Chelsea Transfers

[Jype 6,398]

1 minute ago, ulvhedin said:

 

Weren't U21 players excluded from the new FIFA loan rules? Mbuyamba is only 20.

[Vesper 31,108]

unless there is an actual master plan and a huge amount of unseen negotiations going on behind the scenes that are being completely hidden from ALL, we appear to be flaying around like a chicken with its head chopped off

[Vesper 31,108]

Chelsea: Ghosts of past haunt Blues on tough US tour with furious Thomas Tuchel demanding transfer solutions

Chelsea’s gruelling stateside trip has set alarm bells ringing over their readiness for the Premier League season

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/Chelsea-fc-thomas-tuchel-transfers-b1014543.html

In the humidity of Orlando, Chelsea’s pre-season bubble burst to leave them sweating on the future.

Arsenal’s 4-0 win in Florida over the weekend exposed flaws in the club’s preparation both on and off the field. The humiliating defeat also led to a furious Thomas Tuchel warning he could not guarantee his team would be ready for the new season.

In a worrying assessment of the problems at Chelsea, Tuchel also said he was in “urgent” need of quality players and questioned his side’s ability to compete with Manchester City and Liverpool next season.

The Arsenal defeat came 14 days after all felt well with Chelsea in their training camp in Los Angeles. The climate was cool and the Todd Boehly-Clearlake consortium were visible and happy, even though Tuchel admitted he was tired from the early demands of the new regime.

Fast forward two weeks and Tuchel’s mood is much worse. He again complained about the work he has to do on transfers before the Arsenal match. Tuchel would like to focus on preparing the team for their opening game of the season, at Everton on August 6, but he is helping co-owner Boehly find his feet in the transfer market.

Raheem Sterling and Kalidou Koulibaly have been signed for a combined £80million but the Chelsea squad is weaker than last season and Tuchel is demanding further additions.

Chelsea are short in defence following the departures of Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen on free transfers after mismanagement at the end of the Roman Abramovich era.

The focus has been so much on covering old mistakes with new signings that Chelsea are still carrying plenty of baggage. The only high-profile player who has left is club-record signing Romelu Lukaku — on loan to his former club, Inter Milan.

Chelsea have been unable to offload anyone else. Cesar Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso are still around despite wanting to join Barcelona, Timo Werner and Christian Pulisic are unhappy with their roles and Armando Broja has seen a move to West Ham fall through.

Kenedy, Michy Batshuayi and Ross Barkley are still in the squad, despite clearly having no future at the club under Tuchel. There is also frustration in the academy that Billy Gilmour, Harvey Vale and Tino Anjorin were sent home from the tour to play with the Under-23s.

The problems around squad management have been just one issue during a less than ideal tour of the United States.

Ever since leaving their brilliant LA training base at UCLA, the conditions have worsened for the squad. Chelsea stayed in one of Las Vegas’s most luxurious casinos but had to face the dry desert heat. They then moved to Florida, where sweltering weather conditions were taxing on the squad. They were beaten by MLS side Charlotte on penalties before the Arsenal thrashing.

This was a tour arranged under the Abramovich regime and it has felt more like a marketing exercise than a sporting endeavour, as the squad racked up air miles travelling from coast to coast. Unvaccinated players N’Golo Kante and Ruben Loftus-Cheek have taken no part in pre-season, training with the U23s and U19s squad instead.

Chelsea’s squad will reunite with their midfielders tomorrow, after being given today off. Tuchel will continue to work, taking calls on transfers and attempting to find tactical solutions as he weighs up new formations with a back four for the new season.

In the meantime, the new owners are under pressure to find transfer market answers to please their manager. They purchased Chelsea in chaotic circumstances and the club is threatening to continue along down those lines this season. It could put a delay on the ambition to move the west Londoners to a more stable model of football governance exemplified by Liverpool.

This was a tour arranged under the Abramovich regime and it has felt more like a marketing exercise than a sporting endeavour, as the squad racked up air miles travelling from coast to coast

Former Crystal Palace loanee Conor Gallagher has successfully staked his claim to start the first game of the new season, however, Tuchel will likely stick with Mateo Kovacic and Jorginho against Everton.

Koulibaly looks ready to hit the ground running alongside Thiago Silva and Trevoh Chalobah, who were exposed against Arsenal.Ben Chilwell and Reece James will hope to rediscover their form of last season after returning to full fitness.

Sterling has played both of his matches alongside Kai Havertz and Mason Mount. Although the trio have yet to gel, they seem to be the preferred combination.

However, Chelsea’s new owners must deal with a bloated squad, unsettled senior players and unfulfilled youth stars.

These are the ghosts of Chelsea’s past under the Abramovich regime and Todd Boehly and Co need to be nimble enough to resolve Tuchel’s issues.

 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Vesper

[Pizy 19,280]

Inter fans apparently really rate Dumfries. But as mentioned he’s not a CB so I’m not sure why the hell he’d be a Koundé alternative. He’d be a very decent RJ rotation option but even then paying €40m for a squad player is nuts.

Reading a bit more about him it seems he’s very mediocre technique wise but is a beast in terms of energy and physicality. Apparently he can run up and down the flank nonstop for a full 90 minutes.

Could be useful I guess. But certainly not exciting.

[turgi 71]

Spending big sum on Dumfries probably means Reece at RCB

[shrenshah 186]

...................Mendy

Koulibaly......Silva......Colwill

Reece.........................Chilwell

............Kante....Mount

Havertz.....................Sterling

....................Broja

 

I would start with this lineup in 2 weeks time if we are unable to get new players. Maybe Gallagher can come in for Kante if he is unfit.

