Jype

How is it 'slavery' when the player still gets paid in excess of £8M a year for doing fuck all? As for the FIFA rules, read there: goo.gl/iofXNs There are no precedents of that clause ever being used to terminate a contract at top level football and says there on the book that the English FA don't even recognize what is considered a 'sporting just cause' which is the key point of that ruling. Also I'm pretty sure the club facilitating a transfer to Milan or wherever else and Costa himself declining the move means he doesn't have a case to using that FIFA clause because for 'sporting reasons' the club are more than willing to sell him but it's the man himself who doesn't want to go except to a club that doesn't want to pay for him. If, and right now it's a very big if, the club sat out Costa for an entire season and next year he sued the club demanding for the contract to be terminated based on that FIFA clause and the case was ruled in Costa's favour, it would set a really bad precedent for all contract rebels wanting to move. Are you seriously suggesting that for example Virgil Van Dijk, who last year signed a six year contract at Southampton and now wants to move with the club not willing to sell, could get out of his deal early if he sat out a season and then could move on a free transfer next year? That's not how it works, mate.

Exactly, after his contract ran out. With Malouda that was the club's plan all along and it worked. There was no 'complaint' from Malouda that ended the contract earlier than agreed, he accepted his fate and happily trained with the youngsters while still getting paid £100K a week or whatever he was on. Costa on the other hand still has two years left in his deal. Atletico are offering £26M for his services while the club are asking for closer to £50M. If a deal can't be reached, it's not a breach of contract to sit him in the stands for one year, effectively ending his chances of making the World Cup, and then selling next year for that £26M or whatever would be on offer at the time.

On what grounds though? It's not a breach of contract to make a player train with the reserves and not play him, he'll still gets his paycheck every two weeks as long as he shows up for training and that's as far as the club's contractual obligations go. The club don't have to allow him join another team while still under contract and he's sure as hell not contractually bound to play with the first team, so I fail to see how they could 'legally terminate' the contract just because Chelsea are refusing to let him join Atletico unless the player's asking price is met. If that were the case, then Virgil Van Dijk would also be moving to Liverpool on a free after he 'legally terminated' his contract at Soton. Wouldn't be the first time for a club to do that. Man United froze out Schweinsteiger last season for more than half a year before he finally left, also Man City told Yaya Toure he's banned from the training ground and only few months later welcomed him back after he apologized to Guardiola. Let's not forget Chelsea also had Florent Malouda sit out the last year of his contract with the youth players in 12/13 and I'm sure there are other cases too.

Maybe because they got Alves? They can't afford to sell both Aurier and Meunier tho, because they still need two right-backs.

If Atletico don't step up their game and make a serious offer, I say let this cunt rot with the U23s till next summer and then sell him for £20M with a year left on his contract. Would serve him right if he missed the World Cup because of his childish behavior. Would also set an example what he's doing is simply not acceptable. Costa made his bed with the numerous transfer requests in the past and now he has the nerve to play the victim card when the club finally gave up and told him he's not wanted in the team anymore. It's obvious that all this public 'I want Atletico and nothing else' stuff is just his way of doing what he can to lower the price because Atletico can't otherwise afford him. Giving in to such extortion would not set a good precedent.

Options for RWB are starting to get more and more limited after each passing day and this guy is a pretty good player. Either way, I want him to stay as far away from the club as possible. No need for any more toxic personalities at the team after just getting rid of Costa. At the moment chances are he wouldn't even get a work permit in the UK, although that might change following his court hearing next week.

In that formation Fabregas would be a definite starter though. Bakayoko and Kante would be bossing the middle, allowing Cesc to work his magic without any defensive responsibilities so his lack of pace and other flaws wouldn't get exposed as much as they do in the current 3-4-3. That being said, the 3-5-2 is a formation I've been campaigning for all summer. The idea of Morata-Hazard up front and Bakayoko-Cesc-Kante in midfield sounds really exciting to me. Maybe not a formation to play every game with because players like Willian&Pedro would be rendered obsolete and there's not enough depth in midfield to use it all the time but for some games, maybe against the top teams, it could work. But yeah, Barkley could play the Fabregas role in that formation too if he were signed.

