Jase

Not sure how true this is but...

We haven't spent obscenely big in past years and I don't see that suddenly changing now, especially with this whole coronavirus situation. It remains to be seen how much UEFA will adjust the Financial Fair Play rules to help clubs go through the current situation, because I would be very surprised if they suspend it altogether (would defeat the purpose of the rule being introduced in the first place) but it looks like it will only affect the 2020/21 season. We do have loads of players to sell but you know every club will suffer financial losses from the coronavirus situation and we still do not know how it will affect the clubs, even with UEFA relaxing the FFP. Clubs may well have smaller budgets than before this and we might not sell the players that we want to sell. Might end up loaning them out again.

All UEFA have said is this on FFP is this... https://www.uefa.com/insideuefa/news/newsid=2641230.html Would imagine they would just relax some restrictions, but not entirely because that would just defeat the purpose of the whole FFP to begin with, even taking the whole coronavirus financial repercussions into account.

Have any of usually reliable Chelsea sources (e.g. Matt Law) even reported about us wanting Coutinho? All the noise seems to be coming from Spain only...

Maybe those "some Chelsea fans" you're talking about are a little more sane and not want every shiny looking "toys" out there just for the heck of it. 🙄 Think people have mentioned good points as to why we should stay clear of Coutinho etc but you chose to ignore them. Isco, James, Coutinho are all in their late 20s and should be in their prime but they have gone off the rails for years now, they aren't even first team starters for their own club and you should know something is not right when their club are desperate to get rid of a player, like in Coutinho's case. If they were a few years younger, I probably wouldn't mind to see us take a gamble on them - similar to Kovacic - but they aren't and after Shevchenko, Torres, Falcao, Pato etc, the club should do best to stay clear of washed-up esque players. And it says a lot if your best justification to sign Coutinho is that he was in the best XI of a tournament that happened TWO years ago. Also, given the financial hit that we are likely to suffer, it's all the more important that the club make sure they sign the players that we need first and foremost - e.g. ST and LB - before moving to any potential so called luxury signings.

Wonder what our club have decided to do with the non-playing staff etc.

Yup, it is an option that will satisfy none of the important parties involved.

Yeah but it's arguably better than declaring the season null and void (even if that might benefit us in terms of Champions League qualification), with clubs set to lose tens/hundreds of millions if we go down that route.

In the midst of all this fancy transfer talk, we also still need to see how much are we being affected financially from this coronavirus situation. Our transfer budget, for all we know, could be reduced because the club have to cover up for losses etc.

They should do what AVB suggested and change the seasons to a calendar year to tie in with the 2022 World Cup and then go back to August-May after that.

If Coutinho is really as good as you're making him out to be, Bayern would be trying to keep him or Barcelona wouldn't look so desperate to get rid of him. And using Willian and Pedro aren't great barometers for comparison.

What about his wages? Those big Spanish clubs notoriously pay their players BIG wages.

Actually, I was wrong about the Belgian league. Totally forgot that they have the playoff system for the title thing. But the larger point still stands nonetheless.

A more favorable comparison would be Pedro, IMO, if he stays on the right trajectory.

It was a good setup from CHO but it was Pulisic who initiated the move that led to the winner.

How do you just cancel the league and award the title to whoever is in first if it's like Serie A or La Liga, where the top 2 teams are separated by just 1-2 points with 11-12 games to go? Would you be so casual in saying this if we're just 1 point behind Liverpool in 2nd and fighting with them for the title and have 9 games left to play?

If Coutinho doesn't cost much, Bayern may have been tempted but they aren't and Coutinho is seriously overrated. If he was really any good, he would have found a place at Barcelona or at Bayern but neither has happened. He's just a long range shooter merchant and nothing more. And not to mention, our midfield area should be the least of our worries this summer.

LMAO! Think Pulisic has showed more than enough, more than "flashes" to suggest he would be an important player in the team.