Non-Chelsea Transfer Pub

[Vesper 30,169]

22 minutes ago, akgw13 said:

Scale down the Drama eh? 

Acting like we are going to implode because Roman didnt spend 200m before the summer is over. Nobody knows what dollar limit the club set for transfers, Nobody knows what the clubs actual plan is for transfers. Nobody knows the dynamics of the players relationships and how they effect certain moves. I want new signings as much as the next person, but if they don't happen you need to support the team as a fan, not whine that they didn't pull off a FIFA inspired transfer plan. I want Martial/Bailey etc as much as the next but calling for one of the most successful owners of the past 15 years to sell the club because you think he isn't spending enough money is downright silly and reflects poorly on you as a supporter of the club.

I absolutely stand by what I said. If nothing else happens this window that is exactly what we are staring down the barrel of. Also, if he is going to stop spending money to any sort of degree (and again, that is where we are if nothing else happens in terms of incoming signings) that is not acceptable and the clubs will start to melt away. Nothing in that is drama at all. It is a stone cold analysis of the facts on the ground so far. I take a very granular level look at things, I never go off half cocked because this player or that player didn't get signed. Looking closely at things, and then panning back to a wider panorama yields what I just wrote, subject of course, to change in the next nine days. Things can indeed change in that short term event horizon, but until then, what I typed is as good as any picture of what can and likely will happen in terms of most of my projections, especially from the numerical valuation end. Time waits for no man or woman.

[dreamcfc 182]

4 minutes ago, Vesper said:

I absolutely stand by what I said. If nothing else happens this window that is exactly what we are staring down the barrel of. Also, if he is going to stop spending money to any sort of degree (and again, that is where we are if nothing else happens in terms of incoming signings) that is not acceptable and the clubs will start to melt away. Nothing in that is drama at all. It is a stone cold analysis of the facts on the ground so far. I take a very granular level look at things, I never go off half cocked because this player or that player didn't get signed. Looking closely at things, and then panning back to a wider panorama yields what I just wrote, subject of course, to change in the next nine days. Things can indeed change in that short term event horizon, but until then, what I typed is as good as any picture of what can and likely will happen in terms of most of my projections, especially from the numerical valuation end. Time waits for no man or woman.

If nothing else happens I agree, but let's just wait and see instead of expecting the worst. Be realistic, what are the chances that nothing else happens?

[Unionjack 7,531]

3 minutes ago, dreamcfc said:

All this drama and realistically all we need to do is sign a good striker (At the cost of Willian or Morata) and suddenly the future is bright again. Too many newspapers being read, there is nothing wrong with Willians attitude, he fucked up with the emoji tweet but other than that he's been nothing but professional imo. If we had 1 of our 3 or 4 attackers that we could rely on for goals i'd be happy going in to the current season, sounds silly but at the moment our most reliable goalscorer is probably Pedro...

JUST a striker??

We havent got 1 forward that I would goto the bookies and bet they would give us 20 goals And thats with us on our toes going forward.

Sarri is going to have to do some switching about so maybe other positions will score more. Thats what I was thinking why Alonso/Zap kept taking long shots V Inter

I'm truly confused to our lack of business. either shit players going or good players coming. Not a way to run a business.

2 minutes ago, dreamcfc said:

If nothing else happens I agree, but let's just wait and see instead of expecting the worst. Be realistic, what are the chances that nothing else happens?

What odds will you give me no 1st team upgrades?

[akgw13 867]

15 minutes ago, Vesper said:

I absolutely stand by what I said. If nothing else happens this window that is exactly what we are staring down the barrel of. Also, if he is going to stop spending money to any sort of degree (and again, that is where we are if nothing else happens in terms of incoming signings) that is not acceptable and the clubs will start to melt away. Nothing in that is drama at all. It is a stone cold analysis of the facts on the ground so far. I take a very granular level look at things, I never go off half cocked because this player or that player didn't get signed. Looking closely at things, and then panning back to a wider panorama yields what I just wrote, subject of course, to change in the next nine days. Things can indeed change in that short term event horizon, but until then, what I typed is as good as any picture of what can and likely will happen in terms of most of my projections, especially from the numerical valuation end. Time waits for no man or woman.

