Chelsea Transfers

[Superblue 6,370]

13 minutes ago, Vesper said:

that was a winter window piss take valuation by BHO, I think £25m to £30m (35m max, due to his age)  would work, or toss in a turd from our fancy big turd collection for makeweight (although our turds come with back-and-bank-breaking salaries for minnows like BHO)

A loan move for Tomori as part of the deal could be a good move for all parties involved.

[Vesper 28,767]

10 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

Zouma 15.7m from 2 loans. We already got back what we paid for him lol

https://www.transfermarkt.com/kurt-zouma/transfers/spieler/157509

Bakayoko 5+3=8m 

This is 23.7m already.

Moses had 5 loans. First one to Liverpool was 1.2m fee. Michy 3 loans.

Chris spent two years in Borussia. So 35m at worst.

fair enough, £35m is at least something back

its still going to be a cumulative loss of over £400m at the end of the day on deals (not just players from that date onward) starting in 2016/17, when shit buys, shit contractual management, turned down sales, mistimed sale, etc are all tallied up.even count all proceeds from all the loan fees of all the players involved on the big list, and also subtracting out the few decent sales.

And that £400m plus net loss was including reduced but still decent (some barely, lolol) sales prices for some that will NEVER happen now, like Baka, Bats, Drinkwater, Emerson, Alonso, Moses, etc etc etc etc

[Vesper 28,767]

On 06/08/2020 at 1:06 AM, blu35_army said:

how come our shit deffenders has a rise value...lol. beside that,,kepa is really in tears if we gonna sell him. prefer to keep him as a second GK...

you cannot go by Transfermarkt atm, as they are slowly updating their COVID-19 across the board devaluations

those rises are almost all due to a simple update, NOT for quality of play sake

[Blue Armour 4,278]

8 hours ago, Vesper said:

Maicon 

now we are talking

that is my type of brutal bulldozer right back (would LOVE to have him and Ashley as 22yo fullbacks on our side as our FB pair!)

ahh, the good old Inter days, sigh (hopefully they keep improving, and get a good manager to replace Conte if he walks)

 

what the hell happened to HARD Brasilians??

almost all now are pussytklaat

Maicon, Lucio, ...even our very own Alex

Brazilian defenders of a bygone era. Tough as nails

[Vesper 28,767]

Gosens: ‘Tactical stuff really is the worst. But with Gasperini you know it works’

https://theathletic.com/1974979/2020/08/08/robin-gosens-atalanta-champions-league-interview-germany/

Bergamo is a city united by its love for football. But when the game returned to one of the towns in Europe worst affected by coronavirus, it proved very divisive. “There were two camps,” Robin Gosens recalls. “Some were saying it’s great that calcio was back, a good distraction, something to take your mind off things. But others, including our ultras, said: ‘How can you play football when scores of people have died here, don’t we have more important things to worry about?’ It got you thinking whether it was right or wrong.”

Atalanta’s German wing-back was also troubled by the role the sport might have inadvertently played in spreading the virus in northern Italy and Spain. Some virologists have called Atalanta’s last-16 tie with Valencia in February “a biological bomb” as scores of Bergamo-based fans and Valencia supporters travelled for the game in Milan to fuel the outbreak. “I’m not an expert but it sounds logical,” he says. “I don’t know how my team-mates feel but I’m deeply saddened that we might have been part of something this horrible, even if we’re not personally to blame. You’re at the top of your career, playing in the Champions League, and in the stands, it’s the start of misery…” His voice trails off. ”It’s difficult to get to terms with.”

Atalanta’s players were either holed up in their homes with their families, unable to leave the house at all for two months, or cooped up in the team hotel next to the training ground. They felt reasonably safe but as the virus raged all around them in Europe’s epicentre of the disease, the club wasn’t spared. The father of assistant coach Mauro Fumagalli caught the virus. A fit and healthy man in his mid-sixties, he was admitted to a hospital that found itself completely overstretched. “He was put on oxygen supply and couldn’t talk to his family,” Gosens says. “Three weeks later, he was gone. A doctor later told Mauro that they might have been able to save him if he had come in at a different time, but it was total chaos then. Horrific.” Coach Gian Piero Gasperini revealed that he had also contracted the virus but the 62-year-old was lucky to recover quickly.

Fortunately, the overall situation in Lombardy has much improved since. “People want to move forward, cautiously,” the 26-year-old says. “Everyone knows it’s not over but there’s real excitement that we’re still in the Champions League. It’s sad that the fans can’t accompany us on this adventure, they would love to be involved. But the mood is much more positive now. Even those who were opposed to football at the beginning have changed their stance. They’re just happy that we brought a bit of joy back into their lives and put a smile on their faces.”

