Leif

Pogba would be a better player under Conte than under Mourinho, making him potentially even more valuable to us compared to them, since we'd get more juice out of him. The fact it'd make Conte's own time here easier would just be another bonus. I don't support the fee at all but we have so much money sitting here, and plenty other clubs have gone out their way to buy players they don't essentially need simply to nab them from a rival, it weakens them, it sends them into a frenzy. In this case there'd be more benefits than the usual too.

If we were serious about being the best team again, not just one of the best teams who gets top 4 every season, we'd try and bring Conte's previous identity to this team as much as possible, and go all out for both Pogba & Morata after freeing up funds from sales of some players. Selling Costa & Remy would give us enough to sign Morata. So that'd essentially be a trade with 0 pennies lost, for a player who'd demand less wages. (Costa 50m to Atletico, Remy 15m-19m to the Bundesliga.) As for Pogba, we'd free up a standard 50m transfer budget that'd otherwise be spent on the likes of that Swedish defender from Benfica or the guy from Napoli, and find the other 50m from selling Matic & Courtois (there are so many other goalkeepers near enough to his level.) Looking at the current market, Matic gets you 35m, Courtois around 35m-50m. There you go. Costa, Remy, Matic & Courtois out. Pogba & Morata in. It truly can be that simple. A team with Pogba & Morata who're familiar with Conte is a lot more powerful than Courtois and scrapping the latter. Begovic is good enough to start, and I believe once this season is up we could offer a 1-year contract to Buffon who'd want to play under Conte, and have him compete with Begovic. If we wanted to start taking the piss, Cuadrado, Pasalic (even though I'm a fan) & Marin being sold would be another 40-50m to put towards someone like Pogba. We're honestly run by monkeys, because we have *assets worth a lot of money* that we are not using. It's like owning 20 mansions and not understanding you could sell a few to bloat your bank balance giving you the place you *really* want. I'd reinforce our defence the following season, or pick someone up cheap this season. I believe with the amount of control we'd have in midfield with both Pogba & Kante giving the ball to Oscar, we'd rarely have to call our defence into action. In my alternate universe, we end up indeed selling Matic to United after they miss out on Pogba due to Abramovich stunting on Mourinho. I would also put Azpi back in position because i'm crazy.

I'd take Nocchi too. Like a lot of Italian defenders, he's going to be a late bloomer.

#SaveUsVucinic

Is this the guy that loved the club so much he, erm, wouldn't fight for his place? Very confusing guy.

We don't actually have 1 clinical player, so that needs sorted out. Hazard is too selfless, Oscar hardly scores, Willian too if you exclude his free-kick spurt, and Costa himself, he isn't clinical at all. That's not good enough. There's currently no players on the pitch with killer instinct and that's what's lacking still, that's what will kill us. City and United have players with killer instinct in abundance.

Excited for him to turn out a very good but not great player. So much hype going into him being the next great icon of football. I'm smirking. I'm doubtful he'll make the waves Yaya Toure made for City.

Jason Cundy should keep to TV instead of commentary

I doubt a manager can take over a new team without being informed on the previous season's best and worst performers. So he should know how shit Ivanovic was, there's even a chance some Italian friend of his follows us and chimed in. It will be known though. So who knows what happens now.

Shall we swoop for Iniesta too while we're at it?

But he doesn't even have 20 appearances in the only decent league he's been tested in. Where is the 'good prospect' talk from? Did he have a good game for Sweden? We need experience. Zouma is our prospect. Christensen is our prospect. Any more prospects instead of final products and we're just not going to get a league title again for a while.

Verratti is a good example. He isn't attainable, but if he was, he wouldn't be leaving for over 50m, nevermind figures nearing 100m. Verratti is better than Pogba, i'll have that conversation if anyone wants it. So why are you paying double for Pogba when players as good as do not command such fees? Because you buy hype, not quality these days.

You have to wonder how he's been rated among the top 10 wingers on all Fifa games for 5+ years now. He does nothing of note. He is a goat.

Players in Pogba's age bracket that are on his level - Take half his fee if even that, sign Calhanoglu, and you've got one of the best players on the planet. He's younger than Pogba & contributes more to overall team success. Going forward he's like Zidane. Then there's Saul at Atletico Madrid. He defends better than Pogba by far, while Calhan up there is by far better in attacking positions. Sane lacks the marketing and agent that Pogba has (do you think Pogba would be worth this amount with a different agent?) but Sane is also on Pogba's level. You could argue for Coman at Bayern too. There's more. I'll update at some point. Edit: Hojbjerg who Southampton signed. He'll be sold on for 3-4x his current worth in a year or 2 and for good reason. Tielemans will win as many games for you as Pogba with a moment of brilliance, yet he's 19, and 5x cheaper. Verratti; not a lot cheaper, but cheaper still, and at least on Pogba's level if not beyond it.

This entire Pogba saga has shown the power of marketing, in terms of his rumoured fee, and it's exposed how little people know about marketing & its powers which is a shame. Psychology works in strange ways for most people. You think something's better because it's more expensive. That's why people buy £100 white t-shirts instead of £10 t-shirts, because of the thrill. They both do the same thing. One is simply marketed to simple people who believe simple things. That is Pogba. There are many players on his level, at his age. Watch this -

He's a real champion. Real gem. We just don't hear about it because he's a German not playing for Bayern. Tis the trend. How many great German players are there who we don't hear about simply because of the team they're not attached to? Plenty. I haven't seen him in 2 seasons but when I did see him I thought Terry had got a new hairdo. I thought he was around 24/25 years old back then, but he's only 24 right now.

Like Conte said, he's a tailor, and in my opinion our body shape hasn't changed in a while. So with that said, there's no need to change our formation/suit, is there? With some incoming players like Kante, perhaps we put on or lose a little weight, and so 1 little adjustment or so will be made, but nothing radical is going to happen.

I love having a shorter player in a position you'd usually want a giant in, it's a big fuck to you to logic and coaches everywhere especially when it works.

a Vine that remixes those 2 together could be the start of a formidable internet sketch career

30 minutes of this broken English

wow, his eyes really compliment our kit, beautiful

why can't we be more like Liverpool?

http://www.chelseafc.com/videos/chelseatvlive.html

i swear if someone's sat comfy watching the PC with TalkChelsea open at the same time in this moment that they deserve a ban