Jase

Am sure it's not just about money every time...

No but it just shows that we profited from fortunate circumstances. In normal times, we probably wouldn't have been able to sign those players that we did last summer. Could/would play out that way in the future.

Doesn't matter. The point is we took advantage to sign the big players last summer because no one else could afford to spend and we are now trying to do the same again. As seen already with the Haaland situation, people are not confident at all that we will be able to sign him next summer when we have to compete with the other big clubs.

It's kinda depressing that we have to rely on a bloody pandemic, a depressed market to be able to sign the best players around. Last year, it was Havertz, Werner etc. This year, we're trying it with Haaland. We don't seem to have a good standing when it comes to competing with other big sides and convincing players to join us, do we?

It's still crazy money, regardless of the transfer fee. If he reportedly wants only 300-350k, then I highly doubt the media would be reporting we would have to break our wage structure to sign him since it's not too much from what Kante gets and that suggests it might have to be more than 400k. Am sure his camp would want to get as much money as possible given his current status/reputation. If it's not us, then they could easily look to get more if/when Real or Barcelona come calling next summer. The wages aren't paid in full immediately but we would still be committing ourselves to paying that money over a number of years and if we really blow our wage structure for one player, even if it's Haaland, it could likely lead the others to asking for way more money in the future and potentially damage our finances. While Roman can afford to spend big, it's also no secret that he wants us to be self-sustainable.

Marca? lol

Too bad Conte is gone. Otherwise 3 former Chelsea managers vying for supremacy would have been fun!

Just realized that Mourinho and Sarri are now on either side of Rome...

Unless we are serving a transfer ban, what has a summer transfer window not been stupid with us?

Apparently Fonseca is the main choice of their new DoF Paratici. But overall, Levy has been one confused man in all of this. He said last month that he wanted a manager that plays attacking/entertaining football and uses players from the academy but then suddenly tried to get Conte, even though we all knew that it will never happen for obvious reasons. At least the other names sort of fit into that bill but whoever takes that job is gonna have a tough job on their hands.

Think people include all the costs because this is one BIG money transfer, just like you see all the costs floating around when Juventus signed Ronaldo. But whatever it is, be it 200, 300, 400 million, this will be an unprecedented transfer in football and especially for the club. If we want to get him, we would have fork an amount never done before by the club/Roman. Depend on what source you want to believe, Werner earns slightly less than 200k but with yearly increase (no clue by how much) in wages. All the stories are saying that if we want to sign Haaland, we would also have to blow our wage structure to get him and that suggests it would be way more than 300k (which is what Kante is earning right now, being our highest earner). You're probably gonna type an essay-esque reply back but just saying what it's out there...

Pretty sure it isn't. He described it as "fake" but there were reports previously that Raiola wants €20 million in agent fees. And I believe paying Haaland's dad the agent fees would also have to be part of the cost/deal.

Try beating the overall thread that is Fernando Torres!

You mean the agent fee or something else? If it's the agent fee, then next summer would be better because clubs would be paying less for the transfer fee, meaning they can afford to throw more money into the agent fee, signing-on fee etc.

I guess this kinda illustrates your point...?

Over €400 million!? LOL

How is it drastic to expect an improvement of at least 5-10 goals from each of our attackers? I don't really disagree that we need a striker but at the same time, even if we do get one, we still need the others to score more than they did if we want to win the league or at least challenge for it.

Where did you get that stat? Because from what I've seen is we're in 13th (not that it's great), just one place below Liverpool. City won the league basically without a recognized ST and their conversion rate only puts #4 in the table. Is it wrong to believe that our attackers can add at least somewhere between 5-10 goals next season?

Yeah and nothing new...

How much time did you spend screenshotting all of that?? 😱

The only thing I've seen from Simon Johnson this... Otherwise, nothing new.

What Tomo said really...

The Athletic is not known to report every single transfer rumor. If they are reporting it, then maybe there is some truth to it. I don't think they have reported anything on Haaland, have they after the Fjortoft and Matt Law stories?