Reddish-Blue

Wonder if Bettinelli or whoever our 3rd keeper is, gets a shot at this rate. We really went from the legend Petr Cech to Courtois to this....no wonder why we've become a mid table side.

He would be fine as a squad player for mid table PL clubs. Put it this way, he's no worse than Chalobah (who is only here due to Homegrown status).

Gilmour wanted the loan though as from memory he said he spoke with the manager and he said minutes would be limited to cup appearances and that's why he decided to go out on loan. The problem wasn't the loan, the problem was loaning him to Norwich of all clubs that were keen on him. Why not loan him to a side that isn't fighting relegation?

Look back at our 2016/17 squad that won with Conte. The players that we failed to replace with top tier quality: Courtois, Terry, Cahill, Hazard, Willian, Matic, Fabregas, Diego Costa....you could even add Alonso to that list as Cucurella isn't even half the player Alonso was (in the attacking third on the pitch). The only players who would get a shot in that team from our current squad are: James, Silva and probably Felix.

A direction towards building a younger squad is there, you can see it with the investment in Carney, Casadei, Santos for our midfield, Fofana up front, Slonina at GK, Badiashile at CB, Lewis Hall and some of the other promising youngsters getting a look in with the first team. You take away 4-5 starting quality players from any PL team and they would look bang average as well. Might be time to invest into some physios from the top clubs as well.

Willian to put in a masterclass against us and show that we haven't been able to replace his work rate even though he left years ago. I know we don't have key players fit but I hope that every player picked puts in a decent shift for this game and it would be nice to see us score a goal.

It's actually not a coping mechanism, he's not worth 120 million yet. That depends upon whether we keep our existing midfield trio (Jorginho, Kante, Kovacic) or not. I'm more curious as to whether you actually believe splashing 120 million on a single player (who hasn't actually proven anything at club level) will somehow elevate Chelsea back into the top 4 fight? We have significant holes and issues all over the squad. You look at GK, question marks over Mendy & Kepa. You look at RB, Azpi is well and truly cooked and teams will continue to target him on that flank. You look at midfield, we need a new Kante. You look at the attacking roles, we need a clean out. Right now our squad is no better than 8th place and if you honestly believe a combination of Auba, Havertz, Pulisic & Ziyech will somehow get us to 6th place in the league, the best thing to do would be: wake up from your dream.

I would tend to agree, the funny thing is, you could sell off everyone from the Tier 2 list (with the exception of James) and we would be better off as a football club. Hate seeing players like Pulisic, Ziyech, Auba steal a living at Chelsea. Feel like we should cut our losses and let them go, just to clear out the dressing room.

I wouldn't say stupid, Felix at least gives us an option in attack. Pulisic - can't rely on being fit Sterling - has been bang average so far Havertz - not sure what he actually provides Auba - we get what we deserve for signing an Arsenal reject Broja - out with long term injury

Fair point but we also need a midfielder who can do the dirty work in front of the back 4 so that they don't look that exposed. Right now between Jorginho & Kovacic, neither one has that defensive 'steel' in them to make those tactical fouls, get physical with the opposition and be able to break up play effectively. Even JT & co had the likes of Makelele & Essien & Obi Mikel patrolling the midfield all those years ago... It's no surprise that United look like a top 4 side again with the signing of Casemiro. We've missed that since Matic was sold by the club, that presence, that know-how in tactical fouls (which players like Fabinho, Rodri tend to get away with).

That's a bad example, Foden was given time to develop as they had class players in midfield controlling the tempo and dictating play in KdB, Gundogan and Bernardo. Not every youngster will get a chance to walk into a side with that much technical talent. It's a shame about Hudson-Odoi at Chelsea as he was making that break through before that achilles injury and then his development went out the window, we changed managers a few times and we sent him out on loan 2 seasons too late.

Has Fofana even had 5 full games for us yet? Bit harsh to judge a young defender with so little time on the pitch. I'd be more concerned about KK looking like a Championship level defender right now and Chalobah is bang average, I can see why we went for that Monaco CB as we only have 1 CB that we can count on putting in a good performance on a consistent basis (Silva).

