Chelsea Transfers

[DDA 9,685]

25 minutes ago, Strike said:

Now is the time to make the move for Ugarte. Release clause is 52 million

Is he that good?

[bigbluewillie 1,847]

7 hours ago, DH1988 said:

In fairness I can see Gundo leaving City and being replaced by Kova, £20m or so. Rather he goes to Bayern or just anywhere abroad really, as he'd slot into City. You can for sure tell that his heart isn't in it lately, I imagine it's quite difficult to soldier on being on £100k a week.

Yeah must be terrible for him only £100,000 a week, don't know how he manages to live on that pittance.

[Vesper 28,403]

29 minutes ago, DDA said:

Is he that good?

IMHO, I  am a bit wary of dropping over £50m on Ugarte

much rather have Manu (used the first name Kouadio until this season or so) Koné, who is more, athletic, versatile, and a somewhat better on the ball player

now that said

I do think that our scouting is MUCH better atm, so surely they will not take him if the truly think the following is an issue:

some of my hesitation is that Ugarte in the games I watched him, is too rash and a might be a yellow card magnet in the reputation-driven shit PGMOL structure of picking on players who get a rep for rashness (the EPL is the worst for this, where refs carry into games far too much reliance past perceived experiences and go looking for players they think are predisposed to being goons, unless of course it is Manure or Pool, then they let most things slide, including that cunt thug Fabinho spitting on Hazard and getting fuckall for punishment, grrrr, and McTominay and Fred getting away with murder so often)

I admit that maybe I just happened to see a bad sample of games with Ugarte.

you can see some of the rashness here

I do think he has the potential to be a great partner for Enzo as a more crunching style DMF, and I do love top Uruguayan players on balance, they usually have huge motors

I am not going to lose my mind if we buy him (unlike many we have purchased, like KK (at the age he is), Drinkwater (probably my biggest tantrum) CuCu (massive tantrum by me too, especially as we on on the hook from £118m in toto, ffs), Auba, Sterling, Pulisic, Ziyech, Kepa, Bobblehead Luiz (the 2nd time, not the first) Baba, Higs, Zappacosta, and Lukaku) I was not happy with Sarr (and went bonkers when he actually started to play, he is one of the worst footballers we have brought in in the last 10 years), but he was a free, and finally, Barkley was cheap and worth the shot.

I cannot add Bakadonkey to that list, as I did not lose my mind when we bought him, he was my biggest bust in terms of players I thought would work out here who were utter SHIT. 

[Clockwork 1,794]

1 hour ago, DDA said:

Is he that good?

IMO he has a lot of the things you look for; athletic, physical, close control, tackle+interception, press resistant, man marking,work rate, etc. The only thing i don’t see is passing like Busquets, Jorginho, passers at a high level from a DM. But that would be unfair. We have Enzo to do that, so perfect player to combine with him.

 

[Clockwork 1,794]

22 minutes ago, Vesper said:

IMHO, I  am a bit wary of dropping over £50m on Ugarte

much rather have Manu (used the first name Kouadio until this season or so) Koné, who is more, athletic, versatile, and a somewhat better on the ball player

now that said

I do think that our scouting is MUCH better atm, so surely they will not take him if the truly think the following is an issue:

some of my hesitation is that Ugarte in the games I watched him, is too rash and a might be a yellow card magnet in the reputation-driven shit PGMOL structure of picking on players who get a rep for rashness (the EPL is the worst for this, where refs carry into games far too much reliance past perceived experiences and go looking for players they think are predisposed to being goons, unless of course it is Manure or Pool, then they let most things slide, including that cunt thug Fabinho spitting on Hazard and getting fuckall for punishment, grrrr, and McTominay and Fred getting away with murder so often)

I admit that maybe I just happened to see a bad sample of games with Ugarte.

you can see some of the rashness here

I do think he has the potential to be a great partner for Enzo as a more crunching style DMF, and I do love top Uruguayan players on balance, they usually have huge motors

I am not going to lose my mind if we buy him (unlike many we have purchased, like KK (at the age he is), Drinkwater (probably my biggest tantrum) CuCu (massive tantrum by me too, especially as we on on the hook from £118m in toto, ffs), Auba, Sterling, Pulisic, Ziyech, Kepa, Bobblehead Luiz (the 2nd time, not the first) Baba, Higs, Zappacosta, and Lukaku) I was not happy with Sarr (and went bonkers when he actually started to play, he is one of the worst footballers we have brought in in the last 10 years), but he was a free, and finally, Barkley was cheap and worth the shot.

