Reddish-Blue

Don't forget that Bayern have always held a strong interest in a certain young German attacker playing for Chelsea at the moment... It wouldn't surprise me at all if they begin to step up their interest in the coming seasons.

@Vesper if we were to get Gvardiol for a reasonable price, do you think a back 3 of Gvardiol, Fofana, Colwill is solid enough for future seasons?

We still don't have our Rudiger replacement. Fofana is a work in progress (massive talent but long way to go) and Koulibaly has looked below average so far. It's a pretty big concern that our defense is still heavily dependent upon 50 year old Thiago Silva being fit for the whole season.

I hope we continue the winning trend but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if we unnecessarily dropped 2 more points this season!

That dribble at the end of the first half where he just went through like 3-4 players and put the chance on a plate for that Milan player was like watching Hazard back in the day, lucky for us, that Milan player skied it over! I feel like the signing of Nkunku is a higher priority than Leao for our attacking structure. Both would be amazing but don't see that happening.

The Fofana deal was always going to be a nice fat bonus for Leicester as they repeatedly said they wanted to keep him till next summer. Feel like Fofana will be a solid player in the long term, him & Colwill could form a nice partnership at the back. Interested to see how Koulibaly does for the club because he hasn't looked great so far, really thought he'd be starting every game as our big name defensive signing but it's basically 45 year old Thiago Silva holding up our backline at the moment. So weird that we can't find value for money signings yet all of our rivals seem to be able to sign players in the 20-30 million range.

That's what we get for not being able to win at least 1 of the opening 2 games. Now we have to somehow keep AC Milan and their attack at bay over 2 games (4 points) to have any hope of reaching the knockout stages. Not the best time for a new manager to come in and take over as the players are still getting used to his tactics and we have key players carrying injury concerns (Kovacic still doesn't look 100%, Kante is only back in training, Jorginho looked like a 40 year old on the pitch vs Palace). Hopefully we can sneak a win

You could even add players like Ivanovic, Alex, Zouma as smart signings where we didn't have to pay overs in the transfer market and we managed to get some good performances from all of them during their time with Chelsea. Now we're spending 50+ million on decent players like Cucurella when in reality, we all know thats 20 million wasted (even City stopped the negotiations after Brighton asked for a minimum fee of 35 million).

That also comes from the setup at the club and who the coach is. When we had Mourinho in charge, there wasn't that much of an issue 'attracting' top tier players. We had that spine that kept us in the UCL hunt for many years. Feel like of recent times we had lost our way in the transfer market under Roman/Marina and the board. Even when Lampard was at the helm, he basically said I don't really know where to use Havertz....and that was a significant concern considering the amount we had paid for one of Germany's elite young talents. If you read between the lines, it seems like Lampard didn't want Havertz as he saw him & Mount playing a similar tactical role in the side. Hopefully we can get the DoF in place soon as that should help with getting those class players into the club.

Until we get a Director of Football in place, we will continue to look like amateurs in the transfer market.

From memory, his release clause only comes into effect in June 2023. There is zero chance of us getting him in January....surely the focus in January would be improving the midfield considering Jorginho & Kante's contract situations

Edited.

They were able to make those moves in the transfer window because their DoF and Arteta worked together, targeted the players they wanted and went in early before other clubs had the chance. Jesus and Zinchenko will prove to be bargains as they already have that winning mentality from City. I was expecting Conte to do something different with his tactics or selection of players but he literally got played off the park by Arteta. Playing that guy at RWB was a weird choice considering he was the weak link for the whole first half and then proceeded to get sent off 15 mins into the 2nd half.

Yea, let's worry about City trailing Arsenal by a massive 1 point with 30+ games to go in the season. I wonder how they'll make up that deficit. As for Dortmund, they were never going to catch Bayern Munich, even if they somehow added Mbappe or even CR7 to their roster instead of Haaland, they weren't going to close the gap to Bayern Munich. Bayern was simply that much better than every other side in the Bundesliga. I get the example of elite players creating the advantage but it's hard to compare him with a young Hazard and CR7 as they were both wingers/wide forwards, not center forwards.

