Chelsea Transfers

[prime adriano 26]

Not going for wharton was a collosal mistake...

I'd still go for it though. Midfield is terrible without caicedo

[Vesper 30,542]

On 05/12/2025 at 01:27, Vesper said:

not sure if the books would still balance UNLESS we sell players as well

In terms of left-footed CBs, here the only ones remotely available (in January or, more likely summer 2026 and some are CRAZY hard pulls, like my number one/number two CB want on the planet, Alessandro Bastoni, the other number one/two want being the now NOT at all available ambipedal Dean Huijsen, who went to Real Madrid and THAT just so fucked us this season, but hey, no club can compete with Real if they WANT a player badly) that I rate:

10 veterans, in 2 tiers , plus a 17 (18yo in February) youth

  
Alessandro Bastoni 
Murillo  
Alessandro Buongiorno    
Jarrad Branthwaite (but is out until the end of January with a bad hamstring injury, so no way we would buy him in January)
Castello Lukeba   

then

Gonçalo Inácio 
Nico Schlotterbeck (will probably either renew with Dortmund or will go to Bayern)
Sven Botman 
Evan Ndicka 
Konstantinos Koulierakis  

plus the 17yo:

Honest Ahanor (EVERY 'Big 20' or so team on the planet wants him, some more than others, he is the best under 18yo CB prospect playing at Sr team level in Europe atm IMHO)

So, The Athletic says we will NOT make a move for Murillo in January, nor in the summer. The reason given tells you all you need to know about us buying any quality left footed CBs.

They said that the club will NOT buy Murillo BECAUSE HE IS STARTING QUALITY.

In other words, we are going to roll with Colwill (next season) and Badi for lefty CBs, with Hato as lefty backup option (unless he is loaned out).

Also.....

Be prepared to be profoundly disappointed for Joel Ordóñez or any other truly class right footed new CB, as we already bought Mamadou Sarr and have Anselmino coming back from loan as well (unless Dortmund buy him for the price we will demand, which is highly unlikey as they are the archetypal 'big but cheap as fuck' German club.

The same goes for GKer, as Penders is very likely to come here in the summer, so forget Maignan, Kobel, Diogo Costa, Guillaume Restes, etc etc.

Finally, the same goes for CF, as we have Emegha already coming in, so forget dreams of Osimhen, Lautaro, Julián Alvarez, Marcus Thuram, or even (more speculative than proven vets) Pio Esposito or Samu. Kane would never come here.

As it stands, we simply have to sell multiple players (especially Nico) to even make a play for the crazy expensive Wharton (or even Elliot Anderson, etc), the one BIG name we may still move for.

MAYBE, IF we sell enough players and give up on Wharton (and all other expensive MFers), we might make a play for Kenan Yıldız (who is my number one winger want) BUT Juve will want insane money for him, likely Wharton level money.

Bottom line, the board is going to enrage many people there next 2 windows.

 

[Vesper 30,542]

Speaking of Emegha, as Delap looks to be out for a long time and we have crazy issues at CF (zero chance we bring back Nico), we should at least try and bring him in this January, and sell Guiu to Strasbourg.

[Vesper 30,542]

I so so hope he get really big money for selling Nico Jackson

he is hardly a shit CF

let's use Bayern as an example

suppose Kane somehow leaves

what are their actually options to replace him?

here is a valid (IMHO) list of options who are better atm than Nico (or have clear potential to be better soon)  

it is not all that long at all (and FOUR are from Inter Milan, lol)

strike-throughs are NOT available (no Kane on this list as he is the one leaving in this example)

in order of valuation

Erling Haaland
Kylian Mbappé
Alexander Isak
Julián Alvarez crazy expensive and such a hard pull
Ousmane Dembélé 
Hugo Ekitiké
Lautaro Martínez very expensive and such a hard pull
Victor Osimhen very expensive
Marcus Thuram  very expensive
Viktor Gyökeres   
Omar Marmoush
João Pedro
Gonçalo Ramos (BUT probably NOT available, and if he is, then he will be very expensive)
Serhou Guirassy

potentially better:

Samu Aghehowa
Nick Woltemade
Pio Esposito (also, will be so hard to pull out of Italy)
Ange-Yoan Bonny

    
Matheus Cunha is more of an SS

I rate Nico over Kai, same for Nico over Benjamin Sesko

 

The ones in bold would be doable for Bayern, but IF we are talking about us, Chels, replacing Nico then the list REALLY drops

as Lautaro (29yo this coming summer), Thuram (29yo this coming summer), and Guirassy (turns 30yo in 3 months) are all too old

and we will likely never pay the fees and wages Alvarez and Osimhen will demand now, especially the transfer fee for Alvarez, which will be at least £100m 

also Alavrez is 26yo next month, and Osimhen turns 28yo in a year

Ramos is likely not available and probably would not come here (not sure and I may just rate Nico over him anyway)

plus Woltemade is not really our type

so we are down to THREE and none are locks at all to be better than Nico

Samu (now FAR more expensive than when we turned the deal for him down) and the very raw dice rolls of Esposito and Bonny

I would probably go for Pio, but he will be loathe to leave Inter and Italy in general

he is probably the next great Italian CF, along with AC Milan's 17yo Francesco Camarda

[NikkiCFC 8,461]

You guys want new experienced midfielder?

