Jase

This is all just a ploy to make us feel high before crashing down back to earth with depressing Chelsea results next week...

It's still kinda stacked even if we sell Barkley. We would have Pulisic, Werner, Mount, Ziyech, CHO as options for the LW, CAM, RW (Werner could play as the second ST). Having 5 players for 3 positions is just fine. But 6 and another high profile like Havertz? That is overkilled.

Confirmed by the club as well. https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2020/06/09/kante-returns-to-contact-training

Doesn't mean it has to be replicated...

Doesn't mean there aren't defenders out there who will improve us.

lol Simon Phillips is just a wannabe journalist. That Cech/Lampard/Werner story came from Matt Law...

So we will basically go from 'LET'S PLAY THE YOUTH' to 'FUCK THE YOUTH! LET'S GO SPEND BIG!'. Having competition in the squad is one thing but there is an argument to be made on over-stacking the squad and potentially hinder the progress of the young players instead. If you have invested in them, then trust them to do their best and improve.

Nonsense. There are good defenders out there. You just need to know where to look. And god knows how many times has Vesper drawn up a list of it!

And then, we'll complain about the dumb defence again next season and/or wonder why we won't spend money of defenders next summer after blowing all the money this year...

CHELSEA ARE RUINING FOOTBALL!

Sky Sports reporting it a little different...

Aah, so fake news as expected then.

Anything in Germany on whether we have actually opened talks with Leverkusen for Havertz? @killer1257 @Magic Lamps

Sell deadwoods, beg the club for money.

My FM 20 Chelsea team (one of the potential XIs) could actually become a reality next season...

It's now on the Guardian site too...

That depends on who is telling him that. It could be that Leverkusen are spreading these stories to have a bidding war on Havertz...

I might argue that Lampard has had to make do with what he has this season, given the transfer ban etc. Kante is our only defensive midfielder but he is not your traditional midfielder and he has been injured a lot, which forced Lampard to play with what he has remaining. It would also be criminal to not have a traditional defensive midfielder or someone who can do that job efficiently (Kante has been hit-and-miss IMO ever since we moved away from the pragmatic style) but also have good/decent passing range. A lot of the other big clubs have at least someone like that.

I hope you're right.

Ziyech was already confirmed. And until Werner actually signs that contract, we can't be certain that he won't change his mind if we don't qualify for the Champions League and suddenly another Champions League club come in for him. Like I said, maybe I'm just being paranoid but yeah...

All true and maybe I'm just being paranoid here but it's so important we get him sign the contract and get this deal done ASAP because (a) we don't want any other club to hijack this with a late offer and suddenly convince him to change his mind and (b) we aren't guaranteed to qualify for the Champions League yet. If we can get him and Ziyech before we see how the fight for Top 4 turns out, then that will be great because we would have that assurance of having actually signed quality players if we don't qualify for the Champions League. Otherwise, we would need to scrap the barrels for the Bakayokos, Drinkwaters of this world and nobody wants that!