BlueLyon

True...3:5:2 system is shit for me, but right now its only way to fit in Cesc who is along Eden only one who can create something. We desperately need to either go back to 4:3:3 or bring absolutely world class RW and wingbacks for 3:4:3 to work on regular basis. Its clear that we absolutely need two top top quality wingbacks. Alonso and Moses are allright, but we need best ones here. The system depends on them too much to be ignored. Emerson can be good but it will take time, hopefuly next season. Shame the board didnt get any quality winger like Bailey. He needs some adjustment time, it would be perfect to get him in january, so he would be ready for next season and maybe even add some flash uptop this season.

Wait as he becomes realy good striker and joins big team for big bucks, while we are stuck with Giroud. Oh and obviously leaves us for small money, because the board is incompetent to spot a talent

I will be happy if he is regular and important player by mid of the next season. Its often difficult for players to catch PL rhytm on its own, nevermind Emerson had injury AND played bad since the return.

I loved his proactive style, always taking on players instead of just passing sideways like we have seen from Musonda or Rlc in the past. He looks quick and has drive and motivation to go at players. He has long long long way to go, but I like his style. I saw him in youth, but PL is something else and I think he did well. Now with Musonda off, he will also get more chances and hopefuly he takes them.

Can someone explain to me what is the board/Conte vision here? They complain we dont have depth. We need depth so we can rely on other players and rest first choices. BUT, correct me if Im wrong, Conte still plays same players week in week out. Why? Because we dont have reliable players on the bench FFS. The whole point of having depth is so we can rotate and keep the quality on similar level, but now we actualy do have the depth, those players are absolutely shite. I cant believe our board is buying the depth just so we can have players on bench. But these players are terrible, no wonder Conte keeps playing starters over and over. Because when we play our "depth", we play incredibly shit. Drinkwater, Bakayoko, Cahill, Zappacosta,...they are all here to add good bench options when we need to rotate, but they are terrible players. No wonder Conte doesnt want to rotate. And now we added Barkley, Emerson and Giroud to the mix, I dont have any good feeling about either to be honest. Barkley doesnt fit the formation, Giroud is Giroud and Emerson had awful injury, who knows when will he bit fit physicaly and mentaly to start for us and become important member. We should be signing grade A players, who would bench the likes of Alonso, Bakayoko, Pedro; instead we are buying lesser! players for bench and still play underperforming players. We splashed shitload of cash for absolutely average players. When we needed to score today, or in any other game this season, you can see how useless our players are. They cant do shit, cant dribble, cant pass, cant keep possesion, cant press, cant put pressure to score the goal...apart from two or three players who do their job. Then you have our might depth on bench, with zero quality again. City has better bench than we have starting 11 for fuck sake, yet the board doesnt change anything. Even if we are out of league and have slim chances in CL, we still need to finish strong in PL and we need to reinforce team anyway for next season. We should be in for world class striker, winger or wingback this january and yet the board did jackshit. There should be huge changes in summer, but there probably wont be. The day Barkley, Emerson or Giroud perform brilliantly I will eat my words, but until then we can easily say this was another underpeforming window and we bought bunch of average or injured players again. And people are actualy happy with Giroud haha. Its nice to joke he will score the winner against Barcelona, but then comes the harsh reality. We fell so far. If Eden leaves in summer, we are fucked.

