Chelsea Transfers

[Vesper 29,143]

Now you know why I say we are the most complicated club in the world

we have 67 players to sort out, 🙉

whether sell, keep on main team, loan out, renew, release, or keep on reserves/youth

Tammy Abraham
Marcos Alonso
Ethan Ampadu
Tino Anjorin
Tiemoué Bakayoko
Lewis Baker
Thierno Ballo
Ross Barkley
Lewis Bate
Michy Batshuayi
Nathan Baxter
Lucas Bergström
Jamal Blackman
Armando Broja
Izzy Brown
Willy Caballero
Juan Castillo
Trevoh Chalobah
Andreas Christensen
Jake Clarke-Salter
Levi Colwill
Jamie Cumming
Danny Drinkwater
Pierre Ekwah Elimby
Emerson
Bryan Fiabema
Declan Frith
Conor Gallagher
Billy Gilmour
Olivier Giroud
Marc Guéhi
Callum Hudson-Odoi
Jorginho
Kenedy
Kepa 
Henry Lawrence
Marcel Lewis   
Tino Livramento
Ruben Loftus-Cheek
Ian Maatsen
Xavier Mbuyamba
Sam McClelland
Luke McCormick
George McEachran
Matt Miazga 
Victor Moses
Charly Musonda Jr. 
George Nunn
Danilo Pantić
Myles Peart-Harris
Abdul Rahman Baba
Dion Rankine
Jon Russell
Malang Sarr 
Teddy Sharman-Lowe
Thiago Silva (surely we will renew and keep him)
Dynel Simeu
Jude Soonsup-Bell
Dujon Sterling
Fikayo Tomori  
Ike Ugbo
Tariq Uwakwe
Marco van Ginkel
Ethan Wady
Jack Wakely
Davide Zappacosta
Karlo Žiger
Kurt Zouma

Edited June 8, 2021 by Vesper

[Vesper 29,143]

Keep on main squad for sure IMHO (some are on the must sort out list):

15 (Abraham IF we do not get a good price makes 16)

Edouard Mendy    
Antonio Rüdiger 
Thiago Silva   
Ben Chilwell  
Reece James  
César Azpilicueta    
N'Golo Kanté    
Mateo Kovacic  
Kai Havertz  
Mason Mount    
Callum Hudson-Odoi    
Christian Pulisic  
Hakim Ziyech    
Timo Werner   
Olivier Giroud (I so hope we keep him for 1 more year)  

[Superblue 6,372]

14 hours ago, Vesper said:

Keep on main squad for sure IMHO (some are on the must sort out list):

15 (Abraham IF we do not get a good price makes 16)

Edouard Mendy    
Antonio Rüdiger 
Thiago Silva   
Ben Chilwell  
Reece James  
César Azpilicueta    
N'Golo Kanté    
Mateo Kovacic  
Kai Havertz  
Mason Mount    
Callum Hudson-Odoi    
Christian Pulisic  
Hakim Ziyech    
Timo Werner   
Olivier Giroud (I so hope we keep him for 1 more year)  

I don't agree with Giroud. He's been a great signing overall in my opinion and he came up clutch alongside Pulisic in the run in last season.

But against Arsenal highlighted that Giroud doesn't suit Tuchel's style. He's just not mobile enough to drift and drag players out of spaces. Those front 3 need to be fluent for this system to work. Whilst Havertz hadn't had the best of games against Arsenal, we looked significantly worse when Giroud came on and lost any momentum that we had pinning Arsenal in.

Tammy I think falls into the same category not due to his lack of mobility but his all round play on the ball again disrupts the fluidity. I think both will leave this summer.

It's a difficult position to be honest because we need a goal scorer but I don't think it's as simple as buying an out and out striker who contributes little else. Hopefully Tuchel has someone on his mind, maybe someone less obvious but would suit perfectly to his style. Regardless of this, we also need the other front players to improve next season on this season's goal tallies as they just aren't good enough.

