Jype

One big shit load of players, yes, but only a handful who actually stand out from the masses. I'm talking about the likes of Christensen and Musonda, surely these guys are performing well enough to catch the eye of anyone at the club the same way the likes of Courtois and De Bruyne did a few years back. Not every loanee is planned to play a part in the first team to begin with but it's players like this you just watch them play and immediately you know they're class, miles better than most players their age.

Idk, Marina doesn't seem that bad really. She's not really in charge of youth and rather negotiations but still. I take your post was more a dig at Emenalo. Even he has his moments and apart from a few fuck ups in the last year or so I don't really see what he's done wrong to deserve all the abuse. Getting in the likes of Courtois, Lukaku, KdB alone is a masterstroke by him, can't blame him for a few misses in the transfer market. Emenalo knows every player the club have on loan, is an influential member of the board and probably deals with Conte a lot so I have a really hard time believing the case of Christensen hasn't come up. Anyway even if we assumed the board were all retards Conte, if he's up to the job like I believe he is, should still know Christensen as a player because common sense. He's one of the best 18-23 defenders in the world and now that he is our player already Conte should be making plans for him with next season in mind, which I sincerely hope he is.

C'mon, you can't seriously believe that. Do you not think Conte was briefed about the most promising youth players the club have under contract? We're talking about a guy playing CL football as a starter at a club competing in one of the best leagues in the world at the age of 20, I'm pretty sure even most rival managers know about Christensen and how good he is let alone our own manager.

Yep. Don't see Hector as any better than Baba Rahman, if anything Baba was higher rated in Germany at the time he was bought to Chelsea. And not to mention Hector being 26 and Baba just 22 so the latter still has a lot of room for development in the next few years, maybe he'll even learn to defend. I think Hector is overrated by many just for the fact he plays for Germany NT, the current world champions. Just because he managed to sneak into the side when they're severely lacking in quality full-backs after Lahm doesn't mean he's all that good.

Don't believe for a second that Fabregas and Oscar are going. If Cuadrado leaves, he won't need a replacement since there's already Hazard, Willian, Pedro, Moses and Oscar for the AM/winger positions and without CL football there's no real need for depth more than two players per position.

My choice for full-back would be Mattia De Sciglio who Conte knows very well from Italian NT. Versatile player who can play both sides just as good and still young with huge potential for development. Maybe not among the elite full-backs at the moment but out of those even remotely available, who are?

Either way still a really, really valuable player to have in the squad. Maybe not always as a starter against some of the more physical and pacey sides like West Ham were yesterday but definitely useful against sides that defend deep and "park the bus", forgive the cliché. And even in games where he's not starting he can come on in second half and change the game completely if the team are struggling to create chances. Just because he didn't make an appearance last night doesn't mean he won't be used in future games.

Exactly. Weakest link in the Germany squad at the Euros by far and it was really baffling how he played every game at the tournament. Not seen him play for his club but can't imagine him being any better there either.

First ten minutes were bad, after that it was all Chelsea till their lucky equalizer and at 1-1 I loved the passion and drive to score that winning goal. This kind of hunger to succeed was non-existent last season, the real Chelsea is now well and truly back with Antonio Conte. In attack some link-up play was still a little bit rusty but given time I think it will get immensely better. Hazard looks his best again and Kanté is huge in midfield, his tackles and interceptions will allow fast counter-attacks where players like Hazard, Willian and Pedro thrive. Defense, apart from a couple lapses in concentration, was really good and for the first 80 minutes West Ham didn't even register a shot on target. Ivanovic for all the stick he has been given was great today, credit when due. This Chelsea side looked a lot more ready than either of the Manchester teams in their own games so keep that in mind when criticizing any negative aspects of today's performance.

Gazzetta reporting that if Koulibaly chase leads to nowhere, Chelsea could yet go for Nikola Maksimovic who's been the rumored Koulibaly replacement lined up by Napoli. Now that would be ironic. Wouldn't mind that happening tbh, from what I've heard about him during this Koulibaly saga he comes across as a pretty decent player too and would mean not dealing with ADL. Maksimovic has burnt bridges to his current club Torino by going missing from training so would probably be a pretty straightforward signing to pull off at around €25m, less than half of Koulibaly's price. Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

Yep definitely off to somewhere and my guess would be Inter too cause they've been after him for ages. Not quite convinced about the rumors linking him to Chelsea, but to be fair Batshuayi came pretty much out of nowhere too so if the club were to lodge a serious offer for him I think there could be a good chance for him changing his mind about joining Inter and coming to Chelsea instead. Anyway don't think there's a need for another central midfielder at the moment so don't really understand why the club would be bidding for him in the first place so off to Inter it is.

Watford would be good for him, I think. Their wide options are quite shit so there could be an opening in the starting lineup for him. Just hope wherever he goes he's played as a winger and not as a left-back..

Rumours in Italy that Koulibaly's relationship with ADL has broken down, don't think he will be signing that contract extension if that's the case. One can hope...

One of the teams interested must be Hull, they're really lacking players at the moment and will struggle to even field 11 first teamers for tomorrow's opener against Leicester.

