Jype

Calling bullshit on this one. Havertz may well be waiting for Real Madrid to make their move, but he seems to have no intention of extending his contract at Leverkusen beyond 2022.

Not permanent, but extended for next season. I'm a big fan of having 9 substitutes on the bench and would like that to become a permanent change but the number of substitutions allowed should go back to 3 imo.

Real Madrid have lots of unwanted players they're trying to offload. James Rodriguez, Dani Ceballos, Gareth Bale etc. If they really want Havertz and somehow manage to sell these players (or in Bale's case even release on a free transfer to get him off the wage bill if someone is willing to take him) they might change their mind and go after him now. So Marina should act fast as soon as CL qualification is in the bag, don't want to wait too long for others to sort out their budgets and realize they may have a chance of joining the race for Havertz too.

Not really a valid comparison to VDS. Even though he did play at Fulham the time United signed him, he was a serial title winner at Ajax at a period when the Eredivisie was pretty a good league (Ajax also won CL with van der Sar in goal). That's not to say Matthew Ryan couldn't do the job but comparing him to an experienced winner like VdS is way off.

Which brings us back to my initial point that they can't afford him. Flogging off a 33yo Khedira would free up their wage bill a little but it won't magically give them funds to buy Jorginho. If Marina is okey with deferring the full payment till a later date (as with Morata), a loan with guarantees they will eventually buy him might be possible but if the idea is to raise money for Havertz then a loan deal kind of defeats the purpose.

Positional sense doesn't matter if he's still soft as fuck defending. Would much rather keep Tomori around.

Only problem is finding a buyer for Jorginho at a decent enough value. From what I understand Juventus can't afford him this summer and they already got Arthur Melo so doubt they're even interested anymore, unless they can scam someone into buying Rabiot.

Yeah, they've lost the last three games without scoring a single goal and conceded 8. Looking at the statistics their xG figure for the games since the restart is 2,43 goals in four games so not much goal threat there. Should be an easy game but for some reason I'm not feeling confident at all.

So third kit is straight out of Palace, away kit is Man City and even the home kit reminds me more of Everton than Chelsea (the shade of blue). Well done, Nike.

Nope, just an engineer.

I remember reading Michy is on 90k/wk at the moment. And since he's only got a year left on his current deal, the cost of compensating the wage difference is really not that high if he agrees a move elsewhere this summer. Let's say someone buys him for roughly £10M and offers him wages of £60-70K/week, that's only around £1M that Chelsea would have to compensate for the wage difference and that's only for the first year at his new club. Batshuayi's remaining amortisation value is around £5M for the last year of his contract so anything above that in transfer fees will result in 'profit' on the books for Chelsea. I don't think finding a buyer for Batshuayi or Moses will prove impossible, as long as the transfer fee itself is kept within reasonable amounts so Marina shouldn't get too greedy. It's players like Danny Drinkwater who are unmovable because it'd take a special kind of idiot to even consider signing him on a permanent deal and dumping him out on loan will be difficult too because no clubs even close to his level (Championship at best) can afford his wages.

For example, Manchester United made 93m€ from last year's Champions League. They were knocked out in quarter finals by Barcelona. Liverpool won the whole thing and only made 111m€ so the difference between winning and pretty much just participating is really not that much. I think there's only around 15m€ guaranteed for everyone in the group stages and rest of the money depends on the club's UEFA coefficient, share of TV revenue depending on how popular the club is and finally the success in the competition. For a club of Chelsea's coefficient and market share it's probably around 60m€ to just take part in the group stages and around 10m€ extra per round in the knockout stages. Plus all match day revenue etc. which amount to a decent amount of money in normal circumstances, of course with empty stadiums during the pandemic that's different.

In what world are Jorginho and Batshuayi worth roughly the same?

The thing is though, all of the players I mentioned have ALREADY renewed their contracts with the club and everyone except Mount did so after CHO's deal. And even Mount signed his latest contract in July last year when CHO's contract was all but signed and it was pretty much public knowledge how much money he was going to make. So are all of them just stupid, or maybe realized they weren't in a position to demand as much (contract length, big club not offering tens of millions etc.)?