Hazard sold for half, Kante leaving, Willian poisoning the locker room, Fucked at LB if Emerson doesn't come good and Alonso value plummeting based on what? Worrying if our top 3 defenders get hurt, of course thats a worry but not based in any reality. We have a roster of players who can step in.

That "stone cold analysis of the facts on the ground" as you put it is purely based out of your opinion on players and speculation. There is no indication of ANY of that happening, besides what you believe from these journos click bait in the summer.

Fans don't like Willian(i myself being one) but he seems to get on fine with the players, his problem was with Conte. Poison is a leap. Kante is in negotations for a new deal + he still has 3 years left on his current deal. Nobody knows what Hazard is going to do, be it Madrid or sign but either way we will get value for him.

Let me be clear, I think the club need to bring in some new players and this summer they have not addressed needs. But your little scenario there is not based in fact and is frankly ridiculous.

[OneMoSalah 8,886]

Good to see the positivity surrounding Sarri’s appointment is still on the go. Not. Fucking hell calm down. Throw Eden, Willian, Kante Rudiger and Courtois into our starting 11 and we are going to be a top 4 standard team at least. You’d think we were getting relegated. Yes we need bits and bobs but you’d think we had gone bust and sold all our players reading this thread.

[Ayioros 76]

29 minutes ago, Vesper said:

I absolutely stand by what I said. If nothing else happens this window that is exactly what we are staring down the barrel of. Also, if he is going to stop spending money to any sort of degree (and again, that is where we are if nothing else happens in terms of incoming signings) that is not acceptable and the clubs will start to melt away. Nothing in that is drama at all. It is a stone cold analysis of the facts on the ground so far. I take a very granular level look at things, I never go off half cocked because this player or that player didn't get signed. Looking closely at things, and then panning back to a wider panorama yields what I just wrote, subject of course, to change in the next nine days. Things can indeed change in that short term event horizon, but until then, what I typed is as good as any picture of what can and likely will happen in terms of most of my projections, especially from the numerical valuation end. Time waits for no man or woman.

Ok but you have just no idea what's happen internally.

All you said is based on your frustration about this poor market. I can understand but please we need to learn to relativize.

I can show you point per point :

1 hour ago, Vesper said:

If this is the new Roman model going forward he has to sell.

We lose Courtois on a free next year, Hazard will leave for half what he worth (or less) Willian will be 30 going on 31 so resale is shot. Pedro will be 32. Alonso value will plummet this year. If Emerson doesn't come good in a huge way we are fucked at LB. Kante will deffo bolt as well I fear. Unless Morata has a huge year his resale value will be shite. Who knows what will happen to Bats. God help us if Azpi or AC or Rudiger get hurt. Willian is now going AWOL and is going to be poison in the locker room if we force him to stay against his will.

 We are digging a hole for ourselves that will be insanely hard to get out of for 2019-2020 without a new owner who will splash massive cash. 

1) Courtois will be sell for 35-40 or will go for free next summer.

But we have no keeper available of this level now. Oblak is not available. Alisson was fucking expensive and not better thant Thibaut. Juste make a better season doesn't mean he is a better keeper.

So maybe lost 35 millions but keep a top keeper for this season is a good idea. We can look for a new next season it's not a drama.

2) Hazard will leave for half next season ? Really ? it's a fact ? I didn't know. He could renew his contract and become our captain too, so again, it's just you who makes projections.

3) Willian and Pedro could easily be great player for us with Sarri so what's the problem ? Just because a player got 30 years should we sell them ? It's a failed to keep them ?

Maybe we should sell Willian to Barca to 60 i'm agree. But the fact Willian remain at Chelsea is not necessarily a bad news.

4) For LB again, you take the worst scenario, Alonso will be disaster and Emerson will not be good. As if it was the only possible scenario, no it isn't.

5) Same for Morata, he could easily be a very good player. Drogba had a poor first year too no ?

6) Stop saying no sense about we forcing Willian to stay, he said again yesterday in a brazilian channel he is happy to chelsea for the love of god.

You just want to see the negative in our team.

