Chelsea Transfers

[Special Juan 27,420]

19 minutes ago, MoroccanBlue said:

Your satisfied with the clowns we have at CB?

Nope but I reckon we won't buy one.

[MoroccanBlue 5,293]

Just now, Special Juan said:

Nope but I reckon we won't buy one.

It has to be Zouma + Tomori then. 

[Pizy 18,367]

It's just insane that teams like Leicester, Wolves, and Sheff United have far better defensive units than a massive club like Chelsea. And I do indeed think a big part of it is coaching/training. Because Rüdiger, Zouma, AC, and Tomori aren't poor players. Johnny Evans was the butt of jokes before this season, they've sold Maguire, and replaced him with a relative unknown and they've had arguably the best defense in the league. Would you have said those players are better than what we have? I don't think so. So it has to be coaching.

We can see Lampard has got his ideas about attacking implemented quickly and effectively. But maybe he and his staff just don't properly know how to coach defending quite as well? Like how Mourinho can coach the hell out of killing a match with defense but is completely outdated and barely coaches attacking football.

Idk, maybe starting next season with Reece as first choice RB, Chilwell at LB, and Werner + Ziyech ahead of them pressing will be enough to considerably improve our defense and a new CB will be unnecessary. Attack as the best form of defense. 

[Dec 33]

It's shaping up to be a very good window for Chelsea but the center back issue reared its head again yesterday. We cannot keep dominating games to go behind from a set piece or lapse in concentration. I suspect Werner and Ziyech will help us with this but we need to sure up that defence and I don't think a left back will be the only solution.

 

I echo sentiments about us being crazy to pass up on Romagnoli. Given that Rudiger is currently our first choice CB, I cannot see Ruben Dias complimenting the German and I worry about Ake's form and leadership. For me, I think Skrinar and Gimenez are great but unrealistic options given that Atletico are notably hard to buy from and Inter aren't that far off the title race this year. However, saying that by my calculations we should have a lot to spend given that FFP has been wiped out. But even if it hasn't we'd be in a healthy position as the Ziyech and Werner deals would go into this season and not next season's budget.

 

Out:

Hazard (last season) - £100m

Morata - £58m

Zouma - £25m
Batshuayi - £25m

Pasalic - £13m

Jorginho - £40m (I just don't see him working well in a 4231 which Lampard favoured most of this season and looked to favour in second half vs Villa)

Emerson - £25m

Barkley - £20m

Bakayoko - £25m

Rahman - £10m

Zappacosta - £15m

TOTAL - £356m

 

In:

Ziyech - £35m

Werner - £50m

Havertz - £75m

Chilwell - £70m

Centre Back - £60m

TOTAL - £280m

 

Please note that these are rough values, but that's over £75m of profit with a £60m spend included for a centre back, as well as paying over the odds for Chilwell. We've got room to afford big players, and we will have the versatility to rotate with a smaller squad akin to Wolves.

 

Squad:

Kepa / Caballero

James/Azpi - Rudiger / Tomori - ? / Christensen - Chilwell / Alonso

Kante / Gilmour - Kovacic / RLC

Ziyech / Hudson Odoi - Havertz / Mount - Werner / Pulisic

Abraham / Giroud

 

Other back-ups - Cumming, Maatsen, Van Ginkel (I think he will try and breakthrough next season and then leave if not), Anjorin, Broja

[Magic Lamps 11,653]

18 minutes ago, Pizy said:

It's just insane that teams like Leicester, Wolves, and Sheff United have far better defensive units than a massive club like Chelsea. And I do indeed think a big part of it is coaching/training. Because Rüdiger, Zouma, AC, and Tomori aren't poor players. Johnny Evans was the butt of jokes before this season, they've sold Maguire, and replaced him with a relative unknown and they've had arguably the best defense in the league. Would you have said those players are better than what we have? I don't think so. So it has to be coaching.

We can see Lampard has got his ideas about attacking implemented quickly and effectively. But maybe he and his staff just don't properly know how to coach defending quite as well? Like how Mourinho can coach the hell out of killing a match with defense but is completely outdated and barely coaches attacking football.

Idk, maybe starting next season with Reece as first choice RB, Chilwell at LB, and Werner + Ziyech ahead of them pressing will be enough to considerably improve our defense and a new CB will be unnecessary. Attack as the best form of defense. 