[hazard21 1]

14 hours ago, Vesper said:

you support Chels as much as I suck cock m8

pro tip: Vesper = married (happily for years) lesbi

I will not destroy your dream ,believe everything you want . I will not waste my time on you . Hopefully I know very well which team I support and this is Chelsea believe this or not in my balls . 

[ulvhedin 526]

Wonder how much realistically would we have to pay for Osimhen - €100mln would be enough?

[Pizy 19,280]

4 minutes ago, ulvhedin said:

Wonder how much realistically would we have to pay for Osimhen - €100mln would be enough?

After we already took their beloved Koulibaly despite their manager and owner being desperate to keep him I don’t think there’s a chance they let Osimhen go too. Even for €100m. Not this summer anyways.

But after being burned by Lukaku for that sort of mega money I don’t ever see us spending to that level on a striker again any time soon.

[OhForAGreavsie 6,127]

2 hours ago, Vesper said:

Gerrard told Lampard in an interview that Torres was well on his way to being a spent force, and he could not believe we were paying that much for him

Danny Murphy revealed that even before then when his ex Liverpool teammates spoke about Torres they talked about what he couldn't do on a football pitch, not what he could. Then before even that there was me telling people that Nando was not the player people thought he was. Anyway, ancient history now.

[OhForAGreavsie 6,127]

1 hour ago, Pizy said:

Reading a bit more about him it seems he’s very mediocre technique wise but is a beast in terms of energy and physicality.

Then he won't do. Technical excellence has to be the mantra. It's not an add-on, it's an entry-level requirement. At every position.

[Superblue 6,372]

2 hours ago, Pizy said:

Inter fans apparently really rate Dumfries. But as mentioned he’s not a CB so I’m not sure why the hell he’d be a Koundé alternative. He’d be a very decent RJ rotation option but even then paying €40m for a squad player is nuts.

Reading a bit more about him it seems he’s very mediocre technique wise but is a beast in terms of energy and physicality. Apparently he can run up and down the flank nonstop for a full 90 minutes.

Could be useful I guess. But certainly not exciting.

If we were going down that rabbit hole we'd be better off getting Adama from Wolves for likely a fraction of that price.

But ultimately we can't just keep buying players for the sake of it, this feels like the position we're in now this window. It's not ideal but we'll just have to keep Azpi if it comes to that. I'd rather make do with him this year until better opportunities present themselves.

I feel if we buy Dumfries, this time next year he'll be on the list of players we should be looking to replace and probably can't then shift because we overpaid for him and his wages here will price him out of lots of clubs.

The question has to be asked - is our scouting department working to try and help Tuchel at all? Are they not perhaps finding a couple of younger players who we are scouting who maybe aren't quite at the level required yet but have a lot of potential and instead of watching them move to Porto/Benfica or a mid tier German/French team and thrive before we firm our own interest up then at now 10x the cost, surely there's a couple of players in this bracket who wouldn't represent as big risks because they're not going to command massive fees and massive wages.

As I said previously, my understanding is we were scouting Raphinha and Kounde when they were still playing in France. Why don't we ever pull the trigger with such signings. Are they meant to be beneath us? Are we happy to pay multiple millions more to wait and confirm they can step up to higher levels? 

[DDA 10,241]

Was hoping to wake up to some breaking news...

Instead the daily 'De Jong prefers Chelsea' bullshit.

 

[Vesper 31,108]

2 hours ago, hazard21 said:

I will not destroy your dream ,believe everything you want . I will not waste my time on you . Hopefully I know very well which team I support and this is Chelsea believe this or not in my balls . 

I have zero dreams in regards to you or anything spewing out of yer gob

if I were to suffer from such hippocampal-derived mental activity, it would instantly go into the nightmare category

 

Hippocampus removed from the brain (left), in comparison to a seahorse. The term "hippocampus" comes from the Greek word for seahorse.

[Special Juan 28,765]

Now Falck saying "Ronaldo not a topic for TT, although Chelsea is looking for a striker"

 

[YorkshireBlue 3,345]

12 minutes ago, Special Juan said:

Now Falck saying "Ronaldo not a topic for TT, although Chelsea is looking for a striker"

 

As much as some ppl would love Ronaldo here I am deffo not one of them. 37 Yr old in the heart of the defence and a 37 Yr old striker? 

[milka 3,407]

21 minutes ago, Special Juan said:

Now Falck saying "Ronaldo not a topic for TT, although Chelsea is looking for a striker"

 

I don't see where we're going to get this striker 

Calwert- Lewin ?
Icardi ?
Gerard Moreno ? 
Moussa Dembele ?
Jonathan David ? 
Luis Suarez (free agent) ? 

Edited July 26, 2022 by milka

[Special Juan 28,765]

I'm starting to seriously worry about us scoring again this season, I think for a season I'd take him.

[MoroccanBlue 5,399]

7 minutes ago, milka said:

I don't see where we're going to get this striker 

Calwert- Lewin ?
Icardi ?
Gerard Moreno ? 
Moussa Dembele ?
Jonathan David ? 
Luis Suarez (free agent) ? 

Not sure any of them really improve us. Far too much risk involved in all of them. 

I say stick with what we have because atm there isn't a market right now for attackers unless we spend in excess of 100m.  Utilise the funds we have no to rebuild the defence and midfield. 

 

[nyikolajevics 2,835]

15 minutes ago, milka said:

I don't see where we're going to get this striker 

Calwert- Lewin ?
Icardi ?
Gerard Moreno ? 
Moussa Dembele ?
Jonathan David ? 
Luis Suarez (free agent) ? 

no

no

no

no

no

hell no

 

Moussa Dembele? Seriously?