Real took Ronaldo in 2009 but they already had a gentleman's agreement about the transfer a year before that, it's just Sir Alex got him to stay for another year in order to not leave the club in too much trouble. United had no problem selling in June of 2009 because they'd been preparing for his departure all year long, it's not like the move was a huge surprise to them. Around the Beckham and Figo transfers I wasn't following the transfer market that closely so hard to say how long those deals were in the making. Beckham's relationship with with Sir Alex was not good and in that club nobody survived if they didn't get on with SAF so a move was not that shocking. About the Figo deal I'm pretty sure Real Madrid used the buy-out clause much like PSG did with Neymar here so Barca had no say in the transfer and in both cases it was only up to the player to decide if he wanted to move or not. Absolutely zero chance Hazard gets sold in this window, the club will never agree to that because it will effectively end the season before it has even begun and in this case there's no release clause to go past the Chelsea board and sign him anyway. If Hazard wants that move to either of the Spanish giants, it will be next summer at the earliest and it will be a move that gets sorted out well before pre-season much like Ronaldo was, so the club will have a full transfer window to prepare for his departure and draw plans for replacing him. That being said, I'm not in denial and I think he will eventually end up at one of those clubs but it sure as hell isn't going to be now.

http://gianlucadimarzio.com/en/inter-candreva-untouchable-and-perisic-could-stay-the-latest Di Marzio saying Candreva at the moment is considered 'untouchable' at Inter, no offer has been made by Chelsea.

I said signing players is not easy and provided with some arguments as to why that might be. For the case of Drinkwater I would consider it to be a pretty straightforward signing as long as a fee were to be agreed (around the £30M mark which tbf is kinda inflated) but negotiating his personal terms and more importantly the squad role most likely would not cause any problems, seeing as he'd be making his first 'big move' from a midtable side to a top team. Being 27 years old, if he wants to experience playing at a big club he must move either this summer or next year at the very latest. He's also not exactly a developing youngster anymore who needs regular football to up his game so chances are he'd be perfectly happy with the squad role on offer. Goretzka has never been an option because all along he's been going to Bayern, and surely the reason why no other clubs are in for him either is because everyone knows it's a lost cause. Matuidi is on €150K a week and with Mino Raiola as his agent they will surely squeeze that last big contract of his career wherever he goes so he's not exactly cheap. Great player either way so it might be worth it, I'm with you on that. Badelj, Seri and Cyprien I already admitted to not knowing enough about so better if I don't talk more about them without knowing the facts. For some of the players you might have a case there and they may be attainable targets. However like I said, we don't know what kind of squad role these guys are seemingly looking to get should they move from their current clubs. At Chelsea the 'big name midfielder' was already signed in Bakayoko and some of the listed players might have been alternatives for him but perhaps not for the backup player role. Don't know about you but personally I'm pretty happy with Bakayoko coming in and I've already made peace with the fact that the next CM signing won't be a high profile player. Hell, Chalobah last season in that backup role played less than 200 minutes of league football so even if we consider the return of CL football to raise that number significantly we're still most likely not talking about a regular starter but a player who'll play maybe 1000 minutes in the league. Unless Conte will promise to use a lot more rotation than last season he'd have a hard time convincing any top player to join. As for the HG / non-HG thing, the reason I mentioned Renato Sanches as my preferred signing despite him being foreign is the age. At 19 he'd be listed as U21 and wouldn't require to be registered in the squad for this season. The way I see it, three to four new signings are needed to complete the squad and it would be pretty smart to leave one foreigner spot available for January in case an emergency signing needs to be made so that would mean 1-2 new players would have to be homegrown signings, of which there are limited amount available (AOC, Barkley, Drinkwater and from your list also Wilshere).