A fabulous run of nine wins, three draws and only one defeat, resulting in another sensational top-four finish, can do that for you. “We were lucky that we came back as if we’d never been away, hitting form immediately,” Gosens says, a little modestly. Gasperini’s team has played some of the finest passing football anyone has seen this year.

Confidence is high before next week’s meeting with Paris Saint-Germain, too. Gosens noted that PSG coach Thomas Tuchel was careful not to call the Italians “a good draw” or words to such effect. “We’re not considered small fry, people have obviously noticed what we have done. We can take that as a big compliment. We see this trip to Lisbon as a bonus. The cherry on the cake, as we say in German. We go there with no pressure at all. I believe, for PSG, it’s very different. We know that they’re a world-class team, of course. But it won’t be fun for them to play against us. It’s two games to the final. So why not dream?”

Why not, indeed.   has played a big part in the club’s dream. Atalanta’s left-back was bought as a virtual unknown for €900,000 from Heracles Almelo in 2017 but has been one of the revelations of the campaign, scoring nine goals from open play and providing eight assists in the leagues. Few (nominal) defenders in Europe’s top leagues have done more going forward.

Attacking full-backs are a hallmark of Gasperini’s system. Gosens says that the collective movement by the team makes every player look good but his improvement is also down to lots of hard work. He has spent hours watching himself on a laptop next to Gasperini or Fumagalli, who explained how and when he needed to move to get into dangerous areas.

“Last year, I would often get into the final third but didn’t have the right timing to get to the ball, I was either too far forward or still behind. I analysed my weaknesses and mistakes, watching a lot of games back. With the help of the coaches, I managed to really improve on that. I also spent a lot of time on the training ground on finishing, with my head, left foot, right foot. I’ve made a big jump. It shows you that doing that little bit more really does pay off.”

Putting the extra hours in is a recurring theme in the conversation. Gasperini’s creative brilliance, it turns out, is built on meticulous training sessions that can go on forever. “There is a degree of freedom in attack because the opponents don’t move like the dots on the tactics board. But we also devote entire days to practice certain patterns. Some of the goals we have scored have come from those prepared moves. That’s what a good coach is all about. When you see he knows what he’s talking about, you trust him and his ideas, even if working on them for three hours at a time is horrible. Tactical stuff really is the worst.” He laughs. “But you just know it will come off.”

Gosens is aware of the value of hard work, perhaps more than your average footballer. He grew up in the village of Elten, close to the Dutch border, and never truly believed he would make it as professional after a hopeless trial with Borussia Dortmund in his teens.

“The standard was far too high me,” he winces. He played for tiny amateur side VfL Rhede in his youth, often turning up to matches after heavy-duty night outs with friends. But once, a scout from Vitesse Arnhem dispatched to watch a different player, happened to see him dominate a game in midfield. He invited him for a trial. Gosens moved across the border, aged 18. Peter Bosz, Vitesse’s coach at the time, called him up to the pros. He then moved to newly-promoted Dordrecht and onwards to Heracles. It’s only this season, however, that he has managed to really come into his own, a veritable late-bloomer in the age of hot-housed prodigies.

“It’s hard to explain why it has clicked for me now but one factor is essential: I’ve worked incredibly hard on myself since I got the chance to become a pro,” he says. “It’s because I felt I had to make up for all the things I didn’t learn in an academy. The dream was so big that I promised myself to never stop working and trying to improve myself. I think there’s still unrealised potential. I want to go further, I want more, I will never rest on my laurels. I think that’s what makes me different from some other players. The most beautiful thing you can do is play football for a living, I’m aware of that. Every single day.”

Would he give his 15-year-old self advice on how to lead a different, more football-focused life, and perhaps make it more quickly? The surprising answer is no. “I’m incredibly happy that I became a pro this way. I know it’s not the norm these days but I’m honestly not sure I would have made it if I had joined an academy aged 16 or 17. I’m a free spirit, I needed that experience as a youngster, doing lots of stupid things and being completely out of order a few times to become the player and the human being I am today. I’m at peace with myself because I don’t feel that I missed out on my youth. I made all the mistakes I needed to make.” Pre-match beers are no longer viable, he laughs: “They will have to wait until the holidays.”

And then, the next step beckons. Gosens is expected to get called up by Germany this autumn, to reach another milestone in his wondrous career. There is also plenty of talk of a €30 million move to a bigger club after Atalanta’s European exploits come to an end.