Abraham maybe but Mount, James, Tomori, Gilmour and Anjorin not so much. I'm sure those lads knew the special circumstances with CHO and didn't make a big deal about earning less money. Abraham is older and more experienced than the rest of the youngsters mentioned. At the moment I'd put Tammy in the same bracket as Loftus-Cheek who also earned himself a hefty contract last year (which was before Hudson-Odoi's renewal btw). If the club consider Tammy good enough to play even second fiddle in the long-term, they should award him with an appropriate contract. Bats and Giroud earn way more money than Tammy at the moment, and yet it's Abraham who despite all his flaws has contributed the most this season. That being said, I would wait till around halfway next season before deciding anything regarding Abraham's future at the club. At that time we'll know better on how Lampard wants his team to play after the new signings have arrived and what Tammy's role will be.

I have no issues with CHO making 120k a week. That's what happens when there's a top club willing to pay 40 million for the player. Bayern were willing to make an even bigger total investment on the player than Chelsea did when including the transfer fee. For reference, Batshuayi is on 90-100k/w and he's fucking shit. Add transfer fee amortisation and Michy costs the club around twice as much as CHO on the books.

Expected goals stats recorded at 4.21 - 0.69 on Understat.com.

Contract renewals involve agent fees as well. During that time period there have been new deals for at least Mount, CHO, RLC, Tomori, James and Gilmour as far as the first team are concerned plus also plenty in the loan army / academy. And signing Lampard as manager surely had some agents involved too. Even so, the figure still seems high.

And didn't someone from Leverkusen come out and say Havertz won't be moving anywhere before UEL closure? It looks almost certain they won't be getting UCL qualification from the league so they're going all-in on the Europa League in August and Havertz' future will only be settled after that. They're rated as one of the favorites in the competition after all, so it makes little sense to disturb that. Werner I think was an exception, because of the expiring release clause and him looking for a move since last summer. Havertz is a Leverkusen youth product and seems loyal. Of course they can have negotiations in secret even before EL is done, but I doubt we'll hear anything concrete before August.

Yeah, that's most likely the plan. Also for going after a player like Havertz it's now or never, because even if he doesn't move this year there's bound to be a lot more competition for his signature next year and our chances of getting him would be much lower, so maybe the club are thinking of trying to solve everything in attack now and worry about the defense (and GK) later, much like Liverpool did pre-VVD. That being said, if the club don't get Havertz I sure hope there's a plan to go after a quality central defender because the money seems to be available for the right target anyway.

I got a feeling Werner is going to play on the wings on occasion too, think something like a Son or Anelka type of wide forward. Pulisic, CHO, Ziyech and Werner should be more than enough depth and quality so fuck Willian, it's 4 weeks extension or nothing.

What makes it even more sad is the fact Maupay actually seems to earn more than Guendouzi. £45K/wk vs £40K/wk

Of course. It's a well known fact the club's business model is heavily reliant in player sales even before COVID, and now even more so. Last year's big sales and being transfer banned probably helped a lot here though. I'm not an expert but without the financial losses resulting from the pandemic the club would probably have posted a healthy profit this year, mainly thanks to Hazard sale and return of CL income. Regarding FFP the club are fine either way. I read on Swiss Ramble that the 3-year rolling FFP result (with managerial sackings etc. excluded) from 2017-19 was £63M in the black, even with the heavy financial losses of the 2018-19 season. And there's some new leeway in the FFP rules due to the pandemic, which could help a lot. The fees are amortised anyway so it doesn't make that much of an impact whether the club spends 100m or 200m but in this climate I don't think there's many clubs with that much extra money lying around their accounts so that's where sales like Morata and Pasalic help. Some of the income may go into covering losses on the books, but the money is still there to be spent and taking advantage of the market when others cannot sounds like a pretty good plan to me. The question is, how much Abramovich is willing to invest his own money this year? He can't cover excessive losses like he did pre-FFP or buff the club's finances with make-believe sponsorships like Manchester City, but if he's willing to invest capital into the club it would make new signings a lot easier.

You're forgetting Morata and Pasalic sales. That's roughly 65m from sales of two players who've not even been a part of the squad. So around 20m net spend after Werner and Ziyech. I'd think there's still enough money for a LB signing, but any other big transfers (ie. Havertz) would have to be covered by sales. One can only hope Marina is successful in selling the deadwood (Batshuayi, Barkley, Bakayoko etc.)

In China, where he's been the last three and a half years. Still only 28 years old btw. What a way to waste a good career that move turned out to be, pretty much nobody has seen him play or even heard about him for years and he's not been called up for Brazil since then either. Lots of money on offer tho, can't really blame him for taking the 500k/week deal if his heart wasn't that much into playing football or winning things. For some people it's just a career in something they're good at and going by some interviews I read a while back it looked like he's not regretted the move one bit.