Chelsea Transfers

[Vesper 31,084]

Chelsea

https://thedailybriefing.io/i/151907283/Chelsea

• Despite multiple rumours in the media, Chelsea are not currently working on a deal to sign Caoimhin Kelleher from Liverpool. Enzo Maresca is perfectly happy with the keepers that the Blues currently have in their first-team squad.

• Sources: Chelsea encouraged by Mykhailo Mudryk progress.

[Vesper 31,084]

• “Paris Saint-Germain made an offer worth €250m for Lamine Yamal last summer,” Joan Laporta’s spokesman told Spanish TV. “Laporta didn’t even consider that, there’s no chance of selling Lamine.”

[ZAPHOD2319 4,945]

Now I understand why people are linking us to him.

 

 

[Vesper 31,084]

The future of English football

https://www.scoutednotebook.com/i/151949621/the-future-of-english-football

On Tuesday, I had a little bit of free time to do something I love to do – watch youth football.

Belgium against England in the first round of UEFA U-19 EURO qualifiers was on the agenda, and there was a stream provided by the Bulgaria FA (they hosted the mini-tournament of qualifiers) that thankfully wasn’t quite as patchy as the Plovdiv pitch they were playing on.

Onto the standouts. The very obvious one was Chelsea’s Josh Acheampong. You couldn’t miss him and his giraffe-sized frame; he loomed over pretty much everyone on the pitch, literally head and shoulders above the rest.

The first half showcased why he’s already played senior minutes at club level – making his debut at the back-end of last season, before adding a couple more appearances in this – as he did a lot of impressive centre-back things.

His athleticism is perhaps the feature of his game. Despite being a gangly kind of tall, he covered ground with a smoothness that caught the eye immediately. His long legs were really useful to win the ball back, he can extend them into places few can, while he also had neat footwork and a spry agility in tighter situations. His height was a natural advantage in aerial duels, obviously, but the technique and timing of his contests were the factors that saw him win every long ball over Belgium’s similarly-sized centre-forward Kaye Furo.

Acheampong was a different level of talent to most on the pitch. You could see how his profile could scale up to the highest standard of senior football pretty easily. But he’s currently locked out at Chelsea, ostracised from the senior and U-21 teams until he commits his future to the club, with a number of domestic rivals and big-time European clubs circling.

---

Another was Myles Lewis-Skelly of Arsenal. He was the most ‘senior-ready’ player on the pitch by a significant margin, in my opinion. Everything about him – the compactness of athleticism, robustness of physicality, assuredness of decisions – set him apart at U-19 level.

He was playing as a left-back in this game, a role which he’s been earmarked for at Arsenal and now England. It’s a role that suits his skillset to a tee: he’s left-footed and a really mobile mover with solid one-v-one defending, acute talent as a line-splitting passer, and a trademark ability to carry the ball out of pressure, through contact and up the pitch. All of those traits were on show in Plovdiv.

What I particularly love about MLS is the way he uses his body. It’s an exceptional trait of his, and to be so skilled at it at his age is very rare – trust me, I watch a lot of youth football. He got the upper-hand in defensive situations time and time again by levering his body between ball and man, winning more or less every duel as a result. His ball security was taken up a notch by his propensity to feel for contact when taking a touch. Defenders struggled to contain him when he bumped through them with the ball at his feet. He made it all look easy.

Another point of difference that underlined the 18-year-old’s readiness for the higher levels was the way he grew into the game. While others faded, he got better. Belgium’s intensity waned, meaning he had more time (and freedom) to get on the ball, finding those angled passes more and more, while his dribbles started to eliminate two or three defenders, not just the one.

My takeaway from this game? I want to see more MLS in the Premier League. He would be a regular already in Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga, maybe even LaLiga and Serie A. The Premier League is different, but Lewis-Skelly is ready for more opportunities and responsibilities. 

Have England finally developed a Spanish-spec midfielder?

---

And finally, a few words for Kiano Dyer. Every year the discourse inevitably rolls around to the ‘why can’t England develop midfielders like Spain?’ but they have a Spanish-spec midfielder in the Chelsea prospect.

The deepest of England’s midfield three, Dyer created that triangle with the centre-backs to help build play from the back. He’s of a smaller stature with a slight frame but makes up for it with a razor-sharp mobility. He flashes across five yards, cuts through pressure, and lasers into space. That flash-cut-laser style was characteristic of his passing too – he was great at spotting and executing little 10-yarders that fed team-mates inside Belgium’s block. They’re the sort of passes someone like Martín Zubimendi does.

He struggled to find a groove with his long-range distribution, overhitting switches to the left wing primarily, and was blindsided by Belgian pressure a couple of times, but that can happen. I’ve watched him before and those haven’t been particular issues. Everyone has an off day.