Gosens admits that he’s excited by the prospect of playing in the Bundesliga but he won’t leave simply for the sake of a bigger pay packet. “Money is great. But it’s never been the driving force for me. I need to know what a club and a coach have planned for me, what they want to achieve. Being part of a project is more important than the financial aspect. You only get better as a player and a person if someone believes in you.”

[DDA 9,690]

Still think we should take a punt on Ben White from Leeds. 

[Vesper 28,767]

Raphael Varane will come back from Etihad nightmare, but will this Real Madrid?

https://theathletic.com/1973562/2020/08/08/raphael-varane-real-madrid-champions-league/

Raphael Varane’s two very uncharacteristic but decisive individual mistakes were the initial headline takeaway as Real Madrid were eliminated from the Champions League at Manchester City on Friday night.

Varane was distraught afterwards, and faced up on Spanish TV to take full responsibility for what had happened. “I want to show my face as this defeat is mine,” the France international said. “We had prepared well, but you pay for mistakes at this level, very dearly. I cannot explain the mistakes, it can happen in football, this is a difficult night for me. It has not happened to me very often before. You have to have character to come back even stronger.”

Still 27, Varane has had an otherwise excellent season, and already has 19 career trophies, including four Champions Leagues and a World Cup. He will be back to add to that tally over the next few years, we can be pretty sure about that.

The big problem for Madrid is that they cannot now make the serious changes elsewhere in their team as they were well beaten by City over the two legs. Los Blancos were deservedly eliminated from the competition at the last-16 stage, just as they were last season when Ajax shocked the then holders by knocking them out at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu. And Zidane now is stuck with more or less the same squad again for 2020-21, and maybe even further.

Losing both games against City — deservedly so — made it the first time Madrid had been beaten in each leg of a Champions League tie since they lost 1-0 at home and 4-0 away to Rafa Benitez’s Liverpool back in 2009.

That disgrace was followed by Florentino Perez returning as Madrid club president, and over 300 million euros spent on Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Xabi Alonso and Karim Benzema the following summer. That was the response expected when Madrid suffered a setback — they would buy their way out of trouble. It did not work immediately, but alongside other very top players like Gareth Bale and Toni Kroos, the base of the team was put into place which would go on to win an unprecedented four Champions Leagues in five seasons from 2014 to 2019. Over that period Madrid were not always the best club team around, but they had so many big stars at the peak of their careers that they almost always found a way to win in the biggest European occasions.

That is no longer the case. Madrid a decade ago were clearly world football’s biggest spenders, but a lot has changed since then. Most important was the entrance of billionaire owners elsewhere, such as those who have bankrolled City’s emergence and construction of a team which is now more talented, more motivated and much younger than Madrid’s. That was the case even before the €600 million Bernabeu stadium rebuild and COVID-19 pandemic both seriously affected Madrid’s finances.

The current difference between Madrid and City teams was summed up by Kevin De Bruyne completely overshadowing Luka Modric as the most influential midfielder on the pitch at the Etihad. Modric’s frustration saw the almost 35-year-old booked midway through the second half for a tired hack at De Bruyne, after the Belgian had again skipped away from him in the centre of the park. It was quite similar to what happened as Ajax knocked Madrid out of the competition at the same last-16 stage last season — when Frenkie de Jong cheekily eased his way past the Croatian as part of a dominant midfield performance.

Asked at Friday’s post-game press conference if Madrid now needed to spend lots of money this summer to strengthen the squad, Zidane preferred to talk up how well his current players had done over the course of 2019-20.

“We have to be very proud of the team, of what we did,” Zidane replied. “This has been an excellent season. Today we are not happy, as these players always want to win. But sometimes you lose. We must remain calm, keep our heads up. As 95 per cent of all the players have done, all season, have been spectacular, excellent. And I will stick with that. We must be very happy with what we have done.”

It was understandable for Zidane to look to protect his current players, but it was also just not true. Madrid have had plenty of bad moments all the way through 2019-20. They won just three of their eight Champions League games over the campaign, against Galatasaray (twice) and Club Bruges. They exited the Copa del Rey embarrassingly 4-3 at home to Real Sociedad. Their La Liga form before COVID-19 struck was very uneven, and while their 10-game winning streak post-lockdown was impressive in its seriousness and determination, all the chaos at Barcelona was also a big factor in Madrid winning the strangest of Spanish title races.