Goretzka would be great, only he's not moving this summer as he's running out his contract and has his heart set on moving to Bayern on a free next year. Signing a German international who already has one foot inside the door at Bayern is next to impossible for any other club. Seri / Cyprien: Not seen much of Nice but heard decent things about these guys. Correct me if I'm wrong though, but aren't both more like attacking mids whereas the club are looking for a rotation choice for Bakayoko/Kante? Kessie would've been good and I remember he was even linked with the club back in January but in the end that didn't materialise and this summer Bakayoko was signed instead. He got a starter role at a club that are back on the rise to the top so I doubt he'd have been an option to play as a backup. Matuidi fits the bill as a player type and would be available for a decent fee too but I just can't see him being happy with the squad role intended for the club's new CM signing if he has the option of going to for example Juventus and playing a much bigger role. Also need to consider wages here, Matuidi is on a huge contract having been a starter at PSG for six years so overall I think he'd end up being a lot more expensive. Footballing skill-wise obviously the better player compared to Drinkwater and I'd like the club to consider him. Wilshere on his day is a pretty decent PL level footballer but he's played what 40 games in the last four years or something? So injury prone that 'his day' is quite a rare occasion and I'd be really cautious with signing him. Badelj: Don't know the player well enough to tell either way, you could be onto something here. Anyway you need to look deeper than just the transfer fees being bandied around: what kind of player type is needed right now, which of the lads you mentioned would even be willing to join as a rotation CM, how much wages would the players ask for and most importantly which midfield target is Antonio Conte's priority? Also need to consider what the club's situation with the HG quota is and how that reflects on the club's other transfer targets because right now there's three foreigner spots available and 3-4 signings rumoured to still be on the cards this window. Signing players, especially those not intended to be guaranteed starters at the club, is not a simple task. Most players want to play as many games as possible so if they have options at other clubs (Kessie/Milan for example) where they'll play more they might prefer going there even if the chances of winning silverware or offered wages were higher at Chelsea. Let's not be entitled and think that Chelsea as a club are the endgame for any player out there and they'd immediately jump at the chance to join along without thinking twice. Maybe Barcelona, Real Madrid are clubs like that and at least for German players Bayern are too. Combine all those issues and might not be that many targets left. If a better and realistic target comes along I'll happily jump on the bandwagon but until then I see what Drinkwater would bring to the table and for me that would be enough for a squad signing if he's signed on a fee that is even close to reasonable. My personal choice would've been Renato Sanches but as things stand it looks like Bayern are going to keep him for themselves.

Bullshit. Without pulling off some incredibly unlikely signing such as van Dijk there's zero chance the club are letting go of another defender. The CB department is pretty much the only outfield position in the squad that is not severely lacking in numbers at the moment so to even link someone with a move is ludicrous.

£30M is the new £15M, that's what the rich clubs pay for squad players these days. Question wasn't meant for me but I'll answer anyway. Personally I can't say I'd be particularly happy with it because I'd have preferred to keep Chalobah in that role and see what he could do when given more minutes than last season, but the lad himself wanted to go and play regularly after some whispers from Gareth Southgate about potentially making the World Cup squad if he plays every game so the club need to look elsewhere and I understand that. Keeping Matic would have been problematic too because at his reduced role he wasn't going to sign a new contract and instead asked to leave when he heard Man United were interested in him to play a starting role and willing to give him a nice pay rise too. He strikes me as a model professional who probably wouldn't have caused any problems if the club denied his request for a transfer and forced him to stay for another year but Chelsea are not a club that keeps players against their will and his contractual situation meant this year was the last chance to make any significant money from the sale, so here too I understand what drove the club to selling him. Drinkwater is not a bad player. Obviously he's not an elite player either but he's someone who could do the job at an adequate level and for me that's enough for a player signed for squad depth. If Renato Sanches on loan is out of the question, I don't really see many better options out there and someone needs to be signed in central midfield area in the next couple of weeks.

City and PSG need to spend and improve their squad with top signings because last season they were both shockingly bad and had embarrassing seasons. Chelsea on the other hand won the fucking Premier League and have already made a couple sensible improvements (Bakayoko, Rüdiger) to the team and some depth signings are still needed at this point to complete the squad and most of the time those can look underwhelming even if they're solid additions. Then there's the hunt for Alex Sandro, a potential world record breaking transfer for a defender, which you casually forgot to mention there to push your agenda. Not saying it will happen, as it probably won't, but at least the club are still working on it. You don't see Bayern, Real Madrid or Juventus making big additions to their title winning squads either, just some slight adjustments like Chelsea. If making marquee signings every summer no matter the situation at the club is what you desire, maybe you should support City or PSG then.

