nyikolajevics

They make very good job at Frankfurt when it comes to recruiting attackers.. Ekitike, Marmoush, Kolo Muani, they are selling to to clubs for insane money. And they always immediately find the next one. Atleti and BVB were used to like this.

That's more like an Inter/Milan thing. Napoli splash the cash quite often. They were the only one not only wanting Lukaku on loan, and De Laurentiis can be generous when buying, he is tough cookie when selling though.

Fair point. However, they are a more established team with same manager for 9 years or so, and many players serving for long time. Also, they faced a much weaker side than us. City also struggled against Palace, so were Liverpool. Agree on this one. I think we will benefit from Gittens once he understands his role, develops some chemistry with teammates and learns the routes he needs to run. Estevao is different type of player, he can have nice flashes on his own, hence he looked brighter Today, Gittens is more of a system player. Caicedo, Enzo, Palmer, Neto - just to mention a few of our best players - also didn't impress much on their very first games, they needed at least a couple of weeks to fit in a bit.

Annoying but shouldn't be too harsh with the boys. This CP was a very tough side, they defended their third very tightly. Maresca tried to manage the game aswell, sent fresh legs up on time, it didn't succeed this time.. We need to work on find the strikers and shot from long distance. Estevao was promising.

It was literally one person..

Aston Villa signed a Guessand for 30M. He was going to debut Today but because of Konsas red card he stayed on bench, but he will be great I think.

We signed him more than one year ago. Was already out on loan and since January he has been with the team, 8 months now. It's worrying if he is still not considered to be in rotation.

Last season we reached 4th and we are having a solid transfer window, hence I expect the team to finish 3rd or 4th comfortably. Liverpool and Arsenal seem to be ahead us, their projects have been ongoing for longer time, are more established sides, City are hard to predict. Newcastle and Aston Villa though didn't seem to get any stronger than last year, MU and Spurs coming from far behind. I expect the team finish top4 easily and not 15-20 points behind the champion. If we achieve this, we can say we stepped up again and we are getting better and better since 22/23. In the Champions League, regardless drawing, we should pass the league phase. After that, let's see which teams we face. If we survive till spring and get knocked off by a top team(Bayern, PSG, English or Spanish top 3) in a tight series, I am satisfied. Squad base, I want Maresca to find his best 11 quickly, find the best position for Joao Pedro and Estevao, and integrate Acheampong into the rotation. Lastly, this should be a 'make it or break it' season for Fofana and Lavia. For Romeo, we already have Andrey Santos and Essugo as cover, if he remains unavailable and at least one of these guys happen to be a hit, he can easily be get rid of. With Colvill's injury and lack of activity in the market, Wes can still walk back into the starting eleven whenever he is ready, but this should be the very last time we rely on him. There will be world cup after this season until the 19th of July, we'll have a very short time before next campaign starts, so I hope we can start preseason with the same manager and very little adjustments needed. If we achieve this, I will call 25/26 a success, even if we don't end up winning any trophy.

I don't believe negotizing for Garnacho takes 8 hours working time from Monday to Friday. Boards tend to hold several conversations simultaneously. If we don't sign a CB it's because we don't want/don't have money/fail negos with the targets.

I don't have much insight but I believe it's hard to "get busy" selling.. I'm sure Jackson would be easy to sell, question is the amount of money. Newcastle was rumoured to be interested, but Isak situation is still hanging in the air.. Wheter Castle recieve 120M for him or not is very important factor. Perhaps that's why the likes of Sterling or Disasi are still unsorted too.. Clubs are waiting to pressure us, they expect we'd lower the price as deadline day coming, and they have all right to believe so.

Very quiet around Donnarumma.. I have a feeling his departure was unexpected even behind the scenes and nobody really goes for him few days before the season starts.. He is totall different type of GK than Ederson, Onana or Sanchez, his passing is not so good.. Perhaps none of these rumoured teams want to mess their squad right now. Will be interesting where he ends up.

Wishful thinking.. Perhaps we were hoping the same but he didn't cover shit.

And play the games in Jeddah and Riyadh. Gianni, are you on TalkChelsea?

Second paragraph is interesting, so is his whole departure. Where did it go south? One of the best keepers at one of the best teams, I didn't think few weeks ago he would reall go. Well, hope you enjoyed your last game for PSG, Gigi. I did.

I'm pretty sure Argentinian also care about playing time. I couldn't care less about his reputation in Argentina, I just wonder how he will react if he doesn't end up starting each game. Meanwhile, Donnarumma announced his departure on IG..