Mount, Pulisic and Ziyech should all be getting 8 - 10 in the league, 12 - 15 all comps. Werner and Havertz i think should be aiming closer to 12 - 15 in the league each, and 18 - 20 in all comps. 

We get that level of output from the above which I don't think is an unreasonable expectation, and perhaps add another attacker to the mix to contribute and we'll be much closer to the top next season.

Regarding your list, I'd agree with all bar Giroud. I think Christensen should also be added, especially if we continue in a back 3 system which suits his skillset perfectly, and I also think he has the potential of being the long term replacement for Silva as the middle man in the 3 (just like he was primed to do under Conte).

I'd also add Jorginho. I understand he's a very marmite player but he's important for Tuchel's system, being able to control the game and whilst Tuchel is here, he won't be going. Take his mistake out from the other night and his form in the second half of this season has been very good. Similar to Christensen he's very suited to a back 3 system also where he has added protection behind him. I think we would benefit more long term if Gilmour went out on loan for a season or two before coming back and replacing Jorginho. We should be more concerned trying to find someone who can rotate with Kante and offer his role in the midfield.

[Atomiswave 6,072]

I hope the Verratti rumours are true, would be a quality addition

[MoroccanBlue 5,320]

2 minutes ago, Atomiswave said:

I hope the Verratti rumours are true, would be a quality addition

Could ideally get 3-5 good years out of him. Much like Fernandinho, bloke takes care of himself. massively. 

[Atomiswave 6,072]

1 minute ago, MoroccanBlue said:

Could ideally get 3-5 good years out of him. Much like Fernandinho, bloke takes care of himself. massively. 

For sure, would be a lovely signing that will make us stronger......

[Alabama 1,992]

8 minutes ago, Atomiswave said:

For sure, would be a lovely signing that will make us stronger......

How is the recent injury record?

Hope there is improvement...

[Beigl 1,387]

Would have taken Verratti some years ago, but not anymore.  Currently injured aswell. Don´t want to sound too much like Mourinho, but we already lack height in midfield so if there are other younger, less injury prone options on the market..

[Alabama 1,992]

1 minute ago, Beigl said:

Would have taken Verratti some years ago, but not anymore.  Currently injured aswell. Don´t want to sound too much like Mourinho, but we already lack height in midfield so if there are other younger, less injury prone options on the market..

Another great concern...

My option is Franck Kessie but would welcome verratti here with open arms just concern about his injury...

[Atomiswave 6,072]

14 minutes ago, Alabama said:

How is the recent injury record?

Hope there is improvement...

Isnt he injured now? Think so

11 minutes ago, Beigl said:

Would have taken Verratti some years ago, but not anymore.  Currently injured aswell. Don´t want to sound too much like Mourinho, but we already lack height in midfield so if there are other younger, less injury prone options on the market..

Younger less injury prone is good but must be of quality too, maybe Camavinga

[Vesper 29,143]

did anyone see this?

Benjamin Mendy (the Citeh LB)

 

[Blues Forever 1,232]

8 minutes ago, Vesper said:

did anyone see this?

Benjamin Mendy (the Citeh LB)

 

Probably just a mistake, Ben Mendy is bang average i refuse to believe Tuchel want to buy him

Edited May 14, 2021 by Blues Forever

[Vesper 29,143]

Vlahovic, Isak, Malen… Bamford?! Who are the best Plan Bs to Erling Haaland?

https://theathletic.com/2479067/2021/03/27/vlahovic-isak-malen-bamford-who-are-the-best-plan-bs-to-erling-haaland/

 

Everybody wants Erling Haaland. Whether every top club gazing hungrily in the Borussia Dortmund striker’s direction can actually afford to sign him this summer is another question.

When transfer fee, wages and the cost of superagent Mino Raiola’s involvement are factored in, the total outlay could find its way north of £200 million. During a pandemic that has caused clubs huge financial damage.

Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea are the English sides with the resources to do a hypothetical deal of that size, while Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid and Juventus also want to be in the conversation.

Raiola has claimed, somewhat optimistically, that 10 clubs around Europe are in the running for the 20-year-old Norwegian. The list of serious suitors is likely to be a lot shorter, but it makes financial sense for Dortmund to encourage a bidding war at the end of this season rather than wait to sell in the summer of 2022, when Haaland’s value will be capped by the activation of a €75 million (£64.1 million) release clause in his contract.

Whatever the eventual price, the club who succeed in convincing Haaland to continue his record-breaking career with them will consider the deal a more than worthy investment. But what about the suitors who fail? Only one can sign the striker who might end up dominating the next decade of European football, and the others will have to pivot to other plans. City, Chelsea and United all need another quality No 9 option regardless, so it would be wise for their wish-lists to be more than one name long.

In consultation with our analytics team and Tifo Football, The Athletic has compiled a list of alternative strikers who fit a similar profile or could be ready to step up to a top club, and might reasonably be available this summer.

But first, a disclaimer: no one is claiming any of the names below are or will be as good as Haaland, whose staggering body of work at 20 suggests he is a generational goalscoring talent, they are simply strikers who each possess qualities that might prove valuable to any top club that misses out on their top target this summer.

With that in mind, let’s proceed…

---

Haaland’s game is astonishingly minimalist. He is as pure a goalscorer as they come and while he links up well with Dortmund’s other attackers and midfielders, his energy on the pitch is almost entirely reserved for getting himself into scoring positions in the penalty area.

Smarterscout is a tool that uses advanced metrics to give players a rating from zero to 99 based on either how often they perform a specific action compared to others playing their position, or how effective they are at it.

Haaland’s statistical profile on smarterscout looks like late-career Cristiano Ronaldo has somehow been reincarnated as a hulking blond Norwegian nearly half his age, only with much less of an aerial threat than you might think given his size.

It makes sense for clubs interested in Haaland to look first for other strikers with a similar statistical profile.

How about Alexander Isak? A rare prospect who didn’t show his best qualities at Dortmund, where he started one Bundlesiga game in 18 months, the 21-year-old Swede is enjoying a breakthrough season in his second year at Real Sociedad. His tally of 12 goals in 24 La Liga appearances is good rather than spectacular, but none of them have come from the penalty spot. His non-penalty expected goals (npxG) per 90 minutes this season isn’t as far below the Norwegian as it might first appear; 0.63 to Haaland’s 0.76.

Isak is just under 6ft 4in tall but relatively slight and therefore, like Haaland, is not a consistent aerial force despite his frame. His age means he has plenty of time to round out that aspect of his game, and there’s plenty else to recommend him right now. He offers a similar penalty box threat, links play well and is an unusually skilful ball carrier for his size, as well as being more impactful when his team doesn’t have the ball…

The biggest issue with Isak is that any analysis of him as an elite striker in the making is based on a relatively small sample size.

He scored 13 goals in 16 Eredivisie appearances on loan at Willem II from Dortmund for the second half of 2018-19, but he has less than a full season of shining in one of Europe’s top five leagues to his name. The €70 million (£59.8 million) buyout clause in his contract makes him cheaper than Haaland would be this summer, but still a significant gamble for a club seeking the finished article.

A left-field name on this list happens to have one of the most similar statistical profiles to Haaland: Patrick Bamford, who is finally fulfilling the potential that convinced Chelsea to sign him nine years ago, when he was 18, in Marcelo Bielsa’s free-flowing Leeds United system.

His 13 non-penalty goals in the Premier League this season have come from the highest npxG in the division (13.4), and the only regular starters who have averaged more shots per 90 minutes than his 3.3 are Harry Kane (3.8) and Kevin De Bruyne (3.7). He is also an asset to Leeds without the ball, leading the fierce Bielsa press from the front and creating opposition turnovers more frequently than Haaland or Isak do.