All is not black or white, some of your scenarios will be true maybe yeah, but you will have some good surprise that you don't imagine  (CHO, Barkley, Emerson, Ampadu  or others.).

Our Board should take better decision we are all agree about that but come on stop try to pretend we have a shit team and we have no chance to fight for top 4 or we are at the bottom of the hole...

it's really frustrating to always read the same posts on this forum.

 

 

 

 

[Vesper 30,169]

48 minutes ago, dreamcfc said:

If nothing else happens I agree, but let's just wait and see instead of expecting the worst. Be realistic, what are the chances that nothing else happens?

At this point, who knows, as the model of operations being pursued at present surely seems to be a 'one out before one' comes in scheme. The £60m net spend cap was reached with one buy, Jorgingo. No sales of import have occurred since then, and no incoming transfers that were not frees have occurred since. They are treating the players as if they were fungible assets, and operating at a zero sum game base level. Players have highly complex inputs and outputs that determine their value. Performance on the field, age, health, reputation, marketability, etc etc. In terms of age they are generally on a pretty predictable bell curve, with some exceptions.

A true inflection point (it is partly due to human psychology and the way we perceive ageing milestones on a decade by decade long basis) is when a player hits 30. We are going to run face first into that brick wall (or already have) with a large core of the team over the next couple of years. Kante, Hazard, Alonso, Azpi, Moses, Drinkwater, and Willian all hit 30 within a 10 day (Willian turns 30 on the day this window slams shut) to 2, 2 and a half year span. Fabregas, Pedro, Cahill, Luiz, Giroud are all 31 or older. The reason this matters is because Abramovich seems to have defaulted to funding the influx of players by selling the players already under contract. The contractual situations also further complicate this revenue stream, as I have already stated above (Courtois leaving on a free if not sold, Hazard, with only one year left next year, all all his erstwhile suitors holding all the cards in terms of being able to pay fractional value for him to finally bring him in their door.

Chelsea is a top 5 in the world club (I have seen it as high as 2nd, or as low as 5th, depending on the evaluating organisation) in terms of market value. A HUGE reason for this is the billions in telly revenue and CL revenue that we have taken in due to our great successes since Roman bought CFC. He also just wound down any further development for a new stadium. That is a MASSIVE future forward loss of revenue, not just in terms of amount of bodies in the seats but even more so for the loss of luxury box and corporate revenues. That will put a huge governor on how much we can spend for club upkeep as the revenue streams will be vastly smaller without a new, state of the art home. Combine that with an upcoming severe trough that is rapidly approaching in terms of current squad valuation (and thus another limit to renewal due to hundreds of millions less to spend coming from sales) and the entire model breaks down. The loan army can but bring in so much, and if we drop out of any realistic hope for CL or even UEFA Europa League, that is a compounding synergistic factor as well. Further revenue loss not just from missing prize monies, but also from a loss of global prestige. Look at Ajax for a multi-decade example of this.

Roman has SERIOUS legal issues with the UK government. He cannot even enter the country, and billions of his holdings are subject to the US/UK/NATO-driven Russian sanctions that are only going to be increased as the madness that is this new cold war is levered up.

He also has lost 60% of his peak £25 billion net wealth in the last 6,7, 8 years or so due to market debasements and probably some poor business decisions (I have obviously not done a forensic analysis of his books so cannot give you a clear-view accurate accounting of this loss of wealth.)

Add up the totality of the mise en scène that is CFC and its placement in the greater world, and unless there are dramatic changes that go FAR beyond a shit transfer window, it truly might be time to sell the old girl..

The newly anointed richest man in the UK, a certain Mr. Ratcliffe, seems to be quite interested in the colour blue these days.

[dreamcfc 182]

26 minutes ago, Vesper said:

At this point, who knows, as the model of operations being pursued at present surely seems to be a 'one out before one' comes in scheme. The £60m net spend cap was reached with one buy, Jorgingo. No sales of import have occurred since then, and no incoming transfers that were not frees have occurred since. They are treating the players as if they were fungible assets, and operating at a zero sum game base level. Players have highly complex inputs and outputs that determine their value. Performance on the field, age, health, reputation, marketability, etc etc. In terms of age they are generally on a pretty predictable bell curve, with some exceptions.