But Dyer is good with the potential to be really good. And really good in a different way to the English norm. The pathway at Chelsea is a precarious one with their compulsive buying disorder, so it remains to be see how he develops there, but he’ll find an alternative route as easily as he slips pressure.

And a final fun fact: Kiano is the son of Lloyd Dyer, the former Leicester City winger. I hope that makes you feel old.

Edited November 21, 2024 by Vesper

[mkh 753]

❗️❗️Next summer, plans are being formulated to delve into the transfer market to further improve the squad.

Most of the work has been done, and there will be no overhaul like the last few windows, but they will keep tweaking.🗯

via@SamCunningham 

[milka 3,407]

How many more transfers do they need to make the team competitive and get it back  the team to where it was before they arrived? Obviously, the problem is not money, but how it is managed.

[Special Juan 28,759]

Keeper, CB and Striker

Thanks

[MoroccanBlue 5,399]

5 hours ago, Special Juan said:

Keeper, CB and Striker

Thanks

Keeper, 2 CBs, Striker, back up RB. 

[Mário César 1,482]

and what about a winger, if we sold mudryk?

[Fernando 6,724]

13 minutes ago, Mário César said:

and what about a winger, if we sold mudryk?

We have Sancho being bought next season....Paez and Estevao coming. 

I don't think we should. Let's fix the defense first. 

[Reddish-Blue 2,668]

1 hour ago, Fernando said:

We have Sancho being bought next season....Paez and Estevao coming. 

Anyone who has been able to follow/track the development of Paez, what's his best position?   Is he a winger or more of a midfielder?

4 hours ago, MoroccanBlue said:

Keeper, 2 CBs, Striker, back up RB. 

Don't we already have a backup RB from the academy?   Acheampong IIRC  or is he still looking to walk on a free transfer

[Reddish-Blue 2,668]

1 hour ago, Mário César said:

and what about a winger, if we sold mudryk?

Who is going to 'buy' mudryk from us?     The best we can hope for is a loan spell where he does well and maybe we negotiate a permanent deal the following season...

[LAM09 7,087]

1 minute ago, Reddish-Blue said:

Who is going to 'buy' mudryk from us?     The best we can hope for is a loan spell where he does well and maybe we negotiate a permanent deal the following season...

Marseille would at the right price. 

[Vesper 31,084]

Christopher Nkunku’s state of play at Chelsea: Is a transfer a possibility?

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5937103/2024/11/22/christopher-nkunku-Chelsea-transfer-latest/

You would expect most players who are currently top scorers at their respective football clubs this season to be rather content and full of confidence right now.

With 10 goals from 17 appearances, Chelsea forward Christopher Nkunku sits above Cole Palmer (seven) and Nicolas Jackson (six) in the club’s goalscoring charts. He stands a chance to end the 2024-25 campaign as the team’s most prolific finisher.

Yet during the international break, a story emerged in French newspaper L’Equipe, which was subsequently followed up by the Telegraph in the UK, that the 27-year-old is considering his future at Stamford Bridge.

Signs of discontent seem somewhat premature, given Nkunku is just three months into his second season at the club. The season may last until mid-July if Chelsea reach the final of the expanded Club World Cup next summer. Do Chelsea have any reason to be concerned? It is a complex situation which provides an answer of yes… and no.

First — is there any truth to Nkunku’s feeling unsettled at the club? A source close to the player, speaking under the condition of anonymity to The Athletic to protect relationships, did suggest the forward is not too happy with how things are going right now.

It should be pointed out that the source also insisted that Nkunku has not made any complaints himself to the club. So this is not a case of the 27-year-old looking to hand in a transfer request or trying to cause a problem for head coach Enzo Maresca.

However, you can understand why Nkunku might be troubled. After playing the most minutes of any Chelsea player in pre-season, Nkunku has started just one Premier League game under Maresca. That was in the opening match versus Manchester City three months ago. Yet one of the reasons he featured so much in friendly games was because Palmer was given an extended holiday after playing for England at Euro 2024 and Jackson took a while to recover from an ankle injury sustained on international duty with Senegal in June.

 

Nkunku scoring against FC Noah (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

Nkunku had every right to speak optimistically about what 2024-25 could bring. The France international’s debut season at Chelsea was hindered by knee, hip and hamstring injuries. He played for just 516 minutes (not including added time), scoring three goals in 14 appearances. After completing a move from RB Leipzig for a fee in excess of €60million in 2023, he would have hoped to make a much bigger impact.

The transfer, which was actually finalised in October 2022, was heralded as a major coup for Chelsea at the time and rightly so. Nkunku scored 35 goals and made 20 assists in 52 appearances for RB Leipzig in 2021-22. Despite suffering a knee injury which caused him to miss the last World Cup, he still managed to record a further 23 goals and nine assists from 36 appearances in 2022-23. He was clearly a player of some talent and showed it in his first pre-season with Chelsea (three goals) before sustaining another bad knee injury in the last friendly against Borussia Dortmund.