That is a good point and I think it was visible throughout the season that we lacked a bit of a defensive concept. I am sure Lamps is aware of that and will aim to develop himself and the team in that direction but I the players independent of their footballing and physical abilities have to be capable of picking those ideas up.  I bet no one said Azpilicueta and Mount to stay away from their markees for the villa goal or AC and Rüdiger to miss balls. Also during the season esp Rüdiger and Zouma have repeated Positional mistakes over and over.
At some point you wonder if those players are capable of executing the ideas of the coach. Esp Rüdiger and Zouma are two players who rely heavily on their instincts and athleticism. AC is more methodical but has mental issues and is not a good athlete. Tomori is probably the best prospect very methodical and very fast. His drawback is that he still has concentration problems and he is a bit too small. Leicester I think has a really good defensive. Esp Soyuncu and Evans are tactically very disciplined and don’t make many mistakes. Sheffield and Wolves probably have worse defenders individually but they too are tactically more disciplined than ours and work better as a team. Esp Azpilicueta our captain always defends on his own. Teams don’t really exploit it too much bc Azpilicueta usually wins those tackles. Usually the right sided cb is in line with the rb in case the rb gets beaten. AC however yesterday and Rüdiger in other games often is still in the center covering the striker which leaves space when Azpi gets beaten or there is a loose ball. On the left we usually do it better cos we expect Alonso to get beaten so the left sided bc aligns with Alonso to cover the run past him. Consequently there will be a hole in the middle. For this a midfielder has to step in bc position to cover the space there and another to cover the cut back. Then the striker has to track back to cover late runs of opposition midfielders or cbs. This basic movement pattern is learned very early in football academies in Germany. Yet we have failed to replicate it this season on a reoccurring basis. If some players have not learned by now I wonder if they will ever learn

[ZAPHOD2319 4,470]

With as many CB combinations as Frank has played this year, he has to know it is a concern. They might be waiting during the window to see if the market brings down prices.

[Supermonkey92 1,428]

It's just insane that teams like Leicester, Wolves, and Sheff United have far better defensive units than a massive club like Chelsea. And I do indeed think a big part of it is coaching/training. Because Rüdiger, Zouma, AC, and Tomori aren't poor players. Johnny Evans was the butt of jokes before this season, they've sold Maguire, and replaced him with a relative unknown and they've had arguably the best defense in the league. Would you have said those players are better than what we have? I don't think so. So it has to be coaching.
We can see Lampard has got his ideas about attacking implemented quickly and effectively. But maybe he and his staff just don't properly know how to coach defending quite as well? Like how Mourinho can coach the hell out of killing a match with defense but is completely outdated and barely coaches attacking football.
Idk, maybe starting next season with Reece as first choice RB, Chilwell at LB, and Werner + Ziyech ahead of them pressing will be enough to considerably improve our defense and a new CB will be unnecessary. Attack as the best form of defense. 

I dont think lampard is a good coach. And I make a clear distinction between a coach and a manager

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[NikkiCFC 7,933]

When you have best owner...

[Special Juan 27,420]

Ajax have signed Steklenberg from Everton, and the fans of Ajax have draped a banner outside their training ground ask Onana to stay one more year.

[DDA 9,690]

Let's not get it twisted our defence is utter disgrace. Only a miracle in the form of Van Dyk could sort it out.

[King Kante 1,474]

With our defence the way it is and the lack of CB's that are of the right level and available, I really think someone like Vertonghen might be a good shout. Left footed, not known for brain farts, knows the league, good it the air, tactically disciplined. Sure he isn't the greatest CB out there but he would be cheap and do the job better than what we have got. 

[Tomo 21,733]

45 minutes ago, King Kante said:

With our defence the way it is and the lack of CB's that are of the right level and available, I really think someone like Vertonghen might be a good shout. Left footed, not known for brain farts, knows the league, good it the air, tactically disciplined. Sure he isn't the greatest CB out there but he would be cheap and do the job better than what we have got. 

I disagree, he's awful at present, in a cup game a few months back he was hauled off for his own good. In short he's done an Ivanovic circa 2015.

 If we're going down this type of route i would rather move Azpi to CB which will make the room for James to become first choice.

[OneMoSalah 8,774]

9 hours ago, Pizy said:

It's just insane that teams like Leicester, Wolves, and Sheff United have far better defensive units than a massive club like Chelsea. And I do indeed think a big part of it is coaching/training. Because Rüdiger, Zouma, AC, and Tomori aren't poor players. Johnny Evans was the butt of jokes before this season, they've sold Maguire, and replaced him with a relative unknown and they've had arguably the best defense in the league. Would you have said those players are better than what we have? I don't think so. So it has to be coaching.