A true inflection point (it is partly due to human psychology and the way we perceive ageing milestones on a decade by decade long basis) is when a player hits 30. We are going to run face first into that brick wall (or already have) with a large core of the team over the next couple of years. Kante, Hazard, Alonso, Azpi, Moses, Drinkwater, and Willian all hit 30 within a 10 day (Willian turns 30 on the day this window slams shut) to 2, 2 and a half year span. Fabregas, Pedro, Cahill, Luiz, Giroud are all 31 or older. The reason this matters is because Abramovich seems to have defaulted to funding the influx of players by selling the players already under contract. The contractual situations also further complicate this revenue stream, as I have already stated above (Courtois leaving on a free if not sold, Hazard, with only one year left next year, all all his erstwhile suitors holding all the cards in terms of being able to pay fractional value for him to finally bring him in their door.

Chelsea is a top 5 in the world club (I have seen it as high as 2nd, or as low as 5th, depending on the evaluation organisation) in terms of market value. A HUGE reason for this is the billions in telly revenue CL revenue that we have taken in due to our great successes since Roman bought CFC. He just wound down any further development for a new stadium. That is a MASSIVE future forward loss of revenue, not just in terms of amount of bodies in the seats but even more so for the loss of luxury box and corporate revenues. That will put a huge governor on how much we can spend for club upkeep as the revenue streams will be vastly smaller without a new home, state of the art home. Combine that with an upcoming severe trough that is rapidly approaching in terms of current squad valuation (and thus another limit to renewal due to hundreds of millions less to spend coming from sales) and the entire model breaks down. The loan army can but bring in so much, and if we drop out of any realistic hope for CL or even UEFA Europa League, that is a compounding synergistic factor as well. Further revenue loss not just from missing prize monies, but also from a loss of global prestige. Look at Ajax for a multi-decade example of this.

Roman has SERIOUS legal issues with the UK government. He cannot even enter the country, and billions of his holdings are subject to the US/UK/NATO-driven Russian sanctions that are only going to be increased as the madness that is this new cold war is levered up.

He also has lost 60% of his peak £25 billion net wealth in the last 6,7, 8 years or so due to market debasements and probably some poor business decisions (I have obviously not done a forensic analysis of his books so cannot give you a clear-view accurate accounting of this loss of wealth.)

Add up the totality of the mise en scène that is CFC and its placement in the greater world, and unless there are dramatic changes that go FAR beyond a shit transfer window, it truly might be time to sell the old girl..

The newly anointed richest man in the UK, a certain Mr. Ratcliffe, seems to be quite interested in the colour blue these days.

As a football fan, you should worry about what is happening on the pitch rather than what is going on in the newspapers and behind the scenes.

Now if you get a job as our DoF or something you can get in to all the bullshit then.

Fact is, as of right now, we have a starting 11 on par with our rivals (with the exception of a proven goalscorer in my opinion, but debatable) the issues you are pointing out are what every club faces with contracts etc, if you were that good and knew everything about football and finances you wouldn't be here posting on the forums you'd be working for Roman.

I actually agree with some of what you say but you mention player values and it being a pretty predictable bell curve ...  here you couldn't be more wrong, in this market, a player has 1 standout season and he goes from being worth 15million to 50+ million.

In my opinion and having a positive view on my club, This is why we are a smart and well run club because we are not spending ridiculous amounts of money on inflated players. We try to get value, often we fail but so does every other club at times.

The value of any club could potentially plummet overnight if you believe all this nonsense.

[Clockwork 1,794]

10 minutes ago, dreamcfc said:

As a football fan, you should worry about what is happening on the pitch rather than what is going on in the newspapers and behind the scenes.

Now if you get a job as our DoF or something you can get in to all the bullshit then.

Fact is, as of right now, we have a starting 11 on par with our rivals (with the exception of a proven goalscorer in my opinion) the issues you are pointing out are what every club faces with contracts etc, if you were that good and knew everything about football and finances you wouldn't be here posting on the forums you'd be working for Roman.

I actually agree with some of what you say, you mention player values and it being a pretty predictable bell curve but here you couldn't be more wrong, in this market, a player has 1 standout season and he goes from being worth 15million to 50+ million.

