selling Emerson at 20M) and if he does develop further then great for him.

£10M was a hypothetical amount, in reality it would probably be a little bit lower. And you're forgetting that if a new CB is signed the club would have to get rid of one current player, either permanently or out on loan. Everything still remains balanced because to compensate for the costs of Thiago Silva arrival the club would then save a lot of money on the costs of the departing player so really the financial risk is close to zero. It's not at all comparable to signing a mediocre player for a big fee and on big money who's then impossible to sell, because if Silva were to fail he will simply be released in a year. I don't know whether Silva would be a success or not, I rate his chances at an even 50/50. He could still play one monster of a season or fall off the wagon completely. But the most important thing is that we already know things aren't working out with the current set of CBs so I'll happily take the 50/50 chance of improvement than a 100% chance of having the same shit again for another season. Getting a player like Rice or Upamecano is not realistic this year so the options are getting Silva on a free, getting a Zappacosta-style second rate signing for CB or sticking with what we have now. I know which option I'd take.

Well, duh. But still we're talking about a relatively small amount of money by Chelsea standards. Thiago Silva almost accepted Fiorentina's contract offer at £70K/wk so it stands to reason that's likely to be close to what he's after. At Chelsea he should be getting around £100K/wk, seeing as there are higher taxes in England than in Italy. Signing bonuses and agent fees shouldn't be that big in a transfer like this (reasonable wages, short-term contract, no lengthy negotiations between clubs etc.) so at the very most we're looking at around £10M for a year of Thiago Silva. And that is if we assume the signing bonuses and agent fees amount to roughly the same as the actual contract, which is highly unlikely. That is a very low amount of money for a player who could still easily be a starter at the club. Just for context, the on the books cost (amortisation+wages) for players like Drinkwater, Zappacosta, Bakayoko, Batshuayi etc. is around £10-15M each. Like I said earlier, there is very little risk in signing Thiago Silva as a free agent. If he's shit, he can be released after the season and club can go after Rice, Upamecano or someone else completely. If he succeeds, he can be renewed for another year.

Didn't you hear, Reguilon is the new flavor of the month and he can do no wrong? He probably shits diamonds too. Some people seem to have set their minds to the narrative that Chillwell is shit and Reguilon is the new Roberto Carlos so they focus on all the positive things Reguilon does and with Chillwell only look at the negatives. I'm not saying Reguilon isn't good, possibly even a little better than Chillwell, but it's just funny that only a few months ago very few people would have taken Reguilon ahead of Chillwell but now everyone is jumping in on the bandwagon. Neither Chillwell nor Reguilon are 'beasts' or world class players. They're both good left-backs with a lot of potential to improve further but neither is a finished product yet.

Again like has been stated many times even if Alaba is leaving he's a really, really expensive option. Getting him would take a €30-35M transfer fee and wages of €300-400K/wk on a 3-4 year contract. That's roughly a €100M total investment with zero resale value in a few years. Alaba at the moment is a world class player and would improve the team a lot but the only way a signing like that would make any sense if he's the key piece in the puzzle between finishing top4 and a league title, which I'm not that convinced he would be because the rest of the team is not ready for that just yet. So Alaba is neither a realistic target financially nor does he fit the profile of the players the club are mainly targeting (potentially top class players aged 21-24). Thiago Silva, if signed, will only be considered a short-term fix on reasonable money. Fiorentina offered him a two-year deal at £70K/wk and he came close to accepting that before Chelsea started negotiations so one would assume he wouldn't be getting crazy wages at Chelsea either. Still probably more than Fiorentina are willing to pay (especially if the club only offer him a 1y deal) but nothing out of the ordinary. It's clear the club have decided to try getting Thiago Silva because he's a cheap stop-gap before going back in for the likes of Declan Rice later. The budget is not unlimited so after Werner, Ziyech, Chillwell and probably Havertz some positions need to be filled with cheaper players and I for one would much rather sign Silva on a free and save up all the money for priority targets next year than settle for some mediocre £20-30M signing now. The club made that mistake with the likes of Drinky and Zappacosta a few years ago and are still suffering for it. Nobody knows if Silva at 36 will be good enough for the PL, especially given the intense fixture scheduling, but at least he's a great team leader and can still have a big influence in the dressing room even if his level has dropped a little bit from his best days. So at the very least he should be a good example to the current CBs and maybe they could learn a thing or two from him. And who knows, maybe he will still be a great player for at least a year. On a free transfer and reasonable wages the risk is really low, if it doesn't work out he will walk away when the contract is up and if he can still do a job at a level that improves the team then great.