We can see Lampard has got his ideas about attacking implemented quickly and effectively. But maybe he and his staff just don't properly know how to coach defending quite as well? Like how Mourinho can coach the hell out of killing a match with defense but is completely outdated and barely coaches attacking football.

Idk, maybe starting next season with Reece as first choice RB, Chilwell at LB, and Werner + Ziyech ahead of them pressing will be enough to considerably improve our defense and a new CB will be unnecessary. Attack as the best form of defense. 

Johnny Evans has been a pretty good PL CB for over 10 years and is someone with vast international and top end PL experience as well as winning 11 trophies. He played at Manchester United over 100 times, don’t think many players do that if their below average from the period he was there. Man City wanted him as well when Pep came over while he was at West Brom. Okay he isn't world class but hes very solid, comfortable with the ball and doesn't overcomplicate It. I think his career has always been very under appreciated even more so when you consider some of the CBs he played with and mixed with during his time at United. Plus I think Rodgers has managed him very well since going in to Leicester as well. I am still baffled that an Everton or even Arsenal didn't take him when he left WBA or even before he went there, especially Arsenal in all fairness.

I totally agree regarding the coaching aspect here though and kept mentioning it before over the course of the season and even when FL was at Derby, his team struggled to keep clean sheets and defend corners. I do think set pieces will continue to be an issue throughout his tenure here though, I haven't seen any real improvement in that aspect in terms of organisation and would say it is worst than it was with Maurizio and that wasn't very solid either. These sort of things will continue to affect us in games against smaller teams who look to capitalise on these situations, the likes or Burnley, Sheffield United, Villa, Newcastle. Games we cant afford to lose points in because I don't fancy us going and beating the likes of Liverpool or City yet despite the supercup performance. Still think even with Ziyech, Werner and if Havertz come we are still soft in out backline. Chilwell is good but never worth more than 50mn, Kepa has to get back up to his level from last season and at CB we still lack a real leader and organisation.

[Superblue 6,370]

1 hour ago, Tomo said:

I disagree, he's awful at present, in a cup game a few months back he was hauled off for his own good. In short he's done an Ivanovic circa 2015.

 If we're going down this type of route i would rather move Azpi to CB which will make the room for James to become first choice.

The only thing putting me off this is Azpi's lack of height. I'm not even too concerned about this in open play for the majority of games, but set pieces at the moment are killing us and although there can be question marks over tactics and coaching, it doesn't help that we don't have enough players tall and physical enough to handle this. 

[NikkiCFC 7,933]

5 minutes ago, Superblue_1986 said:

it doesn't help that we don't have enough players tall and physical enough to handle this. 

I think this is not the only reason we suffer at set pieces.

Last game we had Giroud 193cm, RLC 191cm, Rudiger 190cm, Christensen 188cm and Alonso 188cm and still we struggled badly.

[Tomo 21,733]

10 minutes ago, Superblue_1986 said:

The only thing putting me off this is Azpi's lack of height. I'm not even too concerned about this in open play for the majority of games, but set pieces at the moment are killing us and although there can be question marks over tactics and coaching, it doesn't help that we don't have enough players tall and physical enough to handle this. 

Tbh i've sort of made peace with our set piece issues, as @NikkiCFC has just alluded too it's runs a lot deeper than height. I'm not even sure it's (hugely) on the coaching either as we were just as bad if not worse with them under Sarri (that's why i never brought the theory things would improve once Rudi returned).

There's ways round it though like anything, minimizing the amount we concede in the first place being the most obvious one, City (who themselves have set piece woes) have done that.

[Superblue 6,370]

47 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

I think this is not the only reason we suffer at set pieces.

Last game we had Giroud 193cm, RLC 191cm, Rudiger 190cm, Christensen 188cm and Alonso 188cm and still we struggled badly.

I agree it's not just about the height - you only have to look at that list, it's difficult to pick any of them you'd trust to impose themselves and dominate their opponent when defending set pieces.

But Azpilicueta is not going to improve that either.

We really need a physical, dominating presence in the backline and someone to lead by example. It won't provide an instant fix, but it would make a difference. I'm really disappointed that Rudiger hasn't stepped up. I always felt he seemed to have the right mentality and personality to be a leader and possibly even a future captain but he just doesn't seem capable to lead the defence this season where in the absence of David Luiz, he is now the senior centre back. 

[Vesper 28,740]

the very fact that a washed up CB who turns 34 in the coming season (Jan Vertonghen and who is a SPUDS player) is being tossed out there shows the dire level of our CB situ