In my opinion and having a positive view on my club, This is why we are a smart and well run club because we are not spending ridiculous amounts of money on inflated players. We try to get value, often we fail but so does every other club at times.

The value of any club could potentially plummet overnight if you believe all this nonsense.

Lol if you think we are a smart club. We paid 45m for Bakayoko, 40m for Drinkwater, and we paid over 60m for Alvero Morata. They were terrible transfers, i am not saying this in hindsight. I said this a year ago. All these players are significant downgrade to the players they replaced, and should be binned this summer. 

We are not a smart club, there just maybe a lot more stupid clubs in the PL though. I don't think there is a single club in the PL i would call smart. 

[Vesper 30,169]

1 hour ago, Ayioros said:

Ok but you have just no idea what's happen internally.

All you said is based on your frustration about this poor market. I can understand but please we need to learn to relativize.

I can show you point per point :

1) Courtois will be sell for 35-40 or will go for free next summer.

But we have no keeper available of this level now. Oblak is not available. Alisson was fucking expensive and not better thant Thibaut. Juste make a better season doesn't mean he is a better keeper.

So maybe lost 35 millions but keep a top keeper for this season is a good idea. We can look for a new next season it's not a drama.

2) Hazard will leave for half next season ? Really ? it's a fact ? I didn't know. He could renew his contract and become our captain too, so again, it's just you who makes projections.

3) Willian and Pedro could easily be great player for us with Sarri so what's the problem ? Just because a player got 30 years should we sell them ? It's a failed to keep them ?

Maybe we should sell Willian to Barca to 60 i'm agree. But the fact Willian remain at Chelsea is not necessarily a bad news.

4) For LB again, you take the worst scenario, Alonso will be disaster and Emerson will not be good. As if it was the only possible scenario, no it isn't.

5) Same for Morata, he could easily be a very good player. Drogba had a poor first year too no ?

6) Stop saying no sense about we forcing Willian to stay, he said again yesterday in a brazilian channel he is happy to chelsea for the love of god.

You just want to see the negative in our team.

All is not black or white, some of your scenarios will be true maybe yeah, but you will have some good surprise that you don't imagine  (CHO, Barkley, Emerson, Ampadu  or others.).

Our Board should take better decision we are all agree about that but come on stop try to pretend we have a shit team and we have no chance to fight for top 4 or we are at the bottom of the hole...

it's really frustrating to always read the same posts on this forum.

 

 

 

 

I deal with a couple of these

 

I never said Emerson WOULD be a flop, I said IF he was we are in a bit of a sticky wicket. I do think Alonso is not up to the task, perhaps I am wrong, but his lack of speed (and overall defensive awareness) is very worrisome in a wide open 4 3 3 that we will employ

In regards Morata, I am open (but also worried) as to his ability to come good. I was never on the Higuain train. Martial and Icardi trains? Hell yes, but wishes are like arseholes, everyone has one. I am ALL in for Morata now to succeed as we have probably fucked up any chance at Martial, and we FOOLISHLY (this makes me angry) did not buy Icardi for only £98m (he has a 2 week, July 1 to July 15 each year release clause) when the chance was there 98m for the worlds best or 2nd best pure striker (CR7 plays all over) is a steal, especially as he is only 25 (turned that 5 months ago)

Now, for GK. You didn't list all the myriad good options

We had opportunities to buy (Bold means the best ones we should have went for)

Alisson (I agree, was overpriced)

Oblak, once no swap plus cash (as he is in the city Courtois yearn to go back to) was possible, he instantly fell off my radar.

 

And now the fails that fall directly upon us, all the following are/were legit replacements, miles beyond what we have if Courtois was sold now....

