Reddish-Blue

Hopefully Poch can build a team that isn't reliant on star players. Don't want to go back to the days of Hazard carrying the attack...

Santos, Gabriel & Maatsen all impressed in pre-season but two of them are out on loan and the latter could be sold to make a profit for FFP.

The club isn't terminating his contract with 2 years to go (as of next summer). Straight loan to Roma at least covers his wages for a season and who knows, if Jose can motivate him a bit, someone else may sign him next summer for a decent fee (we'll make a massive loss but hopefully we can recover some book value for FFP).

Any links? Wasn't it Vesper or someone else who posted that Johnson prefers a move to Spurs

Just seems like Poch wants to use Gallagher (based on game time so far). Santos was always going to need a proper loan before trying his luck in the Chelsea first team and now his path got a little bit harder with our two new boys in midfield!

I don't see that player magically appearing before the end of the transfer window. It's been clear that we lack the creative type but the club has focused on other priorities and now we have 3 young DM's at the club... If only we could clone a younger Cesc to play alongside our DM's 😀

The sad part for Kudus was that he had the Brighton transfer sealed (their bid was accepted by Ajax) but they wouldn't agree to a release clause in his contract and the deal was off. Wonder if he spoke to Caicedo at all?

The same Inzaghi who never scored 20 league goals in any season for AC Milan? I agree with the rest of your points about midfielders of previous decades having the whole package whereas nowadays there are many midfielders with limited skill sets (either they are good at defense or they are good at attacking/set piece situations etc) but to say Haaland is just a glorified Inzaghi is a poor comparison.

I just don't see him doing well in any of those positions. He's like Luiz but without the talent. At least with Luiz you would get a good performance out of him (as long as he had a solid CB partner). Feels like another Kepa except he's a LB.

He would definitely be best of the lot (considering the players we're being linked with). I wouldn't mind another loan if Atletico were okay with it. At least gives us an option till Nkunku is back up to speed.

I think it's just us signing the wrong players from the Dutch League. Noni was nothing more than a solid youth prospect who was just finding his rhythm in the Dutch League...he very likely needed another season on loan in a more challenging league before returning to Chelsea. I recall our London rivals signing Vertonghen, Toby, Eriksen from Ajax and they turned out to be good signings.

It's not a made up player, Hazard/Willian/Mata could do most of those things quite well. Problem is, as plenty have mentioned before, we never replaced Hazard/Willian with the same level of player and we're paying the price for it. Pulisic was meant to be the holy grail but we found out he was made of glass, then it was meant to be Mount/Havertz to save the day but now all are out the door.

Honestly, we should just re-integrate CHO into the first team squad. All this talk of Barcola and these other youngsters won't make us better. Liverpool actually did it better than most by going after Diaz/Jota, both of them have that spark to ignite the attack throughout the game, why can't we find a player like that? We could have gotten Diaby from Leverkusen or Barnes from Leicester if we were keen on wingers but for some reason the club didn't get linked to either of them.

The fact that we don't have many players in that 26-30 age group is a massive concern. The young guns will always need a few experienced heads alongside them to lead the way. Get the feeling that we'll be found out quite a bit this season by the rest of the top 6. Enzo - Caicedo - Lavia will be a huge midfield for years to come but who's the experienced one that can settle the team down when the going gets tough? A player like Jorginho would have been handy right about now....

Seems like whoever we try to play in the #10 role gets injured.... Time for Poch to roll out the newly invented triple DM formation: Lavia - Ugo - Caicedo. Forget about scoring goals, just play 7 man at the back and give a hard tackle to every player that tries to run into our half

That's because we went away from getting quality, experienced players like Cesc, Hazard, Costa, Willian and going after "projects" like Mudryk, Madueke and co. I don't mind the investment in guys like Casadei, Gabriel and these other youngsters but we got our pants pulled down by both Shaktar and PSV for these two wingers. I'm sort of surprised we didn't get Ward Prowse along with Lavia, at least he would have provided quality set pieces for our CB's, striker.

Yeh and Everton were about to sign that same merchant like 1 season prior for around 30 million with add-ons... Makes you wonder what the club saw in him to pay 60+ million for him...

I don't see how that relates. United could have had Vlahovic for much less than 70 million yet they never showed any interest and they only wanted the Denmark striker. If Vlahovic was really that good, he would have moved from Juventus by now.

Maybe Juventus could actually come down on their asking price for Vlahovic and the deal would be done. They were originally asking for Lukaku + 40 mil for him, which is crazy for a player who scored only 10 goals last season in Serie A.

Maybe Chalobah (but he is out injured atm) along with CHO, Lukaku. Ziyech's on his way to Turkey so hopefully that's sorted. It's a shame we couldn't offload Cucurella

Doku just sounds like CHO but with a bit more quality? Don't see why we would need him for 60 million. Would prefer the club to get a proper goalscorer to lessen the load on Jackson and co till Nkunku is fit to play again.

Hall will probably end up a good player in a few years time but I don't think he'll be missed that much, feel we have enough young talent now to build a solid lineup for the next 3+ years. 35 million is decent business and helps balance the books.

I don't think anyone wanted to take the punt on Isak at 70 million, was linked to both United/Arsenal but neither were that keen to pay that sort of fee for him. Newcastle's signings are all solid, Isak, Wilson, Tonali, Harvey Barnes (surprised that no-one else went in for him as a squad winger, had pretty good stats for Leicester), Bruno G, Botman, Livramento once he's fully fit...

I mean back in the day Essien, Kalou, Drogba would all go AFCON and we were still solid as a squad... Jackson & Kudus going to AFCON wouldn't have been a deal breaker as the other African players have been sold (Mendy, Koulibaly, hopefully Ziyech).