Sideshow Luiz

Not to overstate the Obvious, but adding Kante and Hazard will be nice. Still need to move the ball quicker. Pressing still needs work (IMO).

Arguably. Willian for Martial, huh?

CHO is destroying Bellerin. Beating him for pace and movement.

He looks worse than last season.

Think so? I think it's looked good at times, but quite disjointed at others. Not a criticism, it's still early days. Just an observation.

Oh, I know. I'm more mad at me, than anyone else. Now, we play the stream gambling game. The feed is decent. Do I risk that for some potentially laggy shit in order to catch up? Oh god, Morata. Can we see Bats with the first team?

Nothing like a spoiler alert before a pen

Yup. But it was a patch. This is beginning to look like the start of last season was a good patch for Morata.

We had one for a few seasons

So, i guess my stream is behind....

Right, but 2-3 extra days on the training pitch wouldn't have that sorted out any earlier, really. Which is all he missed.

Right, but I would think that he's been looking at the squad for a while now. Long before he was appointed. It would have been nice to have it all wrapped up so the players knew what was coming. But, I don't necessarily think that the late appointment has really affected how long it will take the team to gel under his new methods.

I can see people (not necessarily here) talking about how Sarri's late appointment (and it was late, no doubt) will have hampered our preparation for the upcoming season. The way I see it, he only missed what, 2 or 3 training sessions? If he had been appointed the day after the FA Cup, players wouldn't have had to report back earlier. It's not like the World Cup would have been cancelled or anything.

I'm all for a Willian --> Martial swap. But, it will require a lot more work. If we did pull it off, we would have a shortage of wingers. We already need another (unless Moses is slated to play RW) and this deal would leave us 2 short but with 5 strikers (4 if you don't include Tammy who probably won't feature). So, either Bats or Morata need to be shifted and a winger brought in. Possibly could see a Bats to Dortmund for Pulisic type thing, but Milan just got Higuain, so Morata won't be going there. Can't see us pulling off 2 major moves like that in the time remaining. Hope I'm wrong.

I understand, I meant more that he missed training. The time at Cobham is the more important right now. The friendlies are to assess how far along they are, IMO.

3-1 Arsenal, is my prediction. Their key players have been there for the whole training camp. They're further along than we are. We don't have our best players back yet, let alone practicing. Morata had to leave to be with his newborns.

Dude, that's a bit harsh. This club say nothing except for a few "leaks" like after Conte was released (to paint him in a bad light), so it's sometimes hard to read between the lines. For example, the transfer rumours that have been going around. Personally, I don't think we were ever in for Higuain. Some people may think I'm a moron. But, I wouldn't call someone else a moron for believing it. In this case, Willian acted petulantly at the end of the season. Then, we've been hearing all summer that Willian wanted to join Barca. Now, it's Madrid, or Man Utd. He had a video where he stated that he was happy in London. Then he hasn't shown up for training when he was supposed to. Okay, shit happens, maybe it was on purpose, maybe it's legit. Personally, I don't really care. But, it's easy to see how people could read in to things, one way or another.

So, if he's off to Utd (IF), we'd obviously like Martial in return, and it's win-win. BUT, we still have Morata, and I can't see us shifting him, so how are we going to pull that off? Which kind of would suggest that it's Willian out and no Martial. If we start to hear about Morata going away, then I can see this happening.

I think Bakayoko will be gone, with Vecino in. But from what I've read, it's the same.

I think he's going to be good this year. His positioning won't be so much of an issue when we have the ball 65% of the time.

Well, I'm a big fan of David Luiz, so that analogy isn't going to work with me

I guess it depends on your definition of "interest". By Chelsea standards, we have "interest" in lots of players. Players that we have been monitoring for years. I'm of the mind that more that most of the stories are out there to incite a bidding war (SMS), or a new contract (Thiago & Pjanic). The Pjanic one made no sense. He's a DLP, he replaced Pirlo at Juve. We were linked with him right after signing Jorginho. I think we were really close to Alisson, but got beaten by Liverpool which would have seen Courtois out. I think they've been working on alternatives since then. Vecino seems to have come up because Sarri's had more time to see Bakayoko and he knows Vecino.

I'm not sure we've been after Vecino for 2 months. But, I highly doubt that we were anywhere near SMS, Thiago, Pjanic. We possibly asked "how much?".

If we had Mikel instead of Bakayoko last season do we finish in the top 4?