These days £18M won't get you a player of the same calibre who's also younger. I don't really see a problem with that price, for a three year contract that's like £6M per year on the fee which to me sounds pretty normal. Of course there's no resale value at the end of that contract but that hardly matters, we're not talking about crazy money there and right now the age structure of the squad is really young so having one more seasoned player is only a good thing. Ten years ago signing a 30yo pretty much meant getting player at his absolute peak but nowadays people get scared of the age and personally I think it's ridiculous. People compare real life football way too much for FIFA or FM where signing players over the age 25 is almost unheard of.

You basing all that on pre-season or what? Personally I'm the least worried about the striker situation, more pressing concerns in the squad than that. Last season Costa and Batshuayi scored 25 league goals combined and I'm willing to bet this season Morata&Batshuayi together will score more than that. Michy will be given a bigger role than last term so Morata probably doesn't even need to match Costa's goal record to make the team score more overall.

As it stands Atletico aren't willing to pay the asking price so he might not have a choice but to accept a move elsewhere if he wants to play.

At the Euro2016 Candreva played as right wing-back for Conte's Italy. Providing another option for Moses on the RWB as well as being a capable backup for the attacking wing positions would be great. Age is not really a problem either with most of the key players in the squad being 22-27, a little experience in the squad never hurt anyone. We're talking about a player the manager knows well and seemingly values a lot so I don't really see a problem here. If Inter are ready to sell, he'd make for a good signing.

Yes I remember, Moses had a great run in the cups. Only scored one goal in 23 league games that season though, so maybe the level of opposition had something to do with that goal tally.

Pretty sure Moses is perfectly happy to just be playing every game at a club of Chelsea's level and being a key member of a title winning squad for the first time in his career. During his loans at West Ham, Stoke and Liverpool he played as a winger but couldn't cut it even for midtable sides and ended up starting less than half the games without much success. Maybe he would 'like to play more as a winger' only it would not be at Chelsea but re-inventing himself as a wing-back under Conte has really made him stand out. The way I see it Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain could well do the same. He's been a decent squad player and not much more at Arsenal when playing CM or AM, but towards the end of last season he showed some real promise at wing-back and much like Moses it could be a position to suit his qualities better than any other.

@Magic Lamps It's not really obvious to everyone though, because people keep discrediting the players linked to the club saying they're not as good as Matic. Getting Bakayoko sealed Matic's fate and I thought everyone knew that already. Then Chalobah was sold too and it created a need for a new signing. It's just the timing of Matic's sale and these links to new players overlapping that make people think the club are now trying to replace Matic with Drinkwater/Barkley/whoever but that's not the case. No he's not, Galatasaray were interested but it's not happening. Mourinho said they have more chance of getting him as manager than sign Fellaini because he's so important to United's plans. Don't see him leaving after that, they need the depth too.