Good on paper yeah. We have heard that story before. We get average player and pick all the positives, disregard the negatives and pretend he will save the season. Fact is he wasnt good enough to lead Arsenal. Simple. We needed a striker that can provide damn competition for Morata and decently replace him when he doesnt play. Giroud is nothing like that. You know we will play average when Giroud will play in 1st eleven, we dont have to kid ourselves. He is good player to come from bench and replace Morata for final 20min, there he is better than Bats probably. But hell Bats actualy had quite respective amount of goals from bench. The problem was when he was starting the games. He just wasnt good enough. But guess what, neither is Giroud. Its a cheap gap fill that will show many flaws, no improvement and we will be soon on look for another striker. With the season looking poor we should either keep Bats and look for quality striker in summer, or get quality striker this january. But we went for something in the middle, another average striker in the squad, 20m gone and we havent improved 1st 11 anyhow. Im not always pessimist, but fans have to stop making signings like Drinkwater, Giroud quality. These are average at best and literaly only for the bench, or when we dont have first options available. But honestly right now, we should be buying players who are good enough to push for 1st eleven. Our team has so many average players its ridiculous. I know we need more depth, but filling bench with more average players wont make us strong again. We have to finish top 3 and it looks like the team desperately needs more quality in attack. We did absolutely nothing again to improve it. There is Bailey, there is Mahrez who are available for certain price. We wont be getting them for cheap or anyone else of their quality. But its clear we need those kind of quality players now.

seriously though, we desperately needed some fresh strength this window and we bought no one that can give us imediate impact. Well done. Im glad Hudson got chance, hopefuly to see more of him. Looked quite good.

First, terrible move. Even if he plays alot he will have to prove it all again when he comes back because scottish league is miles below PL. Secondly, Willian is injured and we ship another decent winger away with already thin squad? Surely by all standards we should buy someone like Baily now but we obviously wont. Third, why did he delete all connections with Chelsea? Wasnt his dream to play here, or was that just big bullshit and he will pull De Bruyne eventualy...?

IMO the board just doesnt have the clue and business idea. We go around looking for players without actual clear plan who to target. Today its this guy, tomorrow someone else, next week someone else. We look at the numbers all the time, making limits and then it all becomes one clusterfuck of a mess. Lack of determination, ambition, you name it. Info leaking in public, negotiations taking ages and in the end we still dont end up with right target, but some last minute panic buy that comes expensive like first choice but isnt half as quality.

Wait till the board values him too pricey and forks another 40m for Drinkwater 2.0.

Well if he recovers and hopefuly he does, he probably wont be playing for Chelsea for weeks or maybe months. Before he will play he will need to get fit and adopt to PL, I doubt Conte would just throw him in matches. This is more like early summer signing and he will show his qualities (or lack of) next season. We needed new LB and while price is realy good, we bought someone who we probably wont be able to use for quite a while, leaving us to just good old Alonso

He would have to be either exceptional in creating and ball control ala Iniesta style or deadly efficient like Lamps to succeed in 3:4:3 with his pace. But IMO he isnt either. He is a bit of everything, which can turn out to be good in midfield, but due to his lack of pace means he wont suceed in 3:4:3. He will gain some speed once he fully settles fitness wise, but I dont see him as someone who adds dynamic to our attack. When Willian is on form, its absolute joy to watch him with Eden. Thats because they are both quick and dynamic, can run through channels and beat defenders. Barkley is way too slow for that. We already have slow paced team, cant afford to drop quick Willian or Pedro for Barkley in 3:4:3. Its not realy just pace though, but more movement and quick turns. I thought Wilshere looked good against us, very mobile and dynamic player. Barkley looked quite slow and rusty, again partly due to injury recovery but also he is that kind of player. His only place IMO is in 3:5:2 or 4:3:3: as creative midfielder. And 3:5:2 is awful formation IMO because we only play with Morata and Eden upfront, everyone else is just defending. Barkley can be good player, but IMO doesnt suit this team at all unless we go back to 4 at the back.

