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I wonder if we could have done more to convince him to stay, reasoning being I think Conte would trust him more than Musonda due to large experience in the Dutch League. Perhaps easy to say in hindsight now he's starting at a top French team

We should have forced Sturridge.

Tammy Abraham first 17 months in senior football (Chelsea, Bristol & Swansea): 60 games 31 goals 4 assists maybe puts into perspective how well he's done, even surprised me. How rare is it to see a young striker from England U21s go straight to performing at first team level.

He didn't play particularly different to most of his other games since arriving. Might have the occasional game like Tottenham where he gets a free kick in his favoured position (he's v good at them but it has to be in literally an exact spot), maybe an oppurtunity to take a shot as he also has decent technique at that, to paper over his cracks. I think sometimes a player comes and if we have low expectations of them even if they perform average they're heralded as a great signing. Any average player we subsequently get linked with 'he could be the next Alonso/Moses' 'well Alonso didn't turn out too badly'. Inevitably after a season the novelty wears off and it's clear while they're not awful they're not exactly great either.

I disagree with the argument he couldn't have flourished here because he needed development, wrong. He performed on loan in Bundesliga for a shit team before he came, he came here for 6 months, left and immediately started performing again. Just 18 months later and he came to City. He was already at the level he could have started for us we just didn't give him an oppurtunity.

Chalobah is already a level above the rest of those players, he's far more likely to be in, say, Bertrand territory.

We ending up bidding more than that for Sandro. Agree most of the first list are unattainable but we dug ourselves our own hole there, as someone else mentioned, all eggs in one basket.

Sandro, Rose, Alaba, Mendy, Alba, Marcelo (ofc), Luis, Mendy are the obvious ones. A number of players may not be obvious but I feel they'd make us a more dangerous side (Telles, Kolasinac). Failing that at least get some competition /back up for the man, ideally a young player with potential. Theo Hernandez would be that perfect player, alas Madrid got one of the future top full backs for just £22m.

If we're going to base his attributes on one game why don't we just use today then when he nearly lost us the game. Schurrle scored an important goal once in a win vs Man City and I don't see people scraping to bring up one game as an argument why we shouldn't have sold him. Watching Alonso for the past year for us is what I'm basing my opinion one, not reactionary transient views based on a match. Man has a good free kick and a decent shot that means he can stat pad goals but in terms of his all round play absolutely nothing out of the ordinary or top level about him. I often hear how good he is going forward, realistically no he's not. Azpi came on today and showed us what we could have with a wingback with some pace and confidence to actually run behind. From the left Alonso is a passive, reactionary player who rarely does anything incisive to actually change the game. He's a very safe player. Ball goes to him in space and it will be an a) overhit cross or b ) a pass inside usually slowing an attacking move down as he doesn't have the pace, skill or technique to take on a player. I can't think of a single chance he's created this season. The guy struggles under pressure too. One on one he tends to panic and lose duels, and at least it's widely accepted how poor he is defensively. As I said he's a reactionary player. A decent cog in a good side. When we play well he's not a hinderance but when we don't play well he'll do nowt to change our course of play (other than hitting a free kick). He and Moses in our team is akin to Spurs playing Trippier and Davies when they had Walker and Rose out. Shame we couldn't get our own 'Rose' by missing out on Sandro. He's not an awful player, he'd be perfect as a squad player. But for some reason there's a lot of hyperbolising that goes on with Alonso. How he's one of the best LBs in Europe or close in level to Alex Sandro or how utterly fantastic he is going forward. Irony is I view him and Moses at a similar level (good cogs, reactionary, but improvements needed if we truly want to be amongst Europe's elite) yet I feel that view is seen as acceptable for Moses, yet for Alonso it's controversial. Expect people to disagree with me but hey I say how I see it.

One of the most overrated players in recent Chelsea history.

Tammy Abraham set to switch international allegiance in shock move thesun.uk/601582nkN Growing trend for a lot of young dual nationality players to play for country of origin, you do you Tammy

It's a pantomime, I do love how fans are allowed to heckle him as much as they want, he gives a bit back and then fans act all precious that a footballer dares to show harmless retaliation.

Has a lot of things going for him. He's grown to 6"5, I like how he always makes himself a nuisance for loose balls played to him/hoofs up pitch. Combination of his pace, deceptive strength (Vertonghen, Alderwiereld and especially Sanchez have all struggled with him at points this half), his long legs and sheer desire. Not only that but shows promise with ball at his feet playing with front to goal, or in tightish areas out wide to make space/win a foul.

I think he'll prove a fair few Chelsea fans wrong who've written him off as average despite fitting in/not looking out of his depth for us. Sometimes too over critical due to the supposed risk of an unproven young player letting us down or this idea that a young player HAS to be world class to be 'Chelsea quality'. His pathway has some similarities to Bertrand (loads of experience for England youth and in Football League, not given quite enough of a chance here, not a world class ceiling but clearly could be a squad player). Anyway, I also think he could well reach Bertrand's type of level, which is pretty good imo. Tbh Bertrand is a bit unlucky no big club has come back in for him. i do agree he also needs starts to work on his ability and show it though, but then I also think it reflects on us due to poorly managed loans and not enough chances given in a season like last season that he had to be sold in a season he's turning 23 only for us to see he's potentially usable, if that makes sense.

Had a good start at Watford, impressing their fans by all accounts and forming a good partnership with Doucoure.

Hmm

http://blog.betbright.com/football/tammy-abraham-is-growing-game-by-game/

Well done to him, first call up to full England squad.

What level is he at then? He's a very good if not world class AM/midfielder, who even last season (imo not at his best) had the joint second most amount of assists in a PL season ever.

Also about this 'natural' position or his 'preferred' position, why do his strengths have to lie as a deep CM. In his skillset and weaknesses too he has a lot to be desired as a more advanced player, as someone said, like Pogba. His first game at Palace he started in the forward/winger position in a 3-4-3 (aware he later moved to midfield that game), and before this managers for club and country for years played him as an attacking mid for good reason. If he develops game then yes he could become a good deep CM, we'll see how he does this season. He could also well be a good advanced midfielder.

Claimed he couldn't do it because he used to not be able to do it, was always taken off at youth level before 90 minutes was up.

He has a real chance of being in the squad next season as a 4th choice midfielder with Chalobah gone and Matic going. I don't think a 3-4-3 formation suits him but then it doesn't quite suit Fabregas either. If playing in a midfield two helps Baker adapt to being more combative, dynamic and less hiding from the ball it's for the better.

Hence why Conte offered him a 17m/year new contract for the upcoming season which Chalobah turned down

Every single striker people compare Lukaku to and say he's better than if we're linked with them (Lewandowski, Aubameyang, Costa) are at least 4 years older and were worse than Lukaku at his age. Now I'm not a fan of the notion that 'look where he was at his age' but more important point is a lot of the slights aimed at Lukaku like 'he's not a big game player' (very debatable), 'no CL experience' could have been attributed to these players when they were 24. It could be said to any alternative to Lukaku of same age bar Morata and Mbappe, not sure if I'm getting my point across but I think people need to realise he's not in his prime yet and like many other CFs right now in Europe his best could well come in the years he's about to see. He's in a different stage in his career than the likes Costa

If we we actually sell Matic and sign Bakayoko it's a move I'm all for, essentially promoting Chalobah to back up.