Reddish-Blue

If we're willing to pay anywhere near that, we're actually crazy and Arsenal would be huge winners. To think Kudus was available for 40ish million...

Cherki just reminds me of Hazard back in his Ligue 1 days, he knew he was better than most of the players out there. Definite star potential in that kid once he's fully developed.

I'm not even sure if he is a natural CB. Think in his younger days on loan he was used as a CDM/RB. Best of luck to him though, reminds me of our old Portuguese RB (Bosingwa), was good on his day but had his horrible moments as well where he looked like a League 1 defender.

I do recall Diaby making Vesper's list earlier in the summer 😀 Such a shame that we didn't go after him, sort of reminds me of Malouda back in the day, that ability to carry the ball, the physicality on the wing. I do wonder if we're seriously interested in Marcus Edwards at Sporting, he was under Poch at his previous club and he's definitely got the dribbling ability to help break down teams that put 7-8 men in the box and defend deep.

Will probably be Broja filling in. Don't see us going after another striker this late in the window.

He doesn't really have a position at United. Feel like he was meant to be a winger/forward but now they got Ten Hag's favourite Brazilian for 100 million and there's no way he's going to displace Rashford on the left. Even watching a bit of them in pre-season, he was playing in more of a free #10 role for them, getting into decent positions.

I just don't get why the club would choose Forest as his loan destination...surely a deal in Portugal would have made more sense considering South American kids tend to do well over there.

Doubt Palace entertain the sale of Eze this late in the window....unless it's a massive offer. Surely if Eze was the target, we wouldn't have gone after Olise with some secret release clause and pissed them off.

I don't see Broja going as he's the only other recognised striker we have in the squad. If Poch is looking for someone to play in the attack but not as the "#9"...we will still need 2 strikers for the season. Also, we have to remember that Jackson will probably be at AFCON in early 2024 so we will definitely need squad depth during that time. I would say Chalobah + Maatsen are more likely to go (would be a massive shame to see Maatsen leave so early as his pace/dribbling would be useful as an impact sub but for FFP purposes, the club will probably cash in).

Where's the list of the 30 first team players? The only ones that looked likely to leave were: Lukaku, CHO, Maatsen & Chalobah (the last two for FFP reasons) Sarr will be stuck here till his contract expires, same with Cucurella.

Not expecting massive changes but not sure if Poch risks all starting XI players vs Wimbledon. Would expect Maatsen/Madueke to get minutes and maybe one of the youngsters get a chance to play at the back.

Actually...there is a free agent who ticks all those boxes, he's just completely washed as a player

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.