BlueLyon

https://www.barcablaugranes.com/fc-barcelona-transfer-rumors-news/2017/8/15/16151490/barcelona-boss-ernesto-valverde-talks-paulinho-samper-sergi-roberto-ahead-of-el-clasico So Valverde counts on Sergi, but anything could happen till end of august.

Here I cant agree with you. Yes Laca is individualy better player than Giroud, but whenever I saw france play with Lacazette, he just didnt cut it. Giroud was much more efficient france played better aswell. And its not just coach preference. Lacazette simply didnt show enough, despite his quality. Same for Paulinho in brazil or in this case Cedric in portugal. Or Benzema. We might say Morata is better, but Zidane knows better. Morata might be better individual than Benz, but Benz makes Real team tick better, he makes the team as a whole better. They are more reliable, better team players and thats what you eventualy want. Only a team will win trophies. People often look individual qualities in players, but I rate players also on their success with team. Sure sometimes you have shit team and fantastic individual and still there wont be results. Thats why for example I rate Monaco players alot, because there is not just individual quality, but that team actualy achieved great results last season. Or Lille back then with Hazard. Valencia has few good individuals but as a whole, they are absolute crap atm, despite all the investement and talent they brought, they are very underperforming and honestly I dont see a single player there that could improve Chelsea as a team. Cancelo might put better input in attack individualy, but our balance in defence will be still bad, probably even worse than now. How can you say Cancelo is better defender than Cedric? I can guarantee you thats not true. I admit I havent seen them play many times past season, but two seasons ago Cedric was quite reliable defender and Cancelo was below average in defence. Then I checked fans opinions and they all agree Cancelo was even worse in defense last season. Dont get me wrong, I dont see Cedric ideal rwb or rb, but neither is Cancelo. We should aim at better fullbacks, but I dont agree with you that Cedric is soo poor and Cancelo much better as you say. The best portugal rb atm IMO is Ricardo Pereira who also played in france two seasons, which is perfect step before PL. Atm I would try to get him, Ox or Aurier. Anyone else available wont give Chelsea much improvement, except for being squad fillers.

I would expect us being linked with Ricardo Pereira too... We have relatively difficult targets (going by who we have been linked with); Juve doesnt want to sell Sandro, SPurs will never sell Rose to us, Aurier doesnt have visa, Arsenal possibly doesnt want to sell Ox,...if neither comes here, raid Porto for Telles and Pereira and we have two young, potentialy very good wingbacks. And I guess we could get both for reported 70m we offered juve for Sandro. Still hoping we get Sandro tho.

Just curious when did he became third choice option for portugal? He was first last year when they won euros and I hear Cancelo is absolute shit defender (good going forward tho), while Nelsinho and Pereira dont have many caps for portugal either yet.

And we sold Matic, even tho Mou is not here anymore. I think those sales were board decisions or players wanted to leave themselves. It also explains why Mata, Lukaku and Matic are now happy playing under Mourinho. If he told them he doesnt need them, they would never play for him...I guess it was their personal choice or board decision because they thought we have good squad and money looked good, so they decided its ok if they get shipped out

I just hope we dont rush him back too soon just because we have short squad ffs. Same for Bakayoko

Completely agree with what you said, but still MSN is probably best attack in history of football. They were unplayable in their first season when barca won CL.

Tbh Alves and Bonucci knew they will leave before summer and so did Juve. If we dont have chance now, we didnt have it two months ago either. Im pretty sure something is up with Sandro to Chelsea.

Southampton is now 80% owned by chinese... Whoever will want VDV will have to pay shitload of money now.

Yeah but PL is still quite tough. The problem with finding good player for PL is that he is phyisicaly capable of playing full seasons in PL and at same time skilled enough to play CL. If it lacks the first, he wont make it in PL and will be sold, if he lacks second, he will be destroyed in CL. Finding such players is very difficult then. As for Sergi, in current situation, Im all in to have him here.

Well in that case, we better not believe anything at all. I dont know how can one justify Diego is bad person and say "he must be lying, dont believe him" and at same time bring evidence that he was a dick who tried to go to china and doesnt give a fuck about cfc, just because MEDIA reported it. And we should straight up believe what media says, just because you or someone else finds it handy because you dislike Costa and obviously "he wanted to leave to china" serves your belief despite it might all be just bullshit (just throwing example here). I think people here hate Costa for what they read in media and that might not be all entirely true. We should all wait for some evidence before blaming Costa (or Conte, board,...), or just leave the thread and be done with. Only what is known to be true is Diego wanted to leave last summer. Thats what he he admited last summer and didnt lie. Why would he lie now? And guess what? Even after wanting out and eventualy staying here; he gave 110% for Chelsea in first half of the season. There were rumours he will extend which didnt happen. Why? Who knows. Could be Costa discipline or even Conte simply saying fuck off your not my profile of striker. Not saying Conte is wrong, its good board supported him and if that was his decision, so be it. But for fuck sake, dont blame Costa if this is what realy happend. As of now, its more Chelsea didnt want Costa rather Costa wanting to leave and cause problems. I hope Chelsea or Conte makes official statement to put this behind

I think thats the problem of bigger size. We should have captain who is more than good to be our starter nearly every time, either one of best in his position or natural leader and motivator. Tbh Cahill was "captain" whole last season, Im sure if he plays so bad now or someone else much better, other players should understand

He would be quality buy for backup but I think he might struggle in PL, Pogba, Dembele would bully him all day.

