Jype

Of course it affected his decision. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/gareth-southgate-wants-nathaniel-chalobah-10704702 That's an article from June suggesting that even then Southgate considered Chalobah an option for next summer's World Cup but only if he plays PL football every week this season. Wishing him well for the internationals even tho I could give less fucks about England NT in general. Chalobah's been one of my favorite youngsters coming through from the academy and I'm still holding onto the hopes we might see him as part of the Chelsea first team squad at some point in the future.

Isn't he almost guaranteed to go to West Ham though?

Courtois; Christensen - Luiz - Azpi; Alonso - Bakayoko - Fabregas- Kante - Moses; Willian - Morata Go with the same 3-5-1-1 that was used against Spurs but only with Fabregas instead of Luiz in midfield so it's a lot more attacking this way. Maybe Pedro instead of Willian, but tbh whichever works.

What have these pundits been smoking all summer? Costa has been 100% clear since May that he wants only Atletico and is willing to rot in Brazil if he doesn't get what he wants. Why on earth would he be interested in a move to Liverpool ffs

Oh come on, team was missing the most important player in Hazard and Bakayoko was not fully fit either. Pedro also not fit enough to start and Cahill / Cesc suspended. Take away that many important players from any team and winning away to Spurs is hard as fuck.

Because players can't unilaterally terminate their contracts whenever they want to, just like clubs can't simply sack their players to stop paying their wages without proper cause. If it was that simple, why would anyone ever pay multi-million transfer fees for players if they could just tell the player to terminate their contract against wishes of their current employer? Of course it's possible that Costa might take legal action and seek termination that way, but it's just as possible that Chelsea may take legal action against Costa for skipping training and literally decreasing the asset's monetary value for the club. Matt Law wrote an article about this the other day: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/08/16/diego-costa-could-face-legal-action-chelsea-doesnt-return-training/

Stevan Jovetic available for €6M. Whoever lands him may just strike a nice bargain.

Nah, I wouldn't say they are that good. If I'm not mistaken they are based in Turin though, so they might be decent where it comes to Juventus and Torino.

I'm calling bullshit. Makes zero sense unless the plan is to play two up front with Hazard behind in a free role.

True, but that wasn't the point I was trying to make. My point was that the other clubs identify their targets and go at them hard, and will either be successful or move on to the next option. City got all of their primary targets (five incomings) while United got three out of four and only failed with Perisic so far. Liverpool apart from Mo Salah have done fuck all but they haven't lost anyone either. They tried for Keita & Van Dijk all summer but looks like a lost cause now. At Chelsea we seem to have this scattergun approach where there are tons of targets, especially for the RWB position, and nobody at the club has a clue who to really go after. It's not just bullshit media rumours when they link players with the club, because on a few occasions there has been a clear club briefing with detailed transfer plans but then later new targets seem to be coming up.

And rightly so. As far as the money goes they don't really have to sell one of their best players after the season has already started, unless the money on offer is ridiculous.

http://metro.co.uk/2017/04/05/chelsea-target-bid-for-southampton-right-back-cedric-soares-6554474/ That's from April, of course it's only the Metro but still. Also seen some rumours maybe a month ago, saying the club are monitoring the situations of Bertrand and Cedric should other targets fail. I think it's clear he's not the first, probably not even the second or third choice for the club but by leaving it this late he might just be all that's left to buy if other clubs refuse to sell the higher priority targets. Either way, it's not an ideal situation.

Yeah, I thought the same. Clubs like City, United, Liverpool got linked to single priority targets all summer and either got them or didn't, but Chelsea seem to be 'keeping tabs' on pretty much everyone without actually making a move for any player. It's ridiculous.

Because neither Kante nor Hazard played in European competitions.

Yeah, Cancelo would be a good choice if Wenger refuses to sell AOC. But now it's gotten to the point where I'm willing to accept pretty much anyone for RWB if they're good enough to provide competition for Moses. In an order of preference 1. AOC 2. Candreva 3. Cancelo 4. Cedric 5. Aurier (not so far down because of level but toxicity) Then of course there's Sergi Roberto who I would most definitely love to have but he's hard to place in the list because he'd play both CM and RWB.

