Reddish-Blue

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!

This is good, would love to see the club focus on value for money signings and try to unearth some talents rather than having to spend big money and watch them put in inconsistent performances week after week (Havertz, Pulisic, Lukaku, Ziyech etc).

The story was that Boehly & co wanted to get Ronaldo in as the marquee signing (from a jersey sales point of view) and by getting Ronaldo they would also be in Mendes good books for future transfers (as he's basically the hot line for most Portuguese based players). Feel like Tuchel was let go because he had no plan B for our failures on the pitch. Playing youngsters like Gallagher out of position was the first indication that he was losing it...the Leeds game was a sackable offense and then we got beaten by Southampton....and a number of users on Talk Chelsea mentioned that Tuchel's reign was likely coming to an end. It's not the fact that we lost to Leeds, Southampton or Zagreb, it's the fact that we had ZERO ideas about how to score a goal and our defense was being killed by any team with a decent press. Could you imagine us facing City or even Arsenal right now?

That's what happens when you don't have a Sporting Director in place. Go look at our London rivals and how they've been able to attract talent and sign the players they need. Arsenal needed a striker, they got their #1 target in Gabriel Jesus. Spurs wanted midfield depth & more options, they got Bissouma, Perisic, Richarlison. We have to give the new owners time and hopefully once we get the Sporting Director in place, we'll be able to build a decent squad for the next 5 years. Feel like Auba & Zakaria will come good once they've had a proper run with the team and Sterling is without doubt the best attacker we have at the club. Broja should only get better with more games and I guess we can only hope that Havertz is able to score goals as that's what he was brought here to do...and so far he hasn't shown any of that Leverkusen skill set.

Sometimes it is better but in this case, with the squad running low on confidence, you just know Klopp would have given us a beating. Maybe not playing will be a blessing as we'll have a bit more time to get Kante fit.

Tuchel didn't really have to deal with transfers at his previous clubs as Dortmund and PSG have Football Directors who handle that. The only knock on Tuchel which people mentioned was that he didn't really have a Plan B or Plan C in the transfer market in case his main target ended up not joining the club (e.g. he wanted Dembele/Raphinha badly and we had zero alternatives for the right flank).

The most concerning was the CB transfers. Like how do you wait until close to deadline day to sort out the CB situation when the club knew from basically June 30 that we would be minus two of our starting quality CB's? It's like the owners were trying to play football manager or something, oh, let's try and get Ake back to the club (oh wait, City want 50 million, forget it), let's try and get De Ligt (oh wait, he preferred Bayern Munich), oh we failed with both, let's give it a go with Kounde and see if he's still keen (oh wait, Kounde purposely goes and joins Sevilla in their portugal camp even though the club asked him not to go there).....and then we pay 25-30 million extra on young Fofana. You're telling me there wasn't any other CB's out there that we could have gotten under 40 million from another league? Azpi, Zouma, Ivanovic cost about 40 million all up...and now we're going crazy splashing 75 million on a young talent.

I'd be shocked if we're not splashing the cash on a midfielder in January. The current setup just doesn't work and there's every chance Kante/Jorginho walk on a free at the end of the season just like Rudiger.

The dressing room problem is because we don't let players go when they want to go. Players like Pulisic and Ziyech should have been allowed to leave in this window, get rid of the toxic attitude from the team and re-build with players that want to be here. Even Azpi was meant to be sold but then the club refused to let him go to Barcelona because they trumped us and got the players we originally wanted.

Werner pretty much said it last season, he was very much frustrated at being left on the bench a number of times, even when the other attackers weren't really scoring or attacking. Happy to see him playing regularly again and Leipzig must be delighted that we actually agreed to a sale. As for CHO, very happy to see him dribble past players again, he's showing flashes of the CHO we saw at Chelsea pre-injury. I do fear that he may ask to leave permanently for the Bundesliga as wingers like him will get a chance to shine week in week out.

The sad thing is, he's the one who should have stayed out of all the attackers we had. Werner was made a scapegoat but you knew that he'd always give his 100% on the pitch, sure his finishing was horrible but that seemed to be down to confidence. Can't say the same for Pulisic, Ziyech or Havertz, talent isn't everything, sometimes you need that hard working trait.

1. We didn't let Rudiger & Christensen's contracts run down, Rudiger wasn't offered what he wanted and decided to go to market to get a nice pay day after some very strong form. Christensen on the other hand, rejected a 5 year deal from the club due to length, then the club offered a 4 year deal to satisfy his agent and they still rejected it. You can't force players to stay. 2. It's going to be a bumpy road in the short term as the players have to adapt to Potter's tactics. 3. I have no idea why the club kept Azpi, he's literally showing the same signs as Ivanovic (when he had that sudden decline and kept on getting cooked at RB). Fofana will come good but obviously needs some time to settle in and build some chemistry with Silva, James and co. 4. Top 4 looks out of reach considering we don't have a single attacker who can consistently bail us out of trouble and score crucial goals (like Hazard or Lamps or Drogba in past years). City have an alien in Haaland, Liverpool have Salah & Diaz, Spurs have Kane, United have a motivated Rashford this season.