Zidane’s message about his squad on Friday was also strikingly different to what he said when he returned as coach in March 2019. Then he spoke openly about a “second project” and the “changes” that would be made “for sure” the following summer, regularly mentioning publicly players he wanted to bring in such as Paul Pogba and Kylian Mbappe. Circumstances — and Perez — thwarted that plan for a significant overhaul. Gareth Bale and James Rodriguez remained at the Bernabeu, while neither Pogba nor Mbappe arrived. The one big name who Zidane was given was long-time target Eden Hazard — who has scored just once in the whole season since his €100 million arrival from Chelsea, due to serial ankle problems which will not go away.

Whenever asked about his plans for this summer’s transfer window, Perez has been very careful to keep everyone’s expectations under control. “There will not be any big signings,” he said during the La Liga title celebrations in mid-July. “The situation is very bad. It is difficult to ask the players to take salary cuts, and then sign big players.”

Asked specifically about Paris Saint-Germain star Mbappe, with whom Zidane has already cultivated a very close personal relationship, the construction magnate suggested that this was not the right time, yet, to make that move. “That can wait,” he said. “Real Madrid will return to signing the best players around, when the situation changes, and these things can be taken on.”

That fits with the strategy which has been leaking out of Madrid for some time now. Their transfer decision-makers feel that they are very well placed to be Mbappe’s next club, and that they can play a waiting game. The 21-year-old has just two years left on his current contract and has rebuffed attempts by the PSG hierarchy to extend it. If sources around the Bernabeu are to be believed, he is stonewalling any attempts to extend that to make an escape to Madrid next summer as easy (and cheap) as possible.

What Zidane thinks of having to go into next season with the same squad, being stuck with Bale and James while having to wait for Mbappe, remains to be seen. After what was his first loss in 13 Champions League ties/finals as a coach, the Frenchman repeatedly dodged questions over his future at the post-game news conference at the Etihad late on Friday night.

“We will have to see what we will do. We all need to rest a bit,” was his first response to the question. “We will have to see what we would need to have a great season,” he said when pressed to confirm if he would still be in charge when the new La Liga campaign starts in September.

Differences of opinion between the president and coach over how much can be spent on new players do not appear to be resolved. If Perez cannot find the money to improve the individual quality of the squad, can Zidane improve as a tactician to make them play better collectively as a team? Is that a challenge he is keen to take on? Those questions were left hanging in the air as Madrid arrived back in the Spanish capital early on Saturday morning, with the longest season ever having finished earlier than they had expected.

[NikkiCFC 7,942]

Imagine pairing of Christensen and Stones 

Two pussies.

[Blue Armour 4,278]

Not sure why we're not even making an attempt at Soyuncu

Now he's linked with Barca

Is he too unrealistic a transfer target?

[Puliiszola 519]

36 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

Imagine pairing of Christensen and Stones 

Two pussies.

What the actual fuck. While we are at it,get Luiz back too.

[AOIRO 64]

NoOne want to  Jorginho even if 20m price-tag lol .

SomeOne said Jorginho is 50m￡ worth LAMO ..

She didnt know football-market ....

[Puliiszola 519]

2 hours ago, Blue Armour said:

Not sure why we're not even making an attempt at Soyuncu

Now he's linked with Barca

Is he too unrealistic a transfer target?

Probably. I mean I can see Leicester making unreasonable demands of 100m£ and the whole saga with us finally moving on. 

[coolhead23 1,146]

19 hours ago, Vesper said:

that was a winter window piss take valuation by BHO, I think £25m to £30m (35m max, due to his age)  would work, or toss in a turd from our fancy big turd collection for makeweight (although our turds come with back-and-bank-breaking salaries for minnows like BHO)

Even for a Winter window or any window for that matter it cannot be 50m ... It is not that a WC player where the spike can be any ludicrous amount. 

[Yeboii 1,844]

9 hours ago, Blue Armour said:

Not sure why we're not even making an attempt at Soyuncu

Now he's linked with Barca

Is he too unrealistic a transfer target?

Highly doubt Leicester will part with him for less than 70 mill

[NikkiCFC 7,942]

 

[ulsterchelsea 3,221]

5 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

 

Quoting the daily Star so doubt it

[Pizy 18,368]

This Ben White dude seems to be very highly rated and sought after. Is he Chelsea level?

[DDA 9,690]

8 minutes ago, Pizy said:

This Ben White dude seems to be very highly rated and sought after. Is he Chelsea level?

He looks very good when I have watched him. He had abit of a shocker against us but he has the potential to be what people thought John Stones was going to be.