Jype

Christensen, Rugani, Rüdiger and one of Cahill/Luiz seems like a pretty good central defence.

Get him! Easily the best option out there, if/when Courtois does leave and Alisson moves to the dippers. Milan are after Morata too, so a deal shouldn't be too difficult to negotiate if the player is open to moving. And being Mino Raiola's client if he wasn't open to it before he sure will be soon, because Mino always likes a good agent's fee. If it had been between him and Alisson in the first place I'd have wanted Donnarumma all along so will be really happy if the club could actually pull it off. Still looking more likely to end up with Schmeichel or Cech, but dreaming big is never a bad idea.

Cillessen, who chose to stay his prime years on the bench at Barca to only play a couple of Copa del Rey games here and there? This guy's lack of ambition is almost unprecedented and isn't even all that good to begin with so no thanks. With Alisson almost certainly out of the question Donnarumma would definitely be my choice if it's at all possible to get him. Milan are interested in Morata, who Sarri seems to be keen to replace with Higuain so maybe some kind of deal could be struck there. Milan have also already signed Pepe Reina who was number one at Napoli for a few years so they'd have a replacement lined up too. If Alisson/Donnarumma both fail, chances are to end up with one of the following (not in any particular order): Cech, Navas, Schmeichel, Butland. Not looking forward to any of those tbh.

On loan at Leeds.

True, but at 22 he can still improve on that whereas the Willian we've seen is as good as he'll ever be. Expect Golovin to mostly play in midfield, but being versatile enough to also play at LW/RW is a bonus.

Quite happy with this, if it happens. Not really seen much aside from the World Cup and a few CSKA games in European competitions but at €25M it's a low risk transfer either way and if he succeeds it will be a real bargain. Aside from midfield I could see him being played out wide in Willian's position too, great work rate and got the vision to make magic happen.

You can't compare those deals without factoring in the wages too. As far as I know Ronaldo earns like three times more than Higuain and Rugani combined and while at first glance it seems easy to just add up Ronaldo = Higuain + Rugani in transfer fees, the real cost of Ronaldo over the next few years will be over twice as much. Not really that keen on Higuain either, but getting someone like Icardi and for "just 20mil more" seems like a fairy tale. It's not going to happen because first of all Icardi doesn't want to leave and even if he was on the market Inter would demand well over 100M. From what I've heard about Rugani I'm all for signing him, not that bothered about the price tbh. A lot of Juve fans are really against the club selling him and have been counting on Rugani and Caldara forming their defence for many years to come so clearly he has to be a pretty good player, also one that Sarri already knows from their time at Empoli.

Nah, the players feel Sporting is no longer a safe work environment because of the fan attack on their training centre so they're claiming the club broke the contract first and from what I've heard the law states contracts can then be allowed to terminate for free. As far as I know the contracts include all sort of breach clauses like this case with Sporting players, or if a club fails to pay wages etc.

Yeah, I digged a little deeper: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/12/29/chelsea-reveal-financial-losses-season-spent-champions-league/ Club made the profit of £15.3M but the parent company Fordstam Ltd made a loss of £14.2M which is the figure mentioned by Guardian. Telegraph say the difference is attributed to stadium redevelopment costs, which I would assume wasn't required to be put on the club's books at all because it's not really football related and Abramovich paid those himself instead of using the club's accounts. The money still shows up on Fordstam's accounts as a debt to Abramovich tho. Either way, my point still remains that the club's finances are fine at the moment and will show a big improvement for the 17/18 accounts.

FA Cup is still mickey mouse level when it comes to income for the clubs. Lower league clubs can have a huge pay day in the cup if they make it to later rounds but to PL top6 it's pocket change, when making the final will only net £900K in prize money plus a percentage of ticket revenue. Compare that to tens of millions received from the Champions League participation and I'm sure you see there's a big difference. I'd be really, really surprised if the club's financial statement for 17/18 season wasn't in healthy profit. New Nike deal and some smaller sponsorships (ie. the sleeve sponsor) kicked in and the club also got £55M from the CL so there should be no way the club made a loss in the past year. Next year is possible with no CL money again, but we'll see about that later. Btw that Guardian article is wrong too: http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11668/11188750/chelsea-announce-15-3m-profit-after-player-sales-counterbalance-operating-loss Accounts for 16/17 were released six months ago and the club posted a profit of £15.3M instead of the loss of £14M as suggested by the article you linked.

This, exactly. It's been quite well known since early this year that Conte is as good as gone, and the club have literally had MONTHS to get the situation sorted out. Whether it be Sarri, Blanc or Enrique all those are as straight forward appointments as they get since one of them has a clear release clause and the other two are unemployed at the moment. You would think people running a business worth over a billion in value would know exactly what the fuck it is that they want and then act on it as soon as possible (basically straight after the final). Situation is same as Manchester United found themselves in two years ago. They were in the FA Cup final, and kept things quiet till after the final whistle but then it all started happening really soon. Louis Van Gaal got sacked the next day and Mourinho was appointed within a week. For Chelsea it's now been almost three weeks since the final and we still haven't heard anything.