I cannot add Bakadonkey to that list, as I did not lose my mind when we bought him, he was my biggest bust in terms of players I thought would work out here who were utter SHIT. 

Kone is a different player though, he is more of a B2B player than a true DMF like Ugarte, Rice, and Lavia. 

[Strike 7,203]

24 minutes ago, Clockwork said:

IMO he has a lot of the things you look for; athletic, physical, close control, tackle+interception, press resistant, man marking,work rate, etc. The only thing i don’t see is passing like Busquets, Jorginho, passers at a high level from a DM. But that would be unfair. We have Enzo to do that, so perfect player to combine with him.

 

We are reaching a point where every player needs to have a high level of passing - even the CBs 

[Clockwork 1,794]

8 minutes ago, Strike said:

We are reaching a point where every player needs to have a high level of passing - even the CBs 

He is a very good passer. Just not special in the sense of Jorginho was. Nothing wrong with that. 

[Special Juan 27,393]

The love affair between Kova and Pep will see this ending him at City

[Special Juan 27,393]

Romano saying Mendy could be off at the end of the season- good news, another bog average player off the list.

Now to get rid of the other useless fucker in Kepa and go and buy a proper keeper.

[Vesper 28,403]

2 hours ago, Clockwork said:

Kone is a different player though, he is more of a B2B player than a true DMF like Ugarte, Rice, and Lavia. 

the thing that REALLY worries me about Lavia

he is their key defensive non back 4 player

and they are the worst team in the league by far (IMHO and also in the table) and are being relegated

[YorkshireBlue 3,118]

23 minutes ago, Vesper said:

the thing that REALLY worries me about Lavia

he is their key defensive non back 4 player

and they are the worst team in the league by far (IMHO and also in the table) and are being relegated

True but to put that down to one player is a tad harsh, we have Enzo who's the premier league's record transfer fee and we are down the bottom half the table, with relagation only just now mathematical impossible.

[Reddish-Blue 2,325]

1 hour ago, Vesper said:

the thing that REALLY worries me about Lavia

he is their key defensive non back 4 player

and they are the worst team in the league by far (IMHO and also in the table) and are being relegated

Remember when Gini got relegated with Newcastle and he got his move to Liverpool, turned out to be a pretty good midfielder. 
Same with Robertson getting relegated with Hull, turned out to be pretty damn good LB/LWB for Liverpool as well....

Feel like Lavia is young enough where its more about the experience than the results.  If he was paired with other experienced midfielders and had a decent defensive line behind him, I would be worried as well. 

Let's not forget that Southampton also had 21 year old Bazunu as their starting keeper, and Bella-Kotchap as their key CB (also 21 years old)....not to mention various other young players coming in like Mara, Alcaraz, Diallo, Edozie, Sulemana. 

 

[OneMoSalah 8,754]

13 hours ago, Superblue said:

I think letting Jorginho go in January was the right move, unless you feel he should have been given a new contract. If we had been anywhere near challenging for the league with Arsenal then maybe it would have been more of a consideration but in our position as good as writing the league season off and having just signed Enzo, it was a good amount of money to bank on a 31 year old who would have been leaving on a free 6 months later.

Kova falls into a similarly difficult category with what to do with him next season. He'll be 30 during next season, has never had the best injury record and I don't think has played particularly well this season. With a year left on his contract, do you renew and look at keeping him here on a 3-4 year contract? Especially if Kante signs back up as we'll have two similarly aged, similarly injury prone players in the same position being relied upon. 

As a side note, there's also been a lot of talk that Kova doesn't want to sign a new contract and would like a new challenge anyway. With this in mind, it makes sense to sell now than let him leave on a free in a year's time. I understand the position the board are taking with this, especially when they walked through the door to see two players worth millions leaving on free transfers last summer. 