 

Alban Lafont, went for ridiculously low price, and will, I think turn into a superstar over the next 3 years or so (he is only 19, but already 3 full Serie A season under his belt)

Gianluigi Donnarumma  He wanted to leave, AC Milan was banned from Europe football, all we had to do was meet his (less than Alisson) price (Milan said they would swap for Morata at one time (thats was said by their actual people, not some twitter rumour) We twatted around, AC Milan won their CAS appeal, and now we have lost all leverage

Kepa Arrizabalaga  superb young keeper, we didnt even try, Real tried to get him on the cheap and he then signed a 10 year contract, but Bilbao are the type of club you wave serious cash in their face, they sell usually

Mattia Perin  really good 25yo Italian, he would have been good here, he is in running for 1st team keeper for Italian national team, Juve ended up snagging he for peanuts

Alex Meret     22yo Italian, I rate him over Perin even, really vexed me that we made zero approach, Napolit got him for around only £19m

 

and now the ones still available (and yet we do fuckall)

Thomas Strakosha My number one choice overall, why we didnt buy him and then sell Courtois is probably the biggest frustration of the window for me, maybe after Martial

Jasper Cillessen another one who we could get, and via a swap perhaps (Alonso) Barca are selling their only good backup LB, Lucas digne so nned a LB, AND have wanted Alsonso for last 2 years. Alonso has roughly the same value (40m euros) as Cillesson's release clause)

Alphonse Areola Definitely an option too, not my favourite of whose left (Strakosha 1, Cillesson 2) but still would be fine

André Onana wild card Ajax 22yo, loads of talent, so athletic, great with ball, but he is bit of a wild child

 

and finally 2 well known Spanish keepers who would be adequate and miles better than the shit we have after Courtois

Sergio Rico from Sevilla 24yo, really good, not great but would more than do for the price

Gerónimo Rulli from Real Sociedad 26yo, i have seen him play like 5,6 times last year, is on par with Rico

 

As for Willian, we shall see, I hope his head is on straight, I only wanted to sell him NOW because of the insane 65m 70m prices being banged around, and the teams involved (2 out of the EPL, and then a Man U team who I REALLY wanted Martial off of, and would do a swap plus 10m if need to get him. Also the fact that there were great (still are) RW upgrades or on par for him ALL far younger 

Leon Bailey  my number one choice, saw zero concrete movement by us 

Suso, a younger (24) clone of Jose Callejon

Ousame Demebele (again Barca wanted to do a swap deal, and Willian plus Alonso was a suggested  swap BY THEM, maybe with a wee bit of cash tossed in as sweetener)

Malcom (GRRRRR we bollocksed that shit up BAD, he was my second choice after Bailey, we could have had him for only £36.5m!! ) 

Federico Bernardeschi (Juve have THREE starting level LWers and they wanted cash to go for Pogba) 

Christian Pulisic (for a decent price, i do not think he is worth atm what Dortmund want)

Federico Chiesa  Fiorentina   maybe even better than Bernardeshi, wonderful young Italian RW

ALL those but Malcom are still out there

 

At the end of day, all the problematics MAY come good, they may totally break their bad form they have had (I never btw,wanted to sell pedro at all)

odds are small all come good

I am not slagging the club out

I am being realistic and looking at big, long term picture

If I didn't care about my Blues, i would not be writing books (lolol) on here

[dreamcfc 182]

26 minutes ago, Clockwork said:

Lol if you think we are a smart club. We paid 45m for Bakayoko, 40m for Drinkwater, and we paid over 60m for Alvero Morata. They were terrible transfers, i am not saying this in hindsight. I said this a year ago. All these players are significant downgrade to the players they replaced, and should be binned this summer. 

We are not a smart club, there just maybe a lot more stupid clubs in the PL though. I don't think there is a single club in the PL i would call smart. 

I'm not disputing we made some terrible transfers and maybe labelling us a smart club is over the top, I just compare to other clubs as that's all you can really do as a football fan and we're not as bad as people make out. Every club has these expensive flops at some point.

Compare our team to our rivals and we're not far off. Hazard and Willian as LW/RW with a proper 9 is as good as anyone else. We also have Pedro as backup, pretty solid if you ask me. Just getting that goalscorer in is important or we are taking a risk, but it could still come off good.

We have Jorginho and Kante in midfield which any team in the league would probably want these players. Some youth possibly coming in to fill the other spot , Utd bought Lingaard into their team we can do the same with Barkley hopefully, for me Barkley is a better player than Lingaard at the same job.