When does Pulisic not get injured?

I like the look of Diaby, reminds me a bit of young Malouda on the wing, running at defenders at will, stretching the defense, adding that bit of physicality on the wing. He'll probably have plenty of options to choose from if he does leave the Bundesliga though...

Considering his fan following and the general hype surrounding Pulisic in the USA and him being touted as the Lebron James of soccer....I can totally see why he wrote a book. Maybe he just wants to cash in now as football careers are short and there's zero guarantees that he'll be playing for a top club in a few seasons time. Who was the last USA based player to be in a top tier league for a long period of time, the only ones I recall are GK's in Howard, Friedel.

That's right, we've managed to get rid of some of the 'deadwood' from the squad in Barkley, Emerson, Drinkwater. Will be interesting to see whether Potter can get Pulisic into some sort of form as we all know he has the talent to create chances and I miss seeing our wingers/attackers take on the opposition and make them look like fools (haven't really had that since Hazard left).

Werner was the one sold because he's the only one that attracted a decent permanent transfer fee...and Leipzig know that Werner will have more than enough space in the Bundesliga to create chances/score goals. If someone offered in the 30 million range for Pulisic or Ziyech, I doubt they would be at Chelsea sitting on the bench right now. Even when Milan were rumored to be in for Ziyech, it was a loan and the club weren't keen after Milan's track record with Bakayoko.

I wouldn't be surprised one bit if Azpi decides to go back to Spain at the end of the season. This whole transfer window was a mess and there was a very clear falling out between Tuchel & the new ownership group which led to confusion in all decisions (incomings & outgoings). Azpi's been a loyal servant for the club, basically played every defensive position other than GK for the club during his time here and I wish him the best. I guess the idea is that once our new defenders have settled in, we may not need to rely on Azpi so much!

I only tagged Blue Armour in the post as they quoted me and mentioned that I was possibly having a dig at them over their comments on Haaland, which was definitely not the case. As for your comments on Haaland, why does it matter if his overall play is far behind the likes of Mbappe? Mbappe's overall stats in Ligue 1 would be inflated anyway as he is playing in a weaker league with two of the best South American attackers right next to him. It would have been really interesting to see whether he had similar struggles to a young Benzema when he made the move from young star at Lyon to Real Madrid. At least Haaland took the chance and joined the Premier League to challenge himself, when by all reports, he could have played out the season at Dortmund and joined Bayern Munich on a low transfer fee in the summer.

@Blue Armour definitely wasn't calling out your post. Was more at the other user - LAM who mentioned that Haaland had gone invisible during his time at Dortmund. Like which striker in world football hasn't had poor games or games where they look completely invisible on the pitch? I agree that defenders will eventually find out ways to counter Haaland but he's still a freak of nature and he'll continue to score buckets of goals, especially when he has the best passer in the league playing right behind him!

Freund still has to agree his exit from Salzburg as mentioned by Romano. Just because he agreed terms with Chelsea doesn't mean that this current club will grant his release from contract. Wonder if we go for someone else, Campos would have been nice but I don't see him leaving PSG anytime soon.

I love the commentary here on Haaland. As if Haaland wouldn't walk into our side and be the starting striker for the next decade. We're stuck with the German golden boy upfront but he seems allergic to actually scoring goals yet City have the alien up front who will end up with 15+ goals every season just from being in the right position at the right time. De Bruyne will feed him chances on a platter with his top class delivery.

He'll definitely get caught out alot more in the Premier League (part of the reason why the other top clubs in PL never really pushed for his transfer) as his eagerness to get forward and put pressure or close down the opposition's attackers will lead to plenty of fouls in dangerous areas. Will be interesting to see how Potter utilizes him, maybe he settles down once we get an actual defensive midfielder in place. Just look at City with Rodri doing the dirty work in midfield, their CB's don't have to deal with that much and they can sit back and take risks as required rather than having to compensate for a midfield that needs reinforcements!