Reddish-Blue

That's interesting, considering Arteta was happy to buy him for 75-80 million (when he had that clause at Brighton), then Klopp wanted him badly for 100+ million... Compare that to Gallagher who has had three serious offers: Everton, Villa and now Atletico...

There are enough options in midfield and Maresca will be able to tinker with the lineup as required. The problematic areas will be: CB and who plays up top.

For me, it's the defensive issues and GK issues that will cost us a place in the top 4. I'm not convinced with Sanchez at all. All of our rivals have at least 1 CB who is the leader at the back. (Dias/Stones/Saliba/Gabriel/Romero/VVD/Lisandro). We have 4 players but none of them are leaders and Thiago Silva isn't there this season to 'coach' them.

He'll be so much better than Gabriel. They lacked that midfielder and striker to really go after Man City last season....and they're likely to solve both of those problems with Merino & Victor and they also added to their defence with Calafiori.

Guiu is not the answer (yet), has shown signs of his promising ability in pre season though, once he gets some proper minutes under his belt, he'd be a good option (those rumors of him going on loan to Spanish clubs actually made alot of sense). Feel like having a proper 9 like a Diego Costa/Drogba type would help so much as it gives you that focal point even when the midfield or the key playmakers are having a bit of an off day.

Even a washed up Welbeck would be more use than Broja since the injury. He went to Fulham and barely got off the bench 😆

a) If Gallagher was that good, the club may have offered him a proper long term deal, clearly he's not part of the long term plans in midfield but the club also don't want to see a home grown asset walk out on a free, so they offered a 3 year deal. "favour with the fanbase"....as if Clearlake care about that. They are just making business decisions, Villa apparently offered close to 50 million for Gallagher and Emery would have utilised him quite well but Gallagher rejected the offer. Even if Gallagher was to run down his contract and sit on the bench for a whole season, what top tier options does he actually have? It's either Villa, Newcastle or Liverpool if Slot wants a runner and I highly doubt he would join Spurs considering how much he's spoken about his connection to Chelsea. b) I agree with this but Tosin is a squad player that came on a free, fulfils the HG criteria as well. The bigger problem is, what do you do with Disasi/Badiashile as both look below-par.

People keep referencing the contract offered as 'not valuing him' but they offered to make him one of the highest paid midfielders at the club and these are reports coming from Ornstein, Romano. There's every chance they could have offered him a nice 5 year deal (as most of the people here are mentioning) but there's no guarantee that they would have given those sorts of wages.

You get why the club was trying to sell him though, pure profit on the books, same as Mason, same as Maatsen and I'd be surprised if it's not the same for Chalobah and Broja (if anyone wants to buy him).

Could he not sign the new deal (take the nice wage packet) and then ask to leave in the next transfer window? At least that way he gets to train and keep his fitness rather than being stuck in the reserves for a whole season until he walks out on a free

Seems like that's what the club did...offered him bumper wages on a shorter deal? You would think even Gallagher would see the picture with so much younger talent around the team and on loan/development....that his minutes would come down in the next 2 seasons.

If they were happy to be squad players, I'm sure it would have worked out for player and club. Both of them are limited players in their respective positions.

They gave him wages on par with the highest earners in midfield, how is that disrespecting him? A bit different when the rest of the players are new signings and the club is only giving them 5+ year deals for accounting purposes. Being 24 and getting a 3 year deal is actually better for the player as they'll be a free agent at 26/27 (which in most cases is the start of your career peak, especially for midfielders). He's not a top tier talent like Reece or Colwill. His England national team chances will only get worse depending upon who takes over from Southgate. Declan & Mainoo are going to be the starting mids for years, and then you got Wharton who will continue to develop and there's plenty of U-21 talent as well.

That's not the point, Smith Rowe has played like 20 PL games in 2 seasons and yet they get 34 million for him....and we can't somehow get 40 million for Gallagher who is one of the fitter players in the league. I get his limitations as a midfielder but he's worth more than 35 million.

Reece, Cucurella, Gusto, Colwill, Enzo, Caicedo, Lavia, Palmer could easily go elsewhere. The problem is, the rest of the squad is one of the weakest I've seen at Chelsea in a long long time, particularly in key positions such as GK, CB, ST. We really went from Cudicini/Cech/Courtois to Kepa then to reserve team GK's in Sanchez/Petrovic.

Maybe KDH and Maresca were actually close at Leicester and he was keen on following his manager... it's not like we are short on midfielders, guys like Santos, Ugo, Carney were like 20+ million transfers.

Will be interesting though, considering there is Fofana, Disaster, Badi, Nkunku, Ugo in the team.

Honestly, 45-50 + Lukaku leaving permanently would be interesting...

If Gallagher is 35m, how do we pull in 90M? No one wants Broja, will probably go for another loan on deadline day and Trev will be like 25 million tops (especially as the club froze him out of US tour).

That's what happens when you let your best CB leave for Brazil and you don't sign another leader as a replacement! It's like we are expecting Fofana/Colwill to become great CB's overnight but there's no experienced CB at the club to help show them the way (like a Cahill, JT).

Injuries happen all the time though, some of these players start so young in South America... I wasn't a fan of signing players before they hit the age of 18 as you always run the risk of serious injuries before they are allowed to move to England.

Why don't we offer them one of our amazing defenders to lower the fee...Badiashile was linked to Milan not long ago.

Is it really that difficult? Come to Chelsea, get a nice paycheck, play for an old Man City coach and we have some of your mates here already in Lavia, Palmer, Sterling etc. 😆

That's not how you play football manager in real life. You need to sign every wonderkid out there and hope that 2-3 of them somehow develop enough to play in your first team 😆

From memory, it was supposed to be Greenwood to Juve, Chiesa to United and a sell on clause for United but then Juve backed out and Marseille agreed to a 50% sell on clause. Chiesa for a low fee would be interesting!