MUTU

With £35m there are maybe 3 Bundesliga wingers you wouldn't afford to buy (providing the club is ready to sell). Just sayin'. In fact, if Bayern would want to sell any of their current wingers, I bet they wouldn't ask for as much as £35m for any of them Pretty sure you can sign players like Julian Brandt, Thorgan Hazard, Leon Bailey, Emil Forsberg or Reiss Nelson for that money or whereabouts. Heck, as of today (quote by Salihamidzic) our board is not sure whether or not to spend £37.15m to trigger James Rodriguez's clause and sign him permanently and we will monitor his progress until the end of the season before taking a decision. The same board that has ACTUALLY BID £35m for CHO.

Pulisic is expensive not only because of his skill but also because he has unparalleled marketing potential. If he ever becomes a top, top, top player, he'll be worth his weight in diamonds.

Do you acknowledge that Thorgan is also your academy player?

€42m = £37.15m. Worth selling CHO for if that would keep Eden, because if it's as bad as you say, for the £100m you're asking for Hazard you'd sign who in return... Raheem Sterling?

In the meantime, Stoke sold Shaqiri for £13.23m and Arsenal had sold Gnabry for £4.5m. Good deals exist and are indeed common. It's actually deals sized £35m and above which are rare... according to Wikipedia, the 50th most expensive signing of all time is £42.5m

For 35m nowadays, you can bring back Thorgan Hazard. I remember watching Thorgan Hazard play 90 minutes against England in Kaliningrad. Maybe my memory evades me but I don't remember seeing Hudson-Odoi also playing in that match At this point in time, you can consider Thorgan Hazard an upgrade over Hudson-Odoi. Furthermore, maybe that'll help Eden want to remain at your club so you hit 2 birds with one stone too. It really isn't rare. What's rare is clubs spending 35m on any winger, let alone an 18 year old one. It's not like your fellow Premier League clubs aren't doing it. Shaqiri cost Liverpool £13.23m.

Check the post above yours.

Because it was said that £35m is nothing. £35m is a lot of money. I'm sure you can buy the majority of Bayern senior squad players in return, for that kind of money. That amount of money won't buy you starting quality replacement? Let's see... Kingsley Coman cost us £25.2m (I'm including money we paid to loan him in) Serge Gnabry cost us £6.3m (I'm excluding money we were paid for to loan him out) Alphonso Davies cost us £9m Total: £40.5m Basically, given that Ribery and Robben are moving at the end of the season, Bayern are bidding almost as much money for CHO as they spent on the rest of their wingers altogether. What I think you really need are good scouts to get players at decent prices. Well, or get a Drinkwater for that price. Your choice.

Serious question: why should it matter if your owner is broke, a millionaire or the richest man of all time? Aren't there still FFP rules you're required to abide with? AFAIK it's not like the owner can say "oh, £35m is nothing, here's £500m for the transfer kitty from my own personal funds".

Does anyone have a list of players aged 18 or younger who transferred for more than £35m? I can only think of Vinicius Junior off the top of my head. £35m is not nothing; it's a massive amount of money.

Hasan Salihamidžić on Hudson-Odoi: "We want to sign the player. I'm fully convinced of his abilities. We are in talks with Chelsea"

Because Ribery, Robben, Coman and Gnabry are injury prone. Not sure about Davies. For example, at the moment both Ribery and Robben are out, so we're effectively down to 3 wingers. We're still participating in 3 competitions (even though we're likely to not play more than 2 more CL matches) whilst playing catch-up with BVB. Also, am of the impression (might be very wrong) that the opponents of the Bayern reserves, which play in the 4th tier division Regionalliga Bayern are better than the opponents that Chelsea U23 typically face. Plus, it's always better to get a player in earlier and get him to integrate with the teammates, build up chemistry, learn the language etc.