Lol I think people as always overexaggerate, we will bounce back, but honestly everyone can see we have been doing quite poor over past few transfer windows. Yes we won title last year, but the shape of our team right now is quite bad. We paid around 200m this season and there is very little improvement. Bakayoko, Morata and others will have to step up big big time if you ask me. Plus if we lose Hazard I honestly believe we are done for two seasons at least. Even with all the money we would get, board is simply not capable of bringing top quality players. Be it lack of money or simply shit scouting/poor attraction, we sold Matic, bought Baka and Drinkwater for 80m. Says pretty much all. And since Oscar sale for 70m, we still didnt manage to bring quality attacking midfielder/winger to the squad. As for others, City is clearly doing big steps, we are lucky United has Mou still but they will have more and more quality. Liverpool just lost Coutinho, but held their own against City and IMO while they are not yet title material, especialy under Klopp, they have best balanced squad in years. They are all making small steps forward, we go backwards. We play boring/proactive football for ages now, with some sparks of realy great runs between, but generaly still very proactive against top teams. However difference was we came on top in the end against 80% of epl opponents. If there was cup game or decisive match against Spuds, Arsenal, even City, we just won the game in the end usualy. Now our football isnt ANY better, could say we play worse than last season, but now we dont even win the likes of Arsenal. Its clear we lost that edge that made us a team in past years known for playing defensive, but we could kill them if they gave us some space. Take Eden out of this team and we are dead in attack. Our transfers have been awful recently, and while we havent spend half as city, we could have got some better players in our team by now.

I think he shown some glimpses, but what is his actual position? Not even close to being fast enough to play on wings in 3:4:3 and lacks tactical knowledge for midfield. But will be interesting how he develops.

Haha this guy is just perfect example why its funny when fans here overexaggerate over average players and pretend they are quality. After his fluke goal everyone was saying he can take quality shots, literaly every shot he attempted after went miles away from target. What an absolute fuckup of a transfer to get this guy who is absolutely absolutely average and slow. And we paid 40 fucking millions? Yes he is english but come on, in that case we should just throw bit more for Sterling or Shaw back in the day. I literaly cant understand the board decisions, Sterling for 50 would be too much, but Drinkwater for 40 isnt? And there is a long list of players who have no place here. I know we needed more squad depth, but now we are paying shitload for absolutely average players.

I know he will be just a back up but how exactly he adds anything to the team? I mean, we were looking for striker to challenge Morata and replace him when he is out of form/injured. Dzeko has that presence and scores regulary. Giroud is only good enough to be back up. Thats the difference. If Morata is out, we are no better with either Bats or Giroud out there. Even for 15m, I dont see the point of this transfer. Its just another Drinkwater addition where we buy just to get another body in squad but has absolutely no quality or potential to play first 11.

Haha you know when he and Eden kept saying "I will sign if he signs"... ...twist they were realy talking about Real Madrid...

Im glad we are nowhere near this guy. Been throwing tantrums at Bvb for ages now, constantly reading about his bans due to lack of discipline and loyalty. And despite being prolific goalscorer he misses a shitload of easy chances. Not even close to what we need as Morata competition which is experienced reliable option who wont complain but help the squad.

Yes Schurrle was fantastic backup for us. Very likable character and seemed to have special bond with club (due to Ballack and his recommendations). He wanted to play more though but realy faded in Bvb, however if he stayed here I think he would made better career. Bailey on other hand can be proper baller, top dog. I know we cant get top players, but he seems to be one of reachable talents who can become world class. Would be kind of like Salah, De Bruyne signing, someone with huge potential. I realy hope the club can get it done, its been long time since we signed very young player with huge potential. Couple years ago we were doing it regulary (Kdb, Lukaku, Tibo, Salah,...) Its just a shame he was rumoured to be worth 30-40m back in december, but now his price is getting very high.

Great talent, but big gamble after his injury. Either we will have top quality fullback or the agony of search for new LB will continue for couple more seasons.

Everything but fee and his inability to play in CL is perfect about this transfer. But I guess january brings extra 5-10m on table, so its not awful. I was hoping we bring Etoo esque striker and he is exactly that. Experienced, proven, but still quality player. He will be good competition for Morata, and wont hinder Tammy progress.

And Rashford as fullback

If only he played like this every weekend. He can be fantastic but also has games when he cant make a simple pass...

Potential 60m for 31yo striker and fullback coming from bad injury recovery doesnt sound too great for me to be honest. Dzeko on his own is wonderful backup striker to have and Ederson has huge potential, but 60m is alot of money even for today standards. Plus we cant use Dzeko in CL where IMO we would need him most.

Bad news keep coming at Chelsea these days.