GermanBlue

This. If we aren't willing to pay the buy-out clause, we will not get him as long as Napoli hope for a club that'd actually buy him out.

Too ugly for our shirt.

I just had a boner.

From what I've seen today, I think he needs a loan if he joins us. Good talent, solid performance, but not that influential.

He might just wants to focus a move. Doesn't seem to be happy at Zenit.

I just can't see Ba leaving after just a half year. If one striker leaves, it will be Torres. Ba is the perfect rotation striker to me. There's a bigger chance of Hazard doing the false 9 like at Juventus than Schürrle playing the striker I think. And for a reason. Schürrle is awful if he plays alone up front. I can see him as a second striker, but not alone.

If we're signing a pacey, dynamic winger to better our keeping of posession, we'd do awful business anyway. We will sign a CM, if Mou is also seeing that issue.

Piet De Visser, who scouted him for us when he was back in Genk, thinks he deserved a chance in Chelsea's first team.

Who'd pay that 63m though? Even City will think about this.

I wouldn't say he's regressed as a player. I'm not too convinced from the transfer, especially from the fee, but you're making him worse than he is. The season before his transfer to Leverkusen, Mainz played a unbelievably good season and went from being a candidate for relegation to a Euro League spot. They really had a great team back then with Schürrle, Holtby and Szalai being the most important players. Of course, at Leverkusen he's not as much in the center of attention, but he's surely still one of their main players (along with Kießling and Bender I'd say). His confidence is still high, he's trying shots from unbelievable areas and even hits the target and scores some of them. And although I'm not his biggest fan and always liked Podolski in the NT more, he deserved his spot through the last years. Not exactly with tactical suitability, but with his offensive quality scoring 5 goals in his first 11 games for Germany. I agree with you that he messes up as a striker. He's not doing a good job holding up the ball with the back to the goal etc., but he never was a clear striker! André always was that more dynamic alrounder and even in that great season at Mainz, he rarely played up front, because Szalai was set as a starter there. That's where he also played on the left wing and he did great. Generally, his stats from Mainz and Leverkusen are very similar: Mainz: 66 games, 20 goals, 8 assists. Leverkusen: 65 games, 18 goals, 13 assists. (Bundesliga games) But I don't want to overestimate him. I'm not a big fan of him either. What's his major problem to me is consistency. He has 1-2 very good games and in the next 5-6 matches, you rarely recognise him on the pitch. That could be a problem for him at Chelsea as time to prove will be limited. Although the booings are really rare, I agree with the rest. He needs to work on his finishing. That's his second big problem. He sometimes seems not to have a clear idea what to do with the ball. That's not only seen when he's in front of the keeper, but also generally in the box. Sometimes he rushes a bit and makes the wrong decisions.

Very optimistic there but yes, we still have a very very little chance. Chelsea wants him and Mourinho also wanted him in Madrid. There's a very far catched similarity to the Vidal/Diego transfer to Juve where their agents also claimed to have agreed with Bayern (not nearly as explicit as Lewa's) and both joined Juve in the end. But that's just calculated optimism.

Well... with his agent telling the media a thousand times that he's agreed with Bayern... Yes, I think it could be Chelsea.

Now with the Schürrle transfer as good as through and Kevin not involved, how do you rate the chances that he will still leave us this summer? I think that a loan at Dortmund would be helpful for him as he would gain experience at a very high level. But is Dortmund interested in a loan? I don't think so. Why would they? Is there still a spot for him in the team that would support his development? I don't know. This is going to be very interesting.

OK, I'm cool with this. Finally strenghtes our bench and KDB isn't involved. In Sky Sports Germany's article on the Schürrle transfer, it is still said that KDB will probably join Dortmund.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUU

His agent told SPORT1 that there will be a decission at the end of the week. There is understood to be interest of Fiorentina, Napoli, Chelsea and City. Dortmund is no more named by the media.

Lewandowski in the German media (Sport BILD): He didn't name his "dream club", but it's expected to be Bayern of course. http://www.bild.de/sport/fussball/robert-lewandowski/wann-wechselt-er-zu-bayern-30709084.bild.html

The worst thing about this is that we have to fear that Chelsea will agree on this.

Nice business by City. Would've loved Fernandinho here...

Spot on. I can't see Zenit letting him go for under 40mio€.

According to a few German newspapers, Heung-Min Son is about to join Bayer Leverkusen. It's only about the transfer fee right now. Could be the Schürrle replacement.

Maybe his Real dream was all about José?

Seriously, that sounds too good to be true. Also, do Roma need a RB? Could Wallace expect a lot of playing time?

Sneijder commenting on the Chelsea rumour.

I'd love him here, but to me, Cavani should still be the highest priority. Probably Dortmund can technically afford him, but he'd have higher wages than any other player in the team, if he doesn't accept a cut. They did something similar in the early 2000s when they won the leauge in 2001/2002. After that the players demanded higher wages (got it) and when Bayern tried to sign a few players of them at the same time (similar like today with Götze and Lewandowski), Dortmund raised the wages again. In the next season, their success began to end when they even missed international football in 03/04 and because the wages were still very high, they made a lot of debts. In 2005, they were nearly insolvent when Bayern helped them out and gave them 2m €. What I want to say is that Dortmund have learned from this. Of course the success in the last three years was more than one league title and one UEFA Cup final and the wage of Reus, Hummels or Kuba will be high enough, but I expect them to act very cautious this summer. That's why I also think that they are not going to sign Jackson Martinez for example where Porto is demanding 40m€. I can't see them doing this ridiculous stuff. And because Dzeko is on very high wages (Remember that Wolfsburg pay ridiculously high wages, too), I don't think he'll join BVB unless he accepts a huge wage cut. But if we're seriously interested, too, and City are cool with it (which is the big IF I think), why would he accept such a wage cut, when he can get a lot more money here?