After proving his fitness and scoring three times during his second pre-season at Chelsea under new head coach Maresca, Nkunku was determined to prove what he can do. He told Chelsea’s official website in August: “For me, this is my first season in Chelsea FC, for sure. To be honest, I don’t have the feeling I had a first season here. It was very difficult.

“When a player misses one season, he is very hungry. I am very hungry. My goal this season is to play and to be confident. I know if I am happy and confident in my body, I can show what I am able to do.”

And herein lies the problem. According to Transfermarkt, of the 688 minutes Nkunku has had this season, only 154 have been in the Premier League and 58 of those came in that first match versus Manchester City. His nine appearances as a substitute work out as an average of under 11 minutes a game (not including added time) meaning he is also getting little chance to change a match from the bench. This includes coming on with just a few minutes to go in Chelsea’s last fixture against Arsenal — when the score was 1-1. You would think the home side would have a better chance of getting a winner with him on the pitch for a longer period than that.

Still, Maresca and Chelsea can argue that Nkunku is just an unfortunate victim of players simply being in better form. With Maresca wanting to use two natural wingers in a 4-2-3-1 formation, it really leaves only a couple of positions for Nkunku to be considered — as a No 10 or the main striker. But those spots are occupied by Palmer (seven goals and five assists in 13 appearances) and Jackson (six goals and three assists in 12 appearances). Palmer is one of the best in the Premier League, while Chelsea regard Jackson as one of the top three centre-forwards in England’s top division. They are both very hard to drop at the moment.

 

Nkunku has struggled for game time in the league under Maresca (Carl Recine/Getty Images)

Nkunku’s aims in joining Chelsea ahead of other interested clubs were to play regularly and compete in the Champions League. This is the second season in a row where Chelsea are not involved in the Champions League and the vast majority of his starts under Maresca (six) have come in the Conference League, Europe’s third-tier competition. Combined with the two starts in the Carabao Cup, which Chelsea are no longer in following a loss to Newcastle, Nkunku is being sent a message by Maresca that he is only considered for the less important matches.

After Nkunku scored twice against FC Noah in an 8-0 victory earlier this month, Maresca admitted regret over the situation: “I feel shame for Christo because in pre-season, he was our best player.”

Chelsea still regard Nkunku as an important member of the squad and with so many matches remaining, believe there are plenty of opportunities for him to make his mark. For example, Saturday’s game at Leicester begins a run of 11 fixtures in 38 days. Squad rotation will be a must, plus injuries or a drop in performance could happen to Palmer or Jackson at any point.

The club might also expect Nkunku, who is among the top seven highest-paid players at Stamford Bridge, to be a little patient given he was barely available for selection in 2022-23, even if it was through no fault of his own.

There is another issue to cause Nkunku some angst, though. Having missed the last World Cup, Nkunku is desperate to be part of the France squad for the qualifiers. Assuming they progress, he wants to be at the 2026 tournament itself. France coach Didier Deschamps is a big admirer and sees him as someone who can help fill the void left by the now-retired Antoine Griezmann.

Nkunku has won four caps in the last two international breaks, which includes starts in the wins against Israel and Italy. But he’s aware of the competition for places and knows he needs to be playing regularly at club level to keep his place.

So what happens next? While it cannot be ruled out completely, a transfer in January seems unlikely. Firstly, Chelsea do not want to sell. It would take an extraordinary offer, perhaps in excess of what they paid for him, to make them think about changing their minds. Nkunku still has over three years left on his contract. Neither the player nor the club will consider a loan.

 

Nkunku playing for France (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)

Then there is the matter of where he could go. One of his former clubs Paris Saint-Germain have been linked with him regularly back in France and Nkunku did not exactly rule it out when asked about it by French TV show Telefoot in October. “I don’t know what to say about that,” he said. “PSG is still a big club. Any approach this summer? No, no, no. I’ve always said there was no approach.”

That remains the case and Chelsea have had no enquiries from PSG either. But PSG are annual participants in the Champions League and Nkunku is the kind of player that coach Luis Enrique would like. They have scored only three times in four Champions League group games. In saying that, a source, speaking anonymously, doubted whether they can afford him in January.

Manchester United have also been mentioned as a possibility, with suggestions his name came up during talks between the two clubs last summer. But unless money is raised from outgoings, they are not expected to have the funds to make a sizeable bid when the window opens in the new year. A switch to the Saudi Pro League is not an option for Nkunku either.

So as things stand, the earliest Nkunku can leave will be in the summer — by which time Chelsea could have secured a spot in the Champions League and he might have played a lot more. That could make all this talk of disquiet a thing of the past.