So €60M now or €45M next year. I'm really not as convinced as you that they would jump at the chance to sell so close to the new season for €15M more. He was available for €60M all summer but no takers, so he committed till at least next year. Surely the player himself has also made up his mind about staying, otherwise why would he have signed that deal in the first place?

I refuse to believe that any club would suddenly change their minds based on one great game against Atletico and a 0-3 loss against PSG. Scouting a €60M transfer should involve a bigger amount of games than two. He literally signed that new deal three weeks ago.

So no one was willing to pay €60M with a year left on his deal but now that he has signed till 2023 everyone will jump a the chance to spend exactly the same amount? Seems far fetched. It's clear that with this new deal he's committed himself to Leipzig for another season and for next year he has a reasonably valued release clause. Kind of like Werner who's contract was initially up in 2020 but signed an extension with a release clause last year.

At least Dortmund seem to stand firm with Sancho after their 'deadline' had passed. Doesn't mean he can't still be sold but at least it makes things harder and definitely means there won't be any discounts in the price after that point. Probably the same situation with Leverkusen & Havertz. Last year Marina wanted the Hazard deal sorted out before pre-season and that was even despite a transfer ban. If we'd been allowed to sign players and Real Madrid haggled the price lower and lower till August wouldn't you have rather told them to go fuck themselves at that point? I definitely see the reasoning behind these internal deadlines because not knowing whether you still have your best player at the start of the season or not is really important for the planning.

This was hilarious. It's not actually Romano but it's still funny. Too soon, mate.

Upamecano is not moving this year, isn't that obvious after he just signed a new contract? Will be available next year due to release clause activating in 2021 but if he has another good season there will be plenty of competition for his signature and I think Bayern will be all over him to replace Boateng. The only way I'd get Dunk if he was available for around the same price Zouma would sell for (assuming someone wants him). Not much between them in ability but I think Dunk would be better on the ball than Zouma so he could fit the playing style better. And for club finances it would allow a little bit more wiggle room for this financial year, because Zouma sale would be pure profit (his fee from 2014 has already been fully amortised) and Dunk's fee would be divided for the contract length so for the 20/21 books it would show up as a significant income boost, which could be good because of covid-circumstances. Higher amortisation cost in the next few years wouldn't matter so much if/when the revenues from matchday income etc. return to normal. But either way Dunk is not a good enough improvement on current defenders so it would be stupid to spend big money on him. He's more or less the same level as all current CBs at the club.

What I mostly meant was that positionally they're both at their best playing in the second striker role, which is something that doesn't exist in a Barcelona or Argentina team with Messi in it. Dybala is a better dribbler and passer, while Griezmann is probably the better finisher of the two. Either way both of them are really high quality players when played in their best roles and less good when forced to play out of position, ie. on the wings.

I think with Pogba part of the problem is there's just something deeply unlikeable about him. He's very arrogant, flashy and has that cunt Mino Raiola always talking big in the media so pundits take him under special scrutiny. And it probably didn't help that Mourinho also used to slag him off in public when he was their manager so the attitude towards him just stuck even after Jose was long gone. Havertz seems like a more quiet guy who lets his football do the talking so I don't think the media will hound him out that badly if he doesn't succeed immediately. But let's hope he does.