Like I said not big wages for a club like Chelsea but £80-90K a week is still a lot of money for a club like Galatasaray. They can afford him, sure, but they will probably look elsewhere if they must also pay a hefty transfer fee on top of the wages that are already stretching their budget. Just did some checking and looks like Robin Van Persie at Fenerbahce is hands down the highest paid player currently in Turkey with €4.9M a year, which is still less than Mikel's current wages. And that's RvP we're talking about, one the most well known strikers in world football. At Galatasaray, the club supposedly interested in Mikel, highest earner looks to be the keeper Fernando Muslera at €3.3m a year + bonuses. Drogba was on RvP kind of money when he played at Gala, so the money is most likely there if they think it's necessary but if you were on the board at Galatasaray would you hand out the highest wages at the club to a player like Mikel? Probably not, since usually the highest paid player needs to be some media sexy game changing attacking player and not a defensive midfielder. Of course it's worth noting that in Turkey they pay less taxes than in England so net wage is better there if on the same gross pay.

I agree, Mikel is a useful player to have and he'd improve many PL teams but by the looks of things many PL teams are not interested in his services. Only links we've seen of Mikel going out in the last few years have been to the biggest Turkish clubs and they don't have the same kind of money even average PL teams do, never have and never will. If Conte sees use for Mikel even as a squad player the club should be asking for way more than £2.6M but like I said if it comes down to selling for a small fee and getting his wages off the books or having him rot in the stands while not even playing, it's a no-brainer. We have Cesc, Oscar, Kante, Matic, RLC and Chalobah and Mikel to play in midfield and personally I'd like for the two youngsters to be given chances to shine instead of Mikel so I wouldn't mind the sale, even if it meant selling for cheap. If he does go I'll just say Mikel's been a great servant for the club, signed over ten years ago and played almost 400 games without ever throwing a tantrum if some new manager didn't fancy him or anything. Mikel is still at the Olympics so I'd assume the ball will get rolling sometime next week if there's something going on. Should there be some truth in those rumours we'll be hearing about it soon because if I'm not mistaken Turkish clubs need to make an announcement to the league if they even enter negotiations for a player. Also Remy is a striker, strikers go for bigger money than defensive midfielders. And even in Remy's case I don't think we could get more than around £7M for him.

Ashley Williams, who just turned 31 and not 32 by the way, cost £11M cause he was a club captain at Swansea and they didn't want to sell him to begin with, let alone sell to a team within the same league. You can't compare that to a situation where we have Mikel, a player Conte probably doesn't want to keep and who we struggle to find potential suitors for. Also like I said, only one year left on the contract which ALWAYS affects the transfer fee. Mikel is on big wages as far as a club in Turkey are concerned. Maybe not big wages for a PL club, all of whom have money coming in by the truck load after new TV deals and all that, but still too high for most clubs in the world. If I'm not mistaken Mikel is on around £90K a week and that's a figure not many clubs can afford. If Conte doesn't see use for Mikel, it's better to take the offer that's available and move on rather than keep the player just for the sake of it and then lose him on a free next year. It actually makes a big impact whether the club get a £2.6M fee now and save £4.6M on the wages or just hold onto him and keep paying the £4.6M salary while getting very little in return if he's not playing. In fact the difference is over £11M, enough to pay the yearly expenses for a pretty good player.

So you would demand more? Mikel only has a year left on his contract at the club and not to mention he's on big wages, which I'm pretty sure is a stumbling block for most clubs interested in his services so the transfer fee will need to be pretty small for anyone to pull the trigger on it.

They media got tired of doing the same about Costa and have now turned to Matic. Reading the Costa news was hilarious. One day he was "100% staying and committed to Conte" and the next day he was "alienated, not in speaking terms with Conte, close to Atletico" and that went on and on for a couple of weeks. Guess they needed a new topic to sell newspapers with so now it's Matic they're talking about. Of course there's truth in the reports that Juve are very much interested but the media know fuck all about what's going on in Matic's head and what him and Conte have discussed privately.

Yep, more than likely to happen. The player will still get a move to some top club next year and neither Napoli, Koulibaly or his agent will give a fuck if Chelsea don't have a plan B, they don't owe the club anything and couldn't care less how our season goes. Question is, if he does indeed sign the extension what's next for Chelsea? It's not like there are many quality alternatives out there. The only one available that's even vaguely resembling a top class defender I can think of is Eliaquim Mangala, and would Man City agree a sale to a rival?

Mauro Icardi, should you get past the fact he's a cunt and his whore of a wife who's also his agent is an even bigger cunt, is a better player than Lukaku. Don't particularly want him either but if it's down to Icardi or Lukaku I'd choose the former anytime.

He's above Eredivisie level, the only benefit I can see from going there is getting valuable Champions League experience should Ajax get through to the group stages. Anyways think he'll do brilliantly there, he already scored 14 league goals couple seasons back for the same manager at a way worse club and they have an opening for the starting lineup with Arkadiusz Milik having been sold to Napoli this summer. 20-25 league goals is not at all unreasonable to ask for. I'm against loaning him out in the first place cause I think he's more than ready for a role at Chelsea but now that it looks likely he's heading on a loan I would've at least hoped it was to like Bundesliga or something, not Eredivisie again.

Zaza is a striker, what's he got to do with our defence? Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

Still think Matic is a great player and the main reason he's playing badly is cause he wants a move. Mourinho broke him and maybe it's best for everyone involved that he gets a change of scenery, just hope we can get a good enough fee for him. In 2016 transfer madness Matic, even given his bad form, should be worth £30M minimum. If the likes of Benteke and Bolasie get valued close to the 30M mark this year, Matic shouldn't go for any less cause it's not like Juve have many alternatives to go for. Maybe get that Brazilian kid to replace Matic, or just give his spot to Chalobah if Conte trusts the lad.

To be fair Turin is a shithole too. Really liked Florence, Rome and Milan on my visit to Italy a few years back but Turin was dirty, the people were rude and the weather was horrible compared to those other cities.