The sad part is, we literally don't have a fit player in the squad who can single handedly score or create a goal for us right now. Reece is the closest thing we have to a cheat code in the team. How many years has it been since we sold Hazard? And not a single attacker has been able to contribute 20 goals (through goals and/or assists) since that time... I hope both Pulisic and Ziyech are sold in the summer and we start fresh in attack from next season. As for this game, it's got 2-0 easy win for City written all over it, just depends upon whether Pep gives a breather to De Bruyne and co.

@Vesper what would we have to pay to get Diaby from Leverkusen? Feels like he could really break out and do some proper damage in the Premier League with his pace & dribbling down the flank.

Put it this way, only two defenders can actually say they've performed well across their games this season (Silva and James). Chalobah, KK and Cucurella have all been under par and Fofana seems like he didn't fully recover from that nasty injury he had whilst at Leicester. If Chalobah has been that good this season, there would be zero reason for the club to sanction the transfer of another young CB in January...that money could have been spent on a RB who could actually take the pressure off from James and let Azpi play games as needed...rather than watching teams target Azpi's flank as a weak spot.

Well if Mount wants 300k a week for not really achieving anything, then Kante should absolutely cash in on his last pay check. As for Jorginho, hopefully someone from Serie A takes him off our hands and we can finally rebuild the midfield.

KK can be sold back to Serie A anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if getting that CB from Monaco is an indication that Potter doesn't really want to use KK As for Kante, what did people expect, the club was never going to let a top class player leave on a free after seeing our 2 best CB's walk away on free transfers to Spanish clubs under the previous ownership.

You mean the same Marina that led us to signing a rubbish striker for 95 million from Inter Milan who then proceeded to go back to Inter Milan after 1 season on a loan. Playing games and trying to negotiate is just part of the business. I don't recall any tier 1 sources like Ornstein say that Chelsea were ready to pay the release clause for Enzo. I'm quite satisfied that we aren't going to pay the release clause for Enzo. The kid is good but he's not worth 120 million, far from it. This is the first time that the club appears to be using the knowledge of the new footballing director to try and get a better deal.

The way Fulham are playing at the moment, get the feeling that they will be all over us. Could be a bad scoreline.

Maybe we should just retire the no.9 until we find a good striker who can break the curse.

Who cares about his Barcelona statistics? He scored from tap-ins and easy opportunities in front of goal, which he was never going to get at Chelsea. The fact that we actually paid Barcelona a transfer fee for a player that Arsenal effectively sacked should have been a massive red flag.

I think it should be noted that we had no footballing department in place when the new owners were trying to make statement signings in the summer and that's probably what led to all those rejections. Now that we have some serious resources in place (one comes from the Leipzig model, the others from the Southampton & City model), you would expect to see improvements in the players that we are signing in future transfer windows. Getting the young fella from Monaco at CB feels like a solid pickup as we're reliant on a 38 year old veteran to save our defense game after game. It's good to see that we are at least planning for the massive hole that Thiago Silva will leave behind in the near future as there is enough "talent" between the Monaco CB - Fofana - Colwill to build a solid back four.

Agree but unfortunately, we can't just sell these players. Feel like alot of the problems in our squad will be resolved once we get rid of the current attacking options (Pulisic, Ziyech, Auba) as well as allow Azpi, Jorginho to move on so that we can bring fresh energy into the first team.

In all honesty, Jorginho should probably go back to Serie A. He is a big reason as to why our midfield keeps on getting man handled by any decent team (Brentford, Forest, Leeds have absolutely destroyed us through the middle this season, Arsenal barely left 2nd gear against us and we haven't even faced City or Liverpool yet). Can't believe we actually went from the likes of Essien, Ballack, Obi Mikel to Jorginho. If our 3 first team midfielders were offered to the rest of the top 6 right now, they would take Kante/Kovacic in a heartbeat but I doubt anyone would be that keen on Jorginho as he offers nothing other than recycling possesion.

It looks like you're missing Cucurella and Fofana. They are both better than Chalobah and should be given a chance to settle into the squad. As for Mason Mount, not sure if we actually need him for 300k a week, he's not going to transform our midfield or attack.