In reality, it would be a huge surprise if any top club made a serious approach for Bamford this summer. Before this one, his best tally for goals in a single campaign was 17 with Middlesbrough in the 2014-15 Championship, and his reputation was as a good second-tier striker until Bielsa got hold of him three years ago. How do you separate his success from the system he plays in? And beyond the questions about whether he would be this good in another context, there is also the fact that, at 27 (turning 28 less than a month into next season), he is less likely to have significant room to grow his game. After what he has done this season, Leeds might well value him more highly than any club hoping to buy him.

OK, so how about the striker who has scored as many Bundesliga goals this season as Haaland has?

Andre Silva sits level with Haaland on 21 goals in 24 appearances for Eintracht Frankfurt; only Robert Lewandowski of Bayern Munich has scored more. Silva’s npxG per 90 minutes of 0.59 stands up well in comparison to other names in this list despite six of his goals coming from the penalty spot, and his overall contribution with and without the ball profiles well…

Silva isn’t quite as relentless a penalty-box presence as Haaland but his smart, sharp runs get him into scoring positions frequently and once there, he is capable of converting clinically with either foot or his head. Like Haaland and Lewandowski, the Portugal international is outperforming his npxG of 13.4, which reflects well on his finishing (although few players outperform their xG for a whole career), and this is already his best scoring season as a professional. In fact, since the start of 2020, he has scored 36 goals in 52 appearances for club and country across all competitions.

That is a big enough sample size, albeit disrupted by the pandemic shutdown, to suggest Silva is on more than a hot streak. It has taken him time to rebuild the momentum in his career following an ill-fated move from Porto to AC Milan in the summer of 2017 but, now 25, he appears fully formed and ready for a bigger stage. The only thing that might work against him is the recent example of Luka Jovic’s struggles at Real Madrid after enjoying a similarly prolific scoring run with Frankfurt (where he has now returned on loan from Madrid).

Another 25-year-old striker building his reputation in Germany after a frustrating time in Serie A is Patrik Schick, the man in whom Bayer Leverkusen reinvested a significant chunk of the money Chelsea paid them for Kai Havertz last summer.

Schick, an imposing figure in the air at almost 6ft 2in, offers more of a target-man presence up front – qualities that made him an effective foil for Timo Werner last season at RB Leipzig. His relatively modest return of eight goals (none of them penalties) becomes more impressive when you consider that only 15 of his 21 Bundesliga appearances for Leverkusen have been starts, giving him an npxG per 90 minutes of 0.60.

Beyond his threat in the final third, Schick profiles as a well-rounded modern striker, capable of holding the ball up, bringing others into play and leading a team press. The problem is the 23-cap Czech Republic international simply doesn’t have the raw goal return that Europe’s elite clubs generally look for in their strikers; he is still trying to do better than the 11 goals he scored in his Serie A debut campaign with Sampdoria four years ago.

Dusan Vlahovic has already surpassed that total with Fiorentina this season. The tall, bustling 21-year-old Serb turned heads around Europe a fortnight ago by capping a hat-trick against Benevento with a curling shot into the top corner from 25 yards but he generally does his damage in much closer proximity to the six-yard box. He is also, like Schick, a No 9 more in the target-man mould:

Three of Vlahovic’s 12 league goals this season have come from the penalty spot and his npxG per 90 minutes of 0.46 is one of the less impressive in this list, but he is only just emerging as an elite prospect.

His muscular, at times abrasive, style might one day fit particularly well at Chelsea, whose fans idolised Didier Drogba and Diego Costa, but it seems too soon to talk about him as a serious immediate target for any club with aspirations to challenge for the Premier League and Champions League.

Rounding off the list are two exciting Dutch talents.