Oh come on, stop being so fucking dramatic. Let's have a look who the rivals have as backup CMs: City: Fernando and Fabian Delph the obvious backups. Ilkay Gündogan could be considered a backup too because he's not exactly fit enough to be considered first choice even tho he's pretty good. Don't know about Yaya Toure, maybe he'll be reduced to a backup role this season being 34yo. Also Pep likes his rotation a lot more than Conte, sometimes leading to messy performances all around with needless tinkering. United: Michael Carrick, Marouane Fellaini, Timothy Fosu-Mensah Liverpool: Marko Grujic is the only clear backup. Other midfielders (Can, Henderson, Wijnaldum, Lallana) all pretty much equal in the pecking order with each of them starting around 25-30 league games a season in a three man midfield. Klopp, much like Guardiola, is known to use a lot of rotation due to the demanding nature of football his team plays. Arsenal: Mohamed Elneny, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jack Wilshere. Maybe one of Coquelin/Ramsey too, not sure which Wenger fancies more. Spurs: Moussa Sissoko, Harry Winks Now tell me, which of those do you consider to be a significantly better set of backups than Fabregas, Baker and say Drinkwater? I'll grant you City are pretty good all across the field having improved this summer but all the others just scream 'mediocre' to me and not really anything to be worried about. Fact is, without the extensive use of rotation week-in week-out having established stars as squad players is just impossible and Conte is a manager who mostly sticks to a winning team and only mixes things up in case of injuries or occasionally playing a weakened side at an easier game ahead of a more important fixture. Matic knew his chances would be more limited with the arrival of Bakayoko so he chose to leave and Chalobah at his age couldn't risk another season playing just a few minutes here and there so he left too. Now new squad players are needed and with the homegrown quota some of the upcoming new signings will have to be HG players, of which there aren't too many available. AOC, Barkley and Drinkwater the obvious candidates and I'm pretty sure we'll end up with at least one of those three and other new arrivals will be foreign players. I have no doubt we'll see another few players coming in before the end of the window and most of those signings will be squad players mostly for the bench so they might seem kinda underwhelming compared to when our rivals are signing better players to be their starters but what you're forgetting is that Chelsea's team core is pretty much already fixed and improved from last season so squad signings are what's needed right now. Still hoping for a big signing to improve the wing-back areas but for central midfield I really can't see another star player joining, and rightly so.

So you think having Kante, Bakayoko, Cesc is just as good as having Kante, Bakayoko, Cesc, Drinkwater? He may not improve the first choice Starting XI one bit but he'd definitely improve the squad. Right now the squad is thinner than it has ever been and reinforcements are sorely needed. Aside from maybe wing-backs there's no real weaknesses in the first choice starting lineup but getting more squad depth will make the difference between a success and a 'Mourinho season' so if Drinkwater's available for a decent price it'd be a decent signing. Just look at how hard United had to look to sign a player of Matic's quality to play a starting role for them so do people really expect us to replace him with an even better player who also doesn't mind being 4th choice CM? A reality check is in order for some lads here.

What people don't seem to understand is that neither Matic nor Chalobah were willing to stick around playing 4th choice and that's why they were sold. Nate was already on his contract's last year and Matic too had only two years left and wasn't going to renew it so let's say the club kept him somewhat against his will for another season, next summer he'd have been aged 30 with contract running out in a years time so literally no value anymore and there's really no guarantees what kind of performances we'd have gotten from an unmotivated Matic who had asked for a move in the summer but got told to stay put. I understand perfectly why both of those were sold and why the club are now looking elsewhere. Ideally I'd have kept Chalobah too and I think with CL football coming back this season there would've been enough games for him to be happy and develop but if the lad didn't want to sign the extension and wished to go, there's hardly much the club could do to prevent him.

Am I the only one who thinks he's not that bad? Could well do a job in midfield as 4th choice CM and fills the HG quota too. At the moment the club have just 3 HG and 14 non-HG players so room for just three non-homegrown players left, which is why I think we're seeing the club being linked with the likes of Ox, Barkley and now Drinkwater too. In the 3-4-3 this 4th midfielder won't play a role too essential so I think the club could do a lot worse than Drinkwater. For those saying he's not better than Matic, that maybe true but Nemanja wasn't willing to stick around after Bakayoko nicked his place in the first choice starting XI so it's not like Conte could keep him against his will. Selling Matic to Man Utd was of course slightly questionable but let's not hold that against Drinkwater. Also for a while I've been thinking the transfer targets for this season are leaning the team towards a Juventus style 3-5-2 formation. Morata-Hazard up front with Bakayoko-Cesc-Kante in midfield and two strong attacking wing-backs (the likes of Alex Sandro and Candreva been linked) providing support from the wings. For such formation obviously the new wing-backs are a top priority but also two new CM signings would be needed for squad depth too. Baker could cover for Fabregas but Bakayoko and Kante have no backups, so maybe if two new players are signed Drinkwater could fill one of those needs and someone like Renato Sanches the other one (if he's still available). For the right price I say why not. Having signed a new contract last summer I don't see Leicester letting him go on the cheap though, so that's a problem.