Im just curious what will happen after three games when Cahill returns, should Christensen, Rudiger have great performances during Cahill absence. Will he get Cahill straight back knowing he was poor and others played better or will he give chance to Christensen and Rudiger. It will say alot about Conte tbh.

Even in possesion he is a very limited player sadly. The only two great outputs he has are vision and long passing, and even then when he isnt under pressure.

Spurs played 20 yo Kyle Walker Peters yesterday and comfortably won the game. Everytime we play one kid, suddenly everyone starts questioning if we can win that game, including managers. The lack of faith and trust in our youth is big big problem. Rlc would never show such confident performance here if he stayed.

Funny how so called experts take some facts and completely disregard others. Costa explained nicely he would extend. How in the hell that means he wanted to leave since 2015? Yes he wanted to leave last year, but everything else is made up, including china, it was explained in interviews. And some people keep going at Costa based on fake facts. That doesnt excuse Diego for talking shit in public since june.

Barca wanted Paulo Dybala and Coutinho. They got a bit of both; Paulinho

"Something the club is working on with coach"...sounds uber promising. Everyone saying we need players and we are working on it...we shall see whats that all about soon

Well guys if Costa realy wanted to extend in january, but Chelsea eventualy decided to cancel that, how will you defend the claims that Costa was a prick who wanted to leave? If what he say is true, then its our fuckup. But yeah Costa should take it as professional instead going about like child. However it seems the only wrong thing Costa did is going in public about whole thing. As goes for your hate towards him that he wanted to move to China in january, or atletico this summer, or that he didnt give a shit after january, judging by his performances, because apparently didnt care anymore, well that might just be in your heads planted by the media. You want him out, fine. But stop with that hate towards him, because unless you know Conte or Costa, you, like me knows jack shit what was realy happening and hating on someone without proper evidence is just pointless.

Dont forget our board also failed to extend contract for Tibo and Hazard, with talks going on for months now.

Conte in tomorrow training

And it was publicly known Arsenal couldnt be super competitive back then. Their board at least explained to their fans. Spurs will probably get decent replacement for Walker, nevermind they are about to sign Sanchez for 40m. And even so, the times have changed compared to Arsenal stadium building days. Contracts are much much bigger now and if you go head to head with spurs, we have bigger sponsor and league revenue, nevermind money from player sales, we could easily afford few more players. Both Barca and Real have stadium rebuilds in mind, I bet you they wont be "cheap" for those 5 years during their stadium rebuild. I think it has little to do with stadium, its just how we operate these days.

Cancelo AND Ox? I dont believe that. Also we were strongly linked with LB in start of summer, then absolutely nothing. On Sandro, on anyone else...I can only think we already secured transfer of someone, possibly Sandro.

Going by what I saw in media one thing Id point out; Costa said he didnt want to go to China because he wants to play in world cup next year. Also if his words are true today, he was about to renew back in january but someone stopped it. Conte or whoever else... That means; althrough Costa wanted out last year, he wanted to stay and even extend this season. If he was about to renew and board eventualy said no, giving clear indication he wont be here come summer, it makes sense why he stoped playing at his highest level. I also remember Eden and others being extra happy when Costa scored his first goal after all that drought, indicating the players were firmly behind him. It just doesnt make sense why whole squad would be still huge pals if he wanted to fuck us and leave; as the media points out. What if it was as simple; Conte being strong character decided Costa is off and that was it. Could be for the most simple thing, discipline. Obviously the relations between Diego and Antonio got sour in january, if Diego suspected Conte pulled the break on diego extension. Bottom line we all see how stupid our board is working this summer, selling Matic, not bringing depth and quality etc...I wouldnt be surprised if the fault for this poor relationship between Chelsea and Costa was the board itself. And if you take the negative points out, Costa and Matic were huge huge players in our title winning seasons. And now we have lost both. That alone is just messed up. Every other club would find third way and fix the problem in nice way. We just went five steps back. From pl winners to maybe top 3 this season as it looks right now. Edit: I just remembered, the day Conte had final conference, Costa dragged him out, pointing its party time. They seemed very happy and all even then...