Not a bad player, and aside from AOC he's certainly not worse than the other players linked with the club for RWB. Don't see it happening either way. Southampton would demand a lot more than £15M for one of their starters, if they're even willing to do business in the first place.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. Costa was told to get back to London and train himself match fit again, that much is true. However I'd think the reason for that is: a) Club want Costa to be fit so he can be sold at a better price as compared to him continuing partying in Brazil which is really unprofessional behavior. At Cobham he can also be kept under close watch, so unsanctioned interviews like today won't happen again until he's sold. b) The club are calling Costa's bluff. In the interview he played the victim card and told the media Chelsea don't want him back and he's been nothing but a good boy who wanted to stay, so now the club are ordering him to come back and see how he reacts. If (or rather when) he most likely declines the invitation to return, Costa's sob story from today will be proven as a lie and that also takes away any previous threat of a mistreatment law suit against the club because it'll be Costa himself who is breaching the contract even after being told to make himself ready for first-team action. It's really, really unlikely that the club would force Conte to play Costa again, because if that was their plan they'd have done it over a month ago and not today after his interview, where he was again being really disrespectful towards Conte with all those 'no charisma' comments etc.

United play three in the middle for most games though, so 5-6 options are needed at the very least. Having a guy like Carrick as the last backup will never hurt, a good leader in the dressing room and can still sometimes do the job when called upon but won't complain about the lack of playing time because at that age he's probably more than happy to sit back and enjoy a backseat role. Anyways, Sergi Roberto is an absolute must-have type signing if he's available. Also has that €40M release clause too, so even the price would be a bargain for someone of his talent. Don't mind if he stays at Barca because at the moment I don't consider him a realistic option anyway, but would be really gutted if he ended up at some other club like United.

They don't have much depth apart from Fellaini and Carrick. Both of those can be considered backups for Matic, but I see the reasoning in going after another dynamic midfielder to rotate with Herrera and Pogba. And Sergi can also cover at right-back, a position where they have only Valencia at the moment. But yeah, if he's available for a move and both clubs interested he would have a much better chance of nailing a starting position at Chelsea than he would over in Manchester. But then again so did Danilo, and he still ended up choosing City so who knows.

https://www.barcablaugranes.com/2017/8/13/16140036/bartomeu-using-barcelona-for-personal-gains-paulinho-transfer-news-guangzhou This was linked on another forum yesterday. If there's even a hint of truth to that, it's clear corruption and Barca president Josep Bartomeu should be locked up in a prison cell like his predecessor Sandro Rosell.

Barca have just confirmed the signing of Paulinho (yes, the shit Spurs flop ) from Chinese League. They both play essentially the same positions in CM/RB so Sergi might just have got his reason to leave if Valverde for some bizarre reason prefers Paulinho over him. Mind you Paulinho just became Barca's 4th most expensive signing ever after Suarez, Neymar and Zlatan so I doubt he was signed to be a backup. This guy is saying there's a "total breakdown of relationship between Sergi Roberto and Barcelona management" with Chelsea and United interested. Damn, this guy would be an amazing signing, but can't see it happening.

http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/792494/Chelsea-news-Diego-Costa-transfer-London-weather-Atletico-Madrid-latest-gossip http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4395532/Diego-Costa-not-necessarily-happy-London-life.html

Gotta admire his ability to play the victim and blame everything on someone else but himself. Maybe he should move to Liverpool, he'd fit right in with that bunch.

Well he did pretty well against Real Madrid and most people consider Kroos-Casemiro-Modric to be the best midfield in the world. But, let's wait till he has a few games against top teams in the PL before judging one way or the other. Either way, I'm still not fussed about the sale. Matic isn't best suited to play next to Kante so I understand the reasoning why a new player was bought in Bakayoko and him arriving caused Matic to want to leave. I don't quite like the fact he was sold to a rival, but as long as we get an adequate replacement for his role in the squad (right now only injured Bakayoko has come in for Matic&Chalobah) I'm not going to complain no matter how well he does there because based on his performances for Chelsea there weren't many who opposed to the sale in the first place. And let's not forget pretty much none of United's fans wanted him either because they'd seen his games at Chelsea in the last couple of seasons and weren't convinced.

Exactly this. It's by far the best out of bad options to play Luiz in midfield. The state of the bench though Subs: Caballero, Tomori, Musonda, Batshuayi and three neverheard young lads who weren't even considered good enough to travel for pre-season. It's absolutely ridiculous. 3-0 Spurs.