We have one of the best RB in the league in Azpilicueta, Rudiger I believe will also be a boss at CB, the other CB position is debatable but Luiz or AC are not bad choices. LB remains to be seen but I think Alonso/Emerson is ok.

We can still look forward to this season without having to get rid of half our team or spending tons of money.

[RoyalBlues 4,050]

Lol, like you guys doesn't know already. The one and only reason for the delay is that, we have to ask Hazard first who will he want us to buy for him to stay.

[YorkshireBlue 3,275]

6 minutes ago, RoyalBlues said:

Lol, like you guys doesn't know already. The one and only reason for the delay is that, we have to ask Hazard first who will he want us to buy for him to stay.

Zidane is retired tho so we fucked 😂😂

[Hamilton 2,120]

1 hour ago, RoyalBlues said:

Lol, like you guys doesn't know already. The one and only reason for the delay is that, we have to ask Hazard first who will he want us to buy for him to stay.

Mata!!

[Polo7 3,496]

With the amounts being spent by City and Liverpool there is no way we can keep up by penny pinching. Maybe Roman should look to sell because this isnt working. We are getting more from sponsorship but we are spending less....makes sense.

[Clockwork 1,794]

4 hours ago, dreamcfc said:

I'm not disputing we made some terrible transfers and maybe labelling us a smart club is over the top, I just compare to other clubs as that's all you can really do as a football fan and we're not as bad as people make out. Every club has these expensive flops at some point.

Compare our team to our rivals and we're not far off. Hazard and Willian as LW/RW with a proper 9 is as good as anyone else. We also have Pedro as backup, pretty solid if you ask me. Just getting that goalscorer in is important or we are taking a risk, but it could still come off good.

We have Jorginho and Kante in midfield which any team in the league would probably want these players. Some youth possibly coming in to fill the other spot , Utd bought Lingaard into their team we can do the same with Barkley hopefully, for me Barkley is a better player than Lingaard at the same job.

We have one of the best RB in the league in Azpilicueta, Rudiger I believe will also be a boss at CB, the other CB position is debatable but Luiz or AC are not bad choices. LB remains to be seen but I think Alonso/Emerson is ok.

We can still look forward to this season without having to get rid of half our team or spending tons of money.

We finished 30 points off from 1st place, and we have only made one significant signing. That is terrible, you are significantly overrating our current squad. I am not sure how you think we will be okay. Plus we are changing our style, the transition will not be easily and there will be growing pains. Added quality could mask some of it. 

[robsblubot 3,595]

Some excellent points made on this thread, on both sides of the argument (the OK vs fucked). We prob lie somewhere in between the two....

Think we all can agree on a couple of bizarre signings (CMs) and the disappointment in the striker position, which I too am still hopeful of an improvement. Striker is a very difficult position to fix.

The GK situation corroborates my reasoning as to why we are so slow, and frankly, bad at transfers.

While I do believe resources aren't as abundant as they once were, the real reason for me is that this club is reactive and not proactive. In the world of business, it means the club is not doing well and is getting behind clubs who are more proactive, not only dealing with transfers, but marketing, PR, etc.

Back to the GK, it's not just the fact his contract is ending soon, but the fact we currently have not one but two stopgap options as subs. We have no aspiring, younger player, like Courtois himself once was, to eventually take over and have a shot at turning into a great GK. We seem to be incapable of providing these opportunities to younger players, which to me also points to the fact the club just doesn't think long-term.

The system/formation change may help certain players, including Alonso. Pace is more important to a wing back than it is for a LB, esp a tall one who can help out the defense by winning high balls (as he has done plenty of). Moses on the other hand will be hard to fit as I don't think he's good enough to play in attack. It will be an interesting season with many bets on young and establish players... can't wait.

* Bakayoko needs leave the club though (he must not be in the team starting the season)

[Marvin123 530]

 

[!Hazard! 3,394]

What the hell is going on in Italy

[DDA 9,938]

What is ther, like 8 days left in the window. We haven't been linked with a RWinger or top goalkeeper. That is my first worry. My second worry is that we haven't sold Drinkwater or Bakayoko. Are going to sell the deadwood or are we seriously considering keeping those two clowns for another season.