 

[Vesper 30,542]

sell them

[Vesper 30,542]

Sources: A new centre midfielder is also still a possibility for January

It might not quite be as 'quiet' as what is being predicted - THREE named targets in this

https://siphillipstalkschelsea.substack.com/p/sources-a-new-centre-midfielder-is

Nobody is expecting a busy January window at Chelsea, not even our sources are expecting that, as we reported last week.

But there are certainly some situations that could brew up. One of those is the striker situations, as I reported earlier today with a sourced article on the home page - go check that out if you’ve missed it.

As well as striker situations, there are midfield situations going on too. I’ve not been able to find out how bad the Romeo Lavia injury is, but I don’t think it’s great. Dario Essugo came back and then got re-injured - although that’s not expected to be too bad.

Then in general, Moises Caicedo has been and still is, playing with an injury, so is Enzo Fernandez. We know Reece James can’t start every game because he is being wisely managed. Andrey Santos right now is probably our only fully fit and fully reliable centre midfielder.

So there is a belief that Chelsea might be smart to add another midfielder who can cover a few of the positions centrally.

I’ve had the name Kobbie Mainoo mentioned again for January. Manchester United are likely to listen to offers for him next month, and Chelsea have been keen on him for a while and almost pursued a move for him in the summer as well. It’s a name that keeps coming up, and I believe there might be a big chance to get him in the winter window, so Chelsea could jump at that opportunity. Let’s see what happens there, but he’s a name to watch in January for sure, seeing everything I mentioned above as well.

Mainoo can play in pretty much all of the centre midfield positions so will be good cover for 6, 8, or even 10.

And for the summer, Chelsea have two top names that they could look to add in midfield - Adam Wharton and Elliot Anderson. Chelsea LOVE both of these players and would LOVE to bring at least one of them in. None of them will be available in the summer, but they have a lot of clubs lining up for them for a big move then. Chelsea will be looking at this and weighing it up. When opportunities arise to sign either, I’d expect Chelsea to be there looking at it.

So expect some movements, loans, and juggling around in our midfield, maybe in January a little, but mostly for the summer. Fatigue has been a real issue and we all see how much we miss Moises Caicedo when he’s not playing.

[Mário César 1,371]

bring mainoo its the same shit for this board. a unprepared player for us

Edited 5 hours ago by Mário César

[Fernando 6,663]

22 hours ago, Vesper said:

So, The Athletic says we will NOT make a move for Murillo in January, nor in the summer. The reason given tells you all you need to know about us buying any quality left footed CBs.

They said that the club will NOT buy Murillo BECAUSE HE IS STARTING QUALITY.

In other words, we are going to roll with Colwill (next season) and Badi for lefty CBs, with Hato as lefty backup option (unless he is loaned out).

Also.....

Be prepared to be profoundly disappointed for Joel Ordóñez or any other truly class right footed new CB, as we already bought Mamadou Sarr and have Anselmino coming back from loan as well (unless Dortmund buy him for the price we will demand, which is highly unlikey as they are the archetypal 'big but cheap as fuck' German club.

The same goes for GKer, as Penders is very likely to come here in the summer, so forget Maignan, Kobel, Diogo Costa, Guillaume Restes, etc etc.

Finally, the same goes for CF, as we have Emegha already coming in, so forget dreams of Osimhen, Lautaro, Julián Alvarez, Marcus Thuram, or even (more speculative than proven vets) Pio Esposito or Samu. Kane would never come here.

As it stands, we simply have to sell multiple players (especially Nico) to even make a play for the crazy expensive Wharton (or even Elliot Anderson, etc), the one BIG name we may still move for.

MAYBE, IF we sell enough players and give up on Wharton (and all other expensive MFers), we might make a play for Kenan Yıldız (who is my number one winger want) BUT Juve will want insane money for him, likely Wharton level money.

Bottom line, the board is going to enrage many people there next 2 windows.

 

It feels enraging if this is true, but I'm going to wait for the summer post world cup and see what they do. 

As well if they do this, they can't demand anything from coahces to be big title contenders. With this policy we are bound to have ups and down.