Keeping Jorginho to the summer and letting him go on a free would of been the best move - its been hinted at that some of the discussions in the dressing room that have gone on about how the clubs been run/the seasons gone etc were heavily focused on the sale of him to Arsenal. I mean I know we have to/need to sell players but do people think we were that desperate for 12m or whatever we got for Jorginho in January? 

Even if he was backing up Enzo, or playing with him. We are still lightweight in terms of quality in MF, other than Kante, Kova and Enzo. I mean if any of them were to have gotten a big big injury would Gallagher, Zakaria or Loftus-Cheek have really been suitably good enough to come in? In comparison to Jorginho? No. I mean how often have we seen Gallagher play and be abysmally off the pace and overawed since January? 

Kova if he wants a new challenge fair, but if its because we don’t want to give him a 3 + 1 year deal maybe - then it is stupid. Are we not reportedly going to give Kante a 2+1? Or a 3? Why not offer Kova a 3+1? Having him, Kante, Enzo and if we sign a 23-27 year old MF player - gives us a really good mix of experience and quality again.

People are making out that there are a huge amount of top midfield players out there though when in reality, there really isn’t so I think for the club to be particularly interested in just letting Kova go is very strange and typically the same sort of approach we’ve become accustomed to with this new ownership. I would rather we focused on shifting Gallagher, Ruben and perhaps even Mount depending on what he, the club and Poch discuss first and foremost.

[MoroccanBlue 5,281]

At the point where if Kovacic leaves, great. If he stays, great. 

[ZAPHOD2319 4,415]

 

[Reddish-Blue 2,325]

10 hours ago, OneMoSalah said:

Keeping Jorginho to the summer and letting him go on a free would of been the best move - its been hinted at that some of the discussions in the dressing room that have gone on about how the clubs been run/the seasons gone etc were heavily focused on the sale of him to Arsenal. I mean I know we have to/need to sell players but do people think we were that desperate for 12m or whatever we got for Jorginho in January? 

Even if he was backing up Enzo, or playing with him. We are still lightweight in terms of quality in MF, other than Kante, Kova and Enzo. I mean if any of them were to have gotten a big big injury would Gallagher, Zakaria or Loftus-Cheek have really been suitably good enough to come in? In comparison to Jorginho? No. I mean how often have we seen Gallagher play and be abysmally off the pace and overawed since January? 

Kova if he wants a new challenge fair, but if its because we don’t want to give him a 3 + 1 year deal maybe - then it is stupid. Are we not reportedly going to give Kante a 2+1? Or a 3? Why not offer Kova a 3+1? Having him, Kante, Enzo and if we sign a 23-27 year old MF player - gives us a really good mix of experience and quality again.

People are making out that there are a huge amount of top midfield players out there though when in reality, there really isn’t so I think for the club to be particularly interested in just letting Kova go is very strange and typically the same sort of approach we’ve become accustomed to with this new ownership. I would rather we focused on shifting Gallagher, Ruben and perhaps even Mount depending on what he, the club and Poch discuss first and foremost.

How do you know that Jorginho wanted to stay though beyond January?    There were reports from Italian media where they said Jorginho asked his agent to look for other options in the January transfer window as he wasn't pleased at the Chelsea situation and was keen on a new challenge. 

If those reports are true, it makes sense that the club took a transfer fee rather than following the same trend as Rudiger/Christensen and letting quality players go on a free transfer. 

[Vesper 28,403]

@bigbluewillie

You want Thiago to leave??

You made a sad face over that tweet that said he is likely staying.

[OneMoSalah 8,754]

15 hours ago, Reddish-Blue said:

How do you know that Jorginho wanted to stay though beyond January?    There were reports from Italian media where they said Jorginho asked his agent to look for other options in the January transfer window as he wasn't pleased at the Chelsea situation and was keen on a new challenge. 

If those reports are true, it makes sense that the club took a transfer fee rather than following the same trend as Rudiger/Christensen and letting quality players go on a free transfer. 

I’m pretty sure there was multiple quotes from his agent about wanting to stay and wanting a new contract here. But we pushed him out the door for all of £12m because he had 6 months left and we had Enzo Fernandez coming in despite the midfield already being a weak position in the squad.

There were rumours he was considering letting his deal run out and returning to Italy at the end of the season also. Mainly from Italian media. Which would of been a better outcome. 

Edited May 13, 2023 by OneMoSalah