Well, luckily none of us fans need to be paying that kind of money from our own pockets. However for a huge organization like Chelsea it's pocket change, being less than 1% of the club's yearly income. To put the figure into perspective, it's roughly the same equivalent for the club as chipping in a few hundred is for most of us regular folk. Don't know about you, but I don't find it to be at all unreasonable to pay like €300 for something I really need in my life. For example my car maintenance yesterday cost twice that amount and I didn't think twice about paying it because it was something I just had to do, so why should the club worry about a mere few million if it's spent on something that helps the team perform better and thus bringing the company more money?

It's sarcasm, ever heard of it? And Liverpool have a funny way going about strengthening their team, selling their best player and all.

Yeah, it's all doom and gloom. Chelsea will get relegated to the Championship next season, okey mate. For starters you're really overrating Liverpool there. Mane's been shit this season, no better than Pedro or Willian really. Firmino is not a world class forward and the jury is still out on whether Salah can replicate this season's form for the years to come. And either way bar their forward line Liverpool are mediocre as fuck, and are always gonna keep dropping silly points if they don't upgrade the remaining of their back four and goalkeeper, VVD alone is not going to take them anywhere. Keita coming in next summer is a good addition for their midfield tho.

What are you on about? Liverpool have strengthened? They lost Philippe Coutinho, in case you haven't noticed. Arsenal lost Sanchez too, and he was by far their best player. Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan are good additions for them, but let's not kid ourselves and say Sanchez isn't a huge loss for them. If Chelsea lost Hazard mid-season I'm quite sure lots of money would be spent on replacing him too, but it's never gonna happen in a January window. United have improved with Sanchez, that's true. What Manchester City do in this window I really couldn't give less fucks about, because the league is already theirs and next summer is a whole new window for Chelsea to strengthen too to close the gap.

At the beginning of the window when it seemed clear the club are going after a target man for a striker, I thought to myself Giroud would be a pretty good option. Never thought Arsenal would sell him to Chelsea though, and certainly not for a mere £15M. I'm happy with this, if it happens. Conte gets his target man, player won't be cup-tied and is already settled in London and the PL so should fit in quite nicely. Would probably get a contract till 2020 when he'd be 33-34 and for a target man the age is not a huge issue. The older he gets the happier he'll be with a rotation role. Don't see why people are moaning, we're talking about a player who's scored +10 league goals seven seasons in a row while not always being a regular starter either. Huge threat to bring off the bench, can't even remember how many times I've seen him score a late goal for Arsenal when they really needed it. He can also play in a two striker setup much better than Batshuayi so playing alongside Morata with Hazard behind them would be an option too, especially coming on as a sub when the team need a goal. Ticks all the boxes you'd want in a January signing, really. Really hope the club pull this off, but with all the uncertainty we've seen with transfers lately I won't celebrate until I see an official confirmation.

Yeah, he's been on the bench for most of the games since like November but just hasn't gotten to play. Under Luciano Spalletti last season Emerson was their first choice but the new manager either doesn't rate him enough, or it's been known all this time he'd be off in January anyway so no point playing him. Either way, interesting to see what he brings to the team having not played more than a few minutes this season. Barkley is in the same boat as this guy and he's looked well off form so I'm not holding my breath on this guy shining either.

Diego Alves with 24 saves out of 50 during his time in Spain.

I'd say no and haven't got much expectations for him, but I hope he proves me wrong if/when he does join. Anyway I can see why the club are so adamant on making this deal. Even though Barkley's development has stalled in last couple of years the potential is still there as the player is just 24 years old, so at £15M it's a no-brainer because it's still easy profit to sell him on if he fails to live up to the standards of Chelsea.

To have a much better chance of getting him, yes it is. In the summer I'm sure Arsenal and Tottenham would be all over it so he'd have more options to choose from and he could well end up elsewhere. And players moving on free transfers generally receive bigger signing bonuses and higher wages because no transfer fee needs to be paid, so there's that too. In the end I'd guess there's not much difference in the total cost package including transfer fee, wages and bonuses when signing him now as compared to next summer. And if he can help the team even a little bit in the second half of this season and also be a lot more accustomed to the club by next season, it's easily worth it.

Minimal risk, high reward. For £15M can't go wrong with Barkley. If he succeeds the club will get a cheap homegrown talent, but if he flops he'll be sold for same price if not more. The only downside to this is role of RLC. Will he pack his bags and move next summer after Barkley joining, or will he stay and either fight for his place or go out on loan again?

No, he's average.

Hopefully Loftus-Cheeks' place in the squad won't be harmed by the managerial change, it's always a risk for a young loanee to get stuck on the sidelines with a new coach coming in.

Courtois, Cahill, Christensen, Rüdiger, Pedro, Drinkwater, Fabregas, Zappacosta, Hazard, Musonda, Batshuayi Pedro at left wing-back.

He really can't go even one week without trying to talk shit about Chelsea, can he? It's only getting sad and bitter at this point.