Jype

Courtois - Rüdiger, Luiz, Azpi - Alonso, Bakayoko, Kante, Moses - Pedro, Willian, Morata Subs: Caballero, Christensen, Zappacosta, Drinkwater, Fabregas, Hazard, Batshuayi That's what I'd go with. Some nice options on the bench there, starting to look like a really solid squad.

Seems like Leicester can't play their Drinkwater-replacement Adrien Silva till January having missed the deadline by 14 seconds so he's definitely out of this game. Emenalo and Marina did bad in the window, but this puts things into perspective.

The banter is real

Wouldn't read too much into him being in the squad list for PL. If anything, it's most likely a case of the club covering their ass for a potential law suit from Costa because at least now the club can say 'hey we even registered you to play and wanted to use you but you broke contract by not returning from holidays' so it goes against Costa's previous claims about being treated like a criminal and banished to train with the reserves. Right now it's looking more and more likely that a deal with Atletico won't be completed before the deadline in Spain so better to play it safe because without Costa the squad list would be left one place short anyway so including him won't affect anyone else. And of course there's always the chance that Conte might not be at the club come October and the new coach welcomes Costa back into the fold...

You guys do realize that we do not necessarily need to get the confirmation from the club yet for it to still go through? As long as the necessary paperwork gets done and is submitted to the FA offices on time, the clubs can delay announcement to the public till tomorrow if they so choose. That being said, it is kinda strange that we haven't heard anything yet.

I agree Chelsea's window hasn't been good but what I don't get is comparing it with Everton. Let's put it this way, how many of Everton's signings would you have wanted Chelsea to make? I for one wouldn't take any of theirs.

Nah I don't think that's it. Mahrez even got permission from the National Team to sort out his future so surely it can't be just Chelsea fabricating some info that's not true. I think it's more a case of Mahrez & agent desperately trying to make the move to a bigger club so they link him to pretty much everyone but so far nobody is biting.

So a few sources close to Leicester are saying no bid made and no contact from any club regarding Mahrez either. Got a cheeky feeling all this Mahrez talk today has been instigated by his agent to generate hype and maybe get someone interested, but at the moment I don't believe he'll be going anywhere and certainly not to Chelsea. Would be happy to be wrong on this tho.

First time a 'credible' source is saying the club are in for Mahrez, they believe it will go through.

BREAKING NEWS: THE CLUB ARE ACTUALLY GOING TO SIGN SOMEONE No idea who this guy is but if he can play wing-back, I'll take him.

Open the settings tab by clicking the arrow next to your username on the top of the page, go to 'Account settings' and from that page look up 'Ignored users'. Much more enjoyable to read the forum that way.

Just ignore that manchild, he's obviously on the wind up.

On another note, can someone just fucking ban @Dimitr already? It's getting tedious to read his whinging and now he's even started cheering the club's losses. I have him on ignore but for some reason his posts still seem to pop up on my screen every now and again. I'm all for freedom of speech and the constructive criticism we see from most people is always good, but this guy brings nothing to the conversation and the constant unarticulated oneliners are just boring.

What the fuck does the manager have got to do with negotiating transfers? Conte has zero say in how much the club are prepared to pay for certain targets etc. The coach only tells which players he fancies to sign and it's then Marina's job to try to get it done. Conte wants players like Llorente, Drinkwater etc. and are you really suggesting those kind of players are too difficult for a club of Chelsea's calibre to nail down?

Don't know whether I should laugh or cry if Llorente goes to Spurs after being linked with Chelsea all summer but a deal can't be struck because of the board's penny pinching. He's Conte's old player too so I'd like to think he would want to join if given the chance.

David Ornstein saying Mahrez is not going to Arsenal. Got a feeling he'll end up at Barcelona once they realize they're not getting Coutinho.

I've seen enough evidence to suggest Drinkwater is in fact a player Conte himself wants. He did thorough scouting of Kante from 15/16 season and Drinkwater caught his eye in those same games, or do you think Kante was a board signing too and not a player Conte wanted because he was from Leicester? It's been pretty widely reported that Conte even wanted to bring in Drinkwater as early as last year but Leicester wouldn't so much as consider the sale after already losing Kante in the same transfer window and them having their once-in-a-lifetime CL campaign to look forward to but now there's a chance so the interest has been re-ignited. And yeah, like @Polo7 said I doubt Fabinho would come in to play the same role intended for Drinkwater. Of course managers would always prefer to have a squad of 25 world class players but in the real world that's rarely achievable.

The state of some people Drinkwater has been the only midfield target for the club for over a month now, which option do you consider to be the more likely reason for that: 1) The club and Conte really want Danny Drinkwater and think he'd be a good fit for what the squad needs? 2) The club and Conte are all completely clueless who have zero football knowledge and Danny Drinkwater is literally the only name to have popped into their minds throughout the summer on their search for a new midfielder and they thought 'Oh what the hell YOLO let's get him'?

He's probably right but getting Sandro in this window is not a possibility, the club may just have postponed chasing him till next year.

I have a feeling he might have been waiting to see if Drinkwater gets signed. If not Ox would've had some opportunities to play CM and maybe wouldn't have minded so much about playing RWB too, but now that it's looking almost certain that Drinkwater will join he might just have realized his only opportunities to play at Chelsea will come as RWB so he chickened out.

AS in Spain are saying deal is close for €15M, only dependent on Swansea getting in a replacement with Wilfried Bony being lined up. Matt Law also just tweeted it could be agreed today. Interesting to see what role he'll have if he does join. Providing a target man option on the bench so Conte will have something different to choose between him and Michy to replace Morata as a sub, or is Batshuayi going to leave? If he joins without Batshuayi leaving I'd say as a whole the striker department will have improved a lot from last season even though the Costa we saw in first half of last season will still be a big loss.

Good luck to him then. He's not very good as a central midfielder and Liverpool will be getting nothing but mediocrity from him in that position so it wouldn't take long for him to get stuck on the bench and potentially even lose his place in the England squad. And if they end up rotating him on the wings for Mane/Salah then he's fucked either way because he wouldn't get to play the central role he supposedly dreams so much about. The way I see it, he's only ever shown world class potential as a wing-back. Much like Victor Moses his decision making in the final third is bad or at the very least inconsistent so I don't consider him to be a good enough attacking winger. His goal tally of just 20 goals in almost 200 games supports this notion but as a wing-back his goalscoring record is not the most important part of his game so it doesn't matter so much. What he does however have is the perfect energy levels, pace and work rate to play as a wing-back but if the man himself doesn't realize he's played the best football of his career in that position during the last six months or so, he's quite frankly a moron.

Ah, some cringey as fuck face-saving article incoming that shifts the blame on someone else but the club.

David Ornstein the bloke who first reported the story about him rejecting Chelsea is as good a source as it gets with Arsenal news so if he comes out to say something like that I trust it to be true. The story about a fee being agreed always went with the narrative that Liverpool were still very much in the mix and it's not a done deal yet. It happens, for example Kieran Gibbs rejected Watford earlier today after they'd agreed a fee with Arsenal. It's just rarely happens with a top club like Chelsea but this window has been amateur hour in full swing at the club anyway so it doesn't really even surprise me anymore. And also, the BBC are the British government's media house and they're not exactly a news outlet that have to rely on getting clicks to get paid so they have zero reason for lying here.

Of course not, but surely the club could've figured it out earlier in the window that he doesn't actually want to continue playing as wing-back? There's been some talk about it all summer in the media, but the club have stubbornly believed they can convince him to change his mind and now it's backfired massively. Really embarrassing for the club to be in this position.