Reddish-Blue

Bit harsh to say he's not good enough, definitely better than what we have at Chelsea at the moment.. Sad to see how far we've fallen over the years.

Pointless stat....I'm sure there would have been a similar stat for Everton before that Brighton game yet they absolutely destroyed them away from home. Relegation fights are always fun to watch as teams throw out the form book and they start picking up results no one expects.

If it's true, just another way of pissing off one of our better academy players.... If he can't get a cameo against Forest at home with nothing left to play for in the season....surely you let him go to the U20 World Cup.

How do you know that Jorginho wanted to stay though beyond January? There were reports from Italian media where they said Jorginho asked his agent to look for other options in the January transfer window as he wasn't pleased at the Chelsea situation and was keen on a new challenge. If those reports are true, it makes sense that the club took a transfer fee rather than following the same trend as Rudiger/Christensen and letting quality players go on a free transfer.

More like 5 million loan fee + option to buy from one of the Italian clubs. We'd be lucky to get 15-20 million from any of the PL clubs as they all know he's not consistent and he's got a poor history with injuries.

Remember when Gini got relegated with Newcastle and he got his move to Liverpool, turned out to be a pretty good midfielder. Same with Robertson getting relegated with Hull, turned out to be pretty damn good LB/LWB for Liverpool as well.... Feel like Lavia is young enough where its more about the experience than the results. If he was paired with other experienced midfielders and had a decent defensive line behind him, I would be worried as well. Let's not forget that Southampton also had 21 year old Bazunu as their starting keeper, and Bella-Kotchap as their key CB (also 21 years old)....not to mention various other young players coming in like Mara, Alcaraz, Diallo, Edozie, Sulemana.

There are other options available, doesn't have to be Poch. I personally can't wait for the club to announce Conte's return! If we were that desperate to get Lampard back for a farewell tour....then nothing is off limits.

The funny thing about Inter is that they have players who can step it up if they feel like it. As for City, if they don't win it this year with Pep, he may never win it with them. Best CAM in the world, Best Striker in the world, there's no excuses for Pep this time, if he chokes again, maybe there is a curse on him to go trophyless in the CL whilst he is City Manager.

To think Marina & co were apparently not willing to pay him 200k a week....yet we agreed to pay 300k a week to Koulibaly & Sterling (who are both past their prime). Some of these transfer decisions will cost us massively in the next few years.

Even if we bid that amount for Kane, there's no way Levy accepts. Feel like his position at Spurs would be untenable if he agreed to sell Kane to a local rival.

If one of the big clubs was to offer around 80 million for him, I doubt West Ham would be rejecting the offer.

Put it this way, if you put Kepa as the starting keeper in any of the top 6 PL clubs, I would be shocked if they weren't worse off in the PL standings right now. The only keeper in the top 6 who isn't an "upgrade" on Kepa is his Spanish team-mate De Gea. Every other keeper would walk into our XI right now.

Simply put, no, we couldn't. De Gea is getting 'shat on' because he's getting 375k a week and his form has dropped out completely. Kepa has too many mistakes in him to be part of a title winning side, he's basically the Spanish equivalent of Pickford (i.e. generally good but due to lack of size gets found out in corners and long range strikes). Remember that we used to have Cech/Courtois in goal for our title winning sides and we went from that to Kepa (who was only wanted by Real Madrid as a Spanish backup as he had a 15 million release clause in his Bilbao contract....it's a shame we got so desperate for a keeper that we decided to pay 70 million for Kepa, he'll go down in history as the worst GK signing based on transfer fee).

Maybe we can still get him on a free with Lukaku going in the other direction. Lukaku really seems to want to stay in Italy with Inter...and if we're that keen on Onana, might as well try to make a deal.

I wouldn't mind Lavia next to Enzo, haven't seen enough of Onana at Everton this season. Odegaard is class and Partey's had his fair share of games where he's shown that quality from his Atletico Madrid days.

A good CM will be able to break up play and get possession of the ball before the opposition has a chance to hurt you on the counter. Think we've been a bit spoiled over the years having watched Essien, Makelele and Obi Mikelele...and even Ramires do the dirty work in midfield for us. Kante is at that Essien level but with so many injuries, we really need to looking for a more long term solution in midfield. Will be interesting to see what the next coach has in mind...

Alot of them have left the club as they wanted first team football....and some have done better than others. Just a few examples of our academy graduates: Reece, Mason, Gallagher, Livramento (Southampton), Tammy (Roma), Solanke (Bournemouth), Tomori (AC Milan), Guehi (Crystal Palace), Gilmour (Brighton), Colwill (on loan at Brighton), Musiala (Bayern).

The fact that we don't have a DM capable of taking the heat off the defense will always leave us open, especially on the counter. There's a reason why City and our "peers" are so far ahead of us in the table, they've got players in midfield capable of breaking up play (e.g. Casemiro, Rodri, Hojberg, Partey, Bruno G for Newcastle).

I think we chose Mendy over Areola (who was on loan at Fulham).

It's a bit different though, you are managing players on a daily basis and the expectation is that you can coach them to victories. If management was based on winning mentality, Lampard would be known as one of the best coaches going around. Unfortunately for Frank, he has zero tactical ability and that was shown throughout his spells at Derby & Everton and now at Chelsea as well. (The setup under Potter/Bruno got us draws against Liverpool....yet for some reason, he decided not to build on that and get us out of trouble). If Frank wants to coach in the Premier League again, he should go and work under Jose as an assistant.

if we can't get something from Bournemouth or Forest, it will really show how pathetic the mentality of the squad is. Can't even blame this on injuries as pretty much everyone is fit...

Honestly, would be good to see Hall get a run to end the season. At least play these youngsters and see what they have to offer the new manager next season.

I don't recall him trying to incorporate Lukaku at all. If Tuchel watched Lukaku at Inter, he would know that he doesn't play with his back to goal and he prefers to get the ball in space. The sad part is, even a washed up Lukaku is a better finisher than any other attacker we have at Chelsea at the moment. That's how far we've fallen from challenging for titles, to becoming a top 10 side in the premier league.

The biggest question will be, what does the squad look like next season? Let's say Gallagher, Kovacic & Mount were to depart, your left with Enzo & Kante as first XI midfielders, with the likes of Carney as squad rotation. Defense will be the same next season with the addition of Colwill and possibly the sale of Chalobah. GK is a massive call for the club as Kepa isn't good enough to be first choice if we are planning on returning to the UCL spots. Attack is borderline pathetic. So many individuals but none of them seem to be able to play together. We really went from Mata, Hazard, Willian & Costa to Ziyech, Pulisic, Havertz and Auba...talk about drop off in quality.

It really is a shame how all the Italian managers finished with the club. Ancelotti was kicked out, Conte had a fall out with the board over lack of signings, even Sarri left for his beloved Serie A. This group of players needs an intense maniac like Conte in charge, make them work hard in training and it'll pay off in the league.