I don't think the fee has got much to do with those players failing to be honest. For starters, Dembele has been really unlucky with injuries. And many of the other Barca flops like Coutinho, Griezmann (and Zlatan before them) have also failed largely because of Messi too. While Messi is one of the greatest players of all time, it can be difficult for other attacking players to shine in the same team as him, especially if they have a manager who doesn't really know what he's doing. Just look at the Argentina NT, a world class player like Dybala has barely featured because having Messi dictates so much on how they play as a team and how they set up their attack. Griezmann as a player is quite similar to Dybala and neither of those have been played in their best roles because Messi occupies much of the same space as they would ideally and they haven't been able to adapt to a different role. Griezmann and Coutinho were both statement signings made by the Barcelona board without really having a plan for them so it's not that surprising they haven't been good for them. I think Coutinho was played mostly on the left winger spot which is not where he played his best football at Liverpool. And as for Joao Felix he's still young and at 20yo I wouldn't write him off just yet. But maybe he should've stayed at Benfica for another season before making his move. Now he came to Atletico with huge expectations after just one season of professional football under his belt while Havertz already has four seasons as a regular starter at Leverkusen. If a player is good enough and they're played in a role best suited for them, they will come good no matter the fee.

Yea, would definitely take that figure with a pinch of salt. But likewise with Werner's wages reported by BILD their figure includes every possible bonus as well as a hefty signing on fee (would guess a one-off payment around €10-15m in a transfer of this size). Assuming the figures are even close to truth I'd say it's likely his basic wage will be somewhere in the 200k/wk ballpark with another ~50-80k/wk locked in various bonuses. If all bonus conditions are reached, we could be looking at a title win with Havertz bagging 20 goals, in which case the club would surely be happy to pay him the whole amount. But adding up everything for the whole five years and automatically assuming any possible performance-clauses will be reached makes for a more tasty headline and gets them clicks.

"Batshuayi has one year left on his deal at the Stamford Bridge but could renew his contract with the Blues." I'm sure that would go down well with the fans. A loan deal with a one year extension to his current deal probably wouldn't be a bad idea though. His remaining amortisation value is €8M which would go down to €4M/year with a one-year extension to his contract. A €3-4M loan fee with the loan club also paying his wages would basically write him off the books for the coming season (saving around €15M compared to this year...) and he could then be sold for €15-20M next year when the market is hopefully better recovered from the covid-effect so it's easier to sell players. The club have done plenty of similar loan + one year extension type deals, for example Mario Pasalic last year.

Would suit their team well given they create tons of chances for their strikers and we've seen Michy can be clinical if the ball is played to him in the box. Asking him to take part in the build-up is where he's useless. Don't think Atalanta will pay his wages though. I think their total wage bill at the moment is lower than a lot of teams in the Championship and Batshuayi earns like double compared to their current highest paid players. Of course they could be open to upping their wage bill to go with their new status as a CL level club (qualified twice in a row) but not sure about that.

The guy has 77 followers. Enough said.

Yeah I agree lots of rotation is needed, but it's not like Alonso is the Kepa of left-backs. He's not a top class player but he's done an alright job most of the time in the four years he's been at the club, even in a back-4. He has some shockers at the back but to compensate for that he contributes in attack too. Overall not good enough but decent for a backup. And you still ignore the point I was making earlier. Signing two new LBs is risky because both need time for settling in and getting to know the play style of their team mates. You don't gel playing 20-30% of the games so the 2nd LB could still perform worse than Alonso, even if by their ability level they were better players. We've seen at Man City that Cancelo hasn't had the easiest time settling in and he's not performed any better than his predecessor Danilo who's a much worse player but at least he was familiar with his team mates and Guardiola's tactics. I don't like Alonso as a player and as a man I despise him for the fact he got away with killing someone while drink driving but I can see why the club aren't planning on replacing him just yet. Should be axed next year though.