There's two wings son

The "kid from MLS" has a name, he's Alphonso Davies and he'll take the world by storm soon, so remember the name

So... like Sancho? I get what you're saying and this is a low-profile rumour so even if he comes I'd assume he'd be for the reserve squad (U23s), but who's to say he won't develop in future? For one I can't say myself since I've only seen a photograph of him

It's not everyday that Bayern needed to replace such wing legends like Ribery and Robben. We're talking about the best LW and the best RW in the club history, who are both leaving the club in summer. A partnership that lasted a decade (and Ribery has been at the club for a bit longer). So yes, it's obviously going to look 'odd' because it's not an ordinary situation for Bayern, especially when the club has spent resources into planning a squad to operate through the wings. That said I read Chelsea set their asking price for Eden Hazard at £100m... I'd much rather spend £100m on Hazard than £35m on Hudson-Odoi, if the finances allow it. In the meantime, this is somewhat related to Hudson-Odoi:

I saw a comparison, which is not mine, and I don't necessarily agree or disagree with. It goes like this: Chelsea was compared to a kid/toddler in a playground having a toy that he's not playing with. Suddenly another kid (Bayern) comes along and shows interest in playing with the first kid's toy. The first kid shouts "no! it's mine!" and begrudgingly plays a bit with the toy to show the second kid. Question is... once the second kid gives up and leaves, would the first kid continue playing with the toy he wasn't playing with beforehand, or would he discard it again the moment the second kid walks off?

^ Wow, that's a REALLY long post. I only have time to answer parts of it. Re: Alaba, he's IMO not even the best Bundesliga LB anymore. I really like Augsburg's Philipp Max (which you didn't mention, but he gets an insanely high amount of assists), and then there's (almost) everyone's favourite Marcelo. Alaba used to be insanely good, but he's not at his peak level anymore despite his ideal age. Agreed re Kimmich and Boateng. Hummels is debatable given that he's always been slow, but he is indeed getting more exposed, but I think that has more to do with tactics than anything else. It's ridiculous playing such a high defense line when your opponents have much faster forwards than your defenders, it goes without saying. Not a mega fan of Pavard, am more excited by the prospect of Lucas Hernandez to be honest. Now re left-footed wingers. It depends what you want to do. If you want a pure winger, that is the type that hugs the touchline and sends in a cross, you need to have a left-footed winger on the left and a right-footed winger on the right. If you want them to cut inside looking for a low pass or a shot, then you need inverted wingers (left-footed winger on the right). You're right, we need right wingers. So far, out of our current 5 wingers, only Robben prefers playing on the right. Upamecano is a good one, but it's not easy to get players from RB Leipzig. They don't want to sell, and their first sign of cracking could be with Werner.

You're right. At Bayern if he moves in January he'll find Ribery and Robben (who'll move on at the end of this season) along with Coman and Gnabry ahead of him in the pecking order, and new entrant Alphonso Davies who I feel would be around the same level (the hype around Davies is becoming almost unbearable). That's 4-5 players ahead of him. That said, I'm quite sure that he would be asked to play for the Bayern U23s every now and then, if anything to retain match fitness, and next season there would only be 2-3 players ahead of him.

The gap is always big, it's the same around everywhere. However I strongly believe that 18 year olds need to play. The higher the level, the better it is for their development, but playing at a low level is still preferable to nothing. He's not going to improve just by showing up at training, and it's unfair on him being given playing minutes for the senior team whilst he's lacking match sharpness. He should be playing regularly. If he's needed for the first team, he plays for the first team. If he's not needed there, he plays for the U23s.

Before Bayern were rumoured to be interested, CHO had mostly played for the U23s this season, and not often either, and this is including dead rubber Europa League matches. What's the point of having your most promising teenager hardly playing at all? If he's not showing up for the senior squad, which I can understand, playing for the U23s would hardly be stifling his development, would it? Surely better than him staying at home playing on the PlayStation or something...

I guess you need to ask Maurizio Sarri and (commenting way out of my depth here so please excuse me) Joe Edwards given he didn't play that much for the U23s either (though again, not sure what the reasons are).

Ironically, the fact that this cannot currently be found makes me not believe it... Or can anyone confirm that they actually saw it? Talking about Instagram, he's been following Bayern players and liking their posts. I guess that has some value.

What about Matty Lawless?

How realistic do you guys see the possibility of Chelsea refusing every January bid from Bayern and CHO getting regular playing time till the end of this season?