Donyell Malen has established himself as one of the most dangerous forwards in the Eredivisie over the past two years, scoring 11 goals (two of them penalties) in 14 appearances before knee surgery ended his 2019-20 season in the December and 15 non-penalties in 26 so far in this one. He combines speed, sharp movement, skilled dribbling and poacher’s instincts, can score with either foot and only turned 22 in January.

Then there is Myron Boadu, scorer of 12 non-penalty goals in 25 Eredivisie appearances for AZ Alkmaar this season.

Just two months into his twenties, Boadu excels at dropping deep or drifting wide to contribute to his team’s build-up play, but also has the speed to play on the shoulder of the last defender and take up good positions in the penalty area.

He is well on course to beat the 14 league goals he scored in 24 appearances in the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season, and could already be good enough to shine on a bigger stage. No offence to the good people of Alkmaar.

---

It’s impossible to ignore the fact that all of the names listed above are at least a level below Haaland in terms of the body of work he has already put together at RB Salzburg and now Dortmund. But, of course they are; he’s special, and that’s why the stakes are so high for all of the clubs trying to sign him this summer – he is the only sure thing in a transfer market riven with as much risk as promise.

The other question the Manchester clubs and Chelsea need to ask themselves is whether any of the possible alternatives represent a meaningful improvement on what they already possess. None of them have a Haaland on their books, but all already have talented strikers who contribute different types of value to their teams, and finding an upgrade for a top-level team is rarely straightforward.

City manager Pep Guardiola can already call on Gabriel Jesus and Sergio Aguero, who is currently set to be out of contract this summer and might actually make more sense as an alternative target for a club such as Chelsea if he is still physically capable of performing at near-prime level (he turns 33 in June).

Jesus is an unusual striker whose goal return hasn’t justified the excitement that greeted his arrival from Brazilian club Palmeiras in January 2017, but his remarkable ability to press and defend from the front makes him uniquely suited to Guardiola’s style of play.

Anthony Martial is a divisive figure among Manchester United fans and his tally of four goals in 22 Premier League appearances this season is seriously underwhelming, but his talent is not in question. His speed, skill level on the ball and intelligence in linking up with Marcus Rashford, Bruno Fernandes and Mason Greenwood is also a significant part of why Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team are so slick and dangerous in transition situations.

Chelsea’s need for a truly elite goalscorer has been most glaring this season, in large part because of the struggles of Werner and Tammy Abraham. Olivier Giroud is a) out of contract this summer and b) 35 in September but in Abraham, they have a young No 9 who, last season, was scoring from open play at a comparable rate to Kane when he was the same age. The 23-year-old’s goal threat may have been far less consistent this season…

…but his profile last season indicated a talented, improving goalscorer who provided a significant asset to his team when they were out of possession.

The club who successfully persuade Haaland to join them can probably consider their No 9 spot sorted until the day he leaves them.

For those who lose in one of the most hotly-anticipated transfer battles of recent years, there will be no simple Plan B.

 

[chippy 342]

1 hour ago, Blues Forever said:

Probably just a mistake, Ben Mendy is bang average i refuse to believe Tuchel want to buy him

James made him look like he was running the clay and James is not exactly a Werner,  when it comes to pace. 

[chippy 342]

Just now, chippy said:

James made him look like he was running thru clay and James is not exactly a Werner,  when it comes to pace. 

 

[R2D2 368]

I read some rumours about Sandro possibility, I know he had a disastrous season but Alonso for Sandro we wouldn't have to spend any money.

[Blues Forever 1,232]

Just now, R2D2 said:

I read some rumours about Sandro possibility, I know he had a disastrous season but Alonso for Sandro we wouldn't have to spend any money.

No need, just promote Maatsen or keep Alonso.

[R2D2 368]

I hope people are shitposting when they say we already have to many attackers, one of the most disjointed attack in football with zero creativity and duds like Ziyech and Jorginho.

Edited May 15, 2021 by R2D2