[Vesper 31,084]

Paris Saint-Germain linked with transfer swoop for Chelsea duo Christopher Nkunku and Josh Acheampong

https://www.eurosport.com/football/transfers/2024-2025/paris-saint-germain-Chelsea-christopher-nkunku-josh-acheampong-transfer_sto20056421/story.shtml

Paris Saint-Germain reportedly face competition from Manchester United and Real Madrid for Christopher Nkunku and Joshua Acheampong, respectively.

Elsewhere, Manchester City midfielder and Ballon d’Or winner Rodri has made it clear he is open to a switch to Real Madrid, while Javier Mascherano looks set to take over at Inter Miami after the departure of Tata Martino.

PSG and United linked with Nkunku

The Athletic reports that Christopher Nkunku is unhappy with his lack of playing time at Chelsea. Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain are interested, but may not have the money for a January bid.

 

The website explains: "While it cannot be ruled out completely, a transfer in January seems unlikely. Firstly, Chelsea do not want to sell. It would take an extraordinary offer, perhaps in excess of what they paid for him, to make them think about changing their minds.

 

"Nkunku still has over three years left on his contract. Neither the player nor the club will consider a loan.

 

"But PSG are annual participants in the Champions League and Nkunku is the kind of player that coach Luis Enrique would like. In saying that, a source, speaking anonymously, doubted whether they can afford him in January.

 

"Manchester United have also been mentioned as a possibility, with suggestions his name came up during talks between the two clubs last summer.

 

"But unless money is raised from outgoings, they are not expected to have the funds to make a sizeable bid when the window opens in the new year. A switch to the Saudi Pro League is not an option for Nkunku either."

Madrid and PSG keen on Acheampong

Real Madrid could force Paris Saint-Germain to move for Chelsea defender Joshua Acheampong.

 

Madrid are in need of defensive reinforcements and are looking at the teenage right-back.

 

The Independent reports: "Paris Saint-Germain have escalated interest in Josh Acheampong, as they become the latest club willing to test Chelsea's resolve in keeping their young prospect.

 

"The 18-year-old has been involved in an impasse with the London club over a contract renovation, with his current deal set to run out in a year and a half, and the player now going on three months without being used in the first team.

 

"That had already spiked existing interest from a host of clubs, led by Real Madrid and Liverpool.

 

"Newcastle United, Borussia Dortmund and PSG have also been among those to send scouts to Acheampong's England under-19 appearances, as this has been the best place to monitor his progress.

 

"All of the interested clubs are looking at long-term succession plans at right-back, with Madrid even willing to make a move in January after injuries to Dani Carvajal and Eder Militao.

 

"If that happens, PSG would challenge that, as they view Acheampong as an ideal young deputy for Achraf Hakimi."

 

Rodri open to Madrid move

Manchester City’s Ballon d’Or winner Rodri has said that he would listen to interest from Real Madrid.

 

Speaking to a Spanish podcast, the midfielder explained that he would have to hear out any offer.

 

The Sun writes: "Manchester City star Rodri has opened the door to a potential move to Real Madrid.

 

"It comes just weeks after the midfielder won the Ballon d'Or, leading Real Madrid to boycott the event.

 

"Los Blancos's star Vinicius Jr was tipped to win the award and the snub led Real president Florentino Perez to turn down the invite.

 

"But Rodri still admires the club and said it would be difficult to ignore the Spanish giants if they came knocking.

 

"He told Spanish podcast El Larguero: ‘When Real Madrid call you, the best club in history and the most successful… it makes you proud, and you always have to listen.’"

 

 

[NikkiCFC 8,516]

On 01/11/2024 at 19:49, robsblubot said:

 

Who does City depend on to win tackle in the middle? That's why they will win once again even without Rodri (who's not a Caicedo player either).

They will not. 

[robsblubot 3,595]

27 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

They will not. 

Seriously? 😃 what can possibly make you think that?!

did you make this comment 3 weeks ago and forgot to hit ‘submit’?

[NikkiCFC 8,516]

38 minutes ago, robsblubot said:

Seriously? 😃 what can possibly make you think that?!

did you make this comment 3 weeks ago and forgot to hit ‘submit’?

I made similar comments back than. Just like to prove people wrong 😂

[Vesper 31,084]

10 hours ago, robsblubot said:

did you make this comment 3 weeks ago and forgot to hit ‘submit’?

Has someone done this before?

[Vesper 31,084]

NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!

Robert Sanchez had 34 touches, completed just 63% of his passes, 19 out of 30 to be specific, and completed just two from 13 long balls. He prevented -0.2 goals and could have done better from Ayew’s penalty, he failed to keep it out despite getting a firm hand to it.

 

Absolutely diabolical that we do not have a world class GKer despite dropping £189m.

WTF!!!