Chelsea Transfers

[Blues Forever 1,232]

 

[Pizy 17,860]

Just watched a Thiago Silva 2020 YouTube video. It's actually kind of funny how good he is. Very Van Dijk-like in that he basically plays the game at jogging pace because his positioning and intelligence is so great. Rarely gets into poor situations where he has to panic and sprint around. Just looks effortless for him.

If that's what we'd get from him then it's a great move. 

[Supermonkey92 1,428]

Keeper [emoji102][emoji102][emoji102]

According to WHU fans this guy is super reliable.

Yeah I've heard he's legit for WH.

Apparently he said he may open a twitter page for Chelsea because hes got good 'contacts' in the club but he hates us apparently lol.

Id wait and see what he says, see if its obvious or something difficult to guess and if it turns out correct then trust him

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[Special Juan 27,104]

3 minutes ago, Pizy said:

Just watched a Thiago Silva 2020 YouTube video. It's actually kind of funny how good he is. Very Van Dijk-like in that he basically plays the game at jogging pace because his positioning and intelligence is so great. Rarely gets into poor situations where he has to panic and sprint around. Just looks effortless for him.

If that's what we'd get from him then it's a great move. 

JT had fuck all pace, he was just a world class reader of the game, Silva is more of the same.

[Supermonkey92 1,428]

Cmon why no links to RAJKOVIC?

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[killer1257 3,282]

This long lost big brother of Ferlan and Benjamin mendy (jk) apparently has conceded just 19 goals int eh french league this season (albeit playing just 24 games). and kept a cleansheet in 13 of 33 overall games which is an impressive ratio for an average side like Rennes. He is already 28 tho. With him Rennes finished 3rd last season btw so maybe we should trust lollichon on this one. Honestly never seen a single minute of him before.

Save percentage of 78% seems also good. Rajkovic has 81%.

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[Pizy 17,860]

Really don't think we can afford to take another big gamble at GK after Kepa. Mendy would be another big risk.

We need as close to a sure thing as we can get. 

[Vesper 27,341]

Transfer news tracker: Chelsea in advanced talks with PSG captain Thiago Silva

https://theathletic.com/1959808/2020/08/21/transfer-news-tracker-chelsea-thiago-silva/

The transfer window is open and between now and October, The Athletic team will keep you informed of all the significant developments they hear.

Not a subscriber to The Athletic? You can give our award-winning journalism a trial by clicking here.

We won’t bring you gossip or rumours, just what is really happening and why.

Our team around the country will provide in-depth analysis of the big moves and all the detail — including the Premier League’s value for money table and how it works and David Ornstein’s insight in his weekly column.

---

August 21, 2020

Chelsea might have settled on a surprising solution to their need for centre-back reinforcement – 35-year-old outgoing Paris Saint-Germain captain Thiago Silva, reports Liam Twomey.

It is understood that Silva, who is set to make his final appearance for PSG in the Champions League final against Bayern Munich on Sunday, has been in advanced talks with Chelsea about a free transfer to Stamford Bridge for several days.

The deal is not regarded as close yet as there are several issues to iron out – chief among them contract length. 

Silva turns 36 in September, and Chelsea have followed a policy for much of the last decade of only offering one-year deals to players over the age of 30. They did, however, make an exception by giving David Luiz a two-year extension before selling him to Arsenal last summer, and offered Willian the same before he also chose to join Arsenal.

Silva has harboured an ambition to play in the Premier League for many years and would still back himself to perform at a high level despite being in the twilight of his career. He felt he still had plenty to offer PSG and it was the club’s decision not to offer him a new deal.

Keeping a rampant Bayern attack at bay at the Estadio da Luz on Sunday to help his club lift the Champions League for the first time in its history would strengthen his case, and there is even a suggestion that PSG might be prepared to change course and make an offer to keep him if they win the trophy they covet most.

He could only be regarded as a short-term fix for a Chelsea defence that conceded 54 goals in the Premier League last season, the most of any club in the top half of the table. Declan Rice is Frank Lampard’s top centre-back target, but David Moyes last month made it clear that “Bank of England money” would be required to convince West Ham United to sell their prized asset and Kai Havertz and Ben Chilwell are higher-priority targets.

Chelsea have also held preliminary talks with Brighton & Hove Albion over their captain Lewis Dunk. Sources have told The Athletic that the 28-year-old believes he has an understanding with the club that would allow him to leave if a ‘big-six’ club were to make an acceptable offer, but the reported asking price of £50 million is steep. Those close to the situation regard the likelihood of a deal happening as low.

Another centre-back staying at Brighton — for now at least — is Ben White, with Leeds United failing in a third bid for the 22-year-old. As a result, the club will step up their interest in Freiburg defender Robin Koch, reports Phil Hay.

Leeds will attempt to push forward a deal for Koch in the next 48 hours with their interest in White at a standstill and Brighton refusing to bend in negotiations.

White was a major target at Elland Road after shining in Leeds’ Championship-winning season but Leeds have seen three offers rejected, including a bid of around £25 million made on Wednesday.

Koch, a 24-year-old Germany international, has been monitored by Leeds and their director of football, Victor Orta, for many months and was on the list of alternatives if a deal for White failed to materialise.

His contract at Freiburg expires next summer and The Athletic has been told that negotiations over his future will intensify over the weekend with the start of the Premier League season just three weeks away.

Leeds, who are still to secure a senior signing since their promotion from the Championship, are also considering whether to return with a second offer for Rangers midfielder Ryan Kent.

An initial bid for Kent — believed to be worth up to £10 million — has been turned down, with Rangers manager Steven Gerrard warning that Leeds “need to think really hard if they want to come in again”.

Leeds came close to signing Kent from Liverpool last summer before loaning striker Eddie Nketiah from Arsenal. Kent later moved to Rangers in a £7 million deal. The agreement with Liverpool included a sell-on clause.

On top of a player in Kent’s position, Leeds are also in the market for a centre-forward. As revealed last month, the club are interested in Brentford’s Ollie Watkins.

 

snip

[killer1257 3,282]

Edouard Mendy is really Ferland Mendy's cousin lol

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[Vesper 27,341]

Rice, Silva and Dunk: Chelsea struggling to solve issues at centre-back

https://theathletic.com/2010751/2020/08/21/thiago-silva-chelsea-lewis-dunk-centre-back-sign-transfer/

Chelsea’s transfer window is going well. The early signings of Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner ensured that Marina Granovskaia went into this shortest of off-seasons with impressive momentum, and there is a confidence around Stamford Bridge that Kai Havertz and Ben Chilwell will be added to the list of recruits sooner rather than later.

But in other areas, the picture is far less clear. The questions of what to do about Kepa Arrizabalaga and who to replace him with are yet to be answered and at centre-back — arguably the position of most urgent need — Frank Lampard is finding that the transfer market holds no easy solutions.

He really wants Declan Rice, as much for his personality as his talent. Players with the natural authority to captain a Premier League side at the age of 21 are very rare but such has been the speed of Rice’s growth at West Ham that it wasn’t surprising to see him handed the armband in Mark Noble’s absence for the 3-2 win over Chelsea last month.

Rice has a presence on the pitch beyond his years and no one familiar with his journey through Chelsea’s academy up to the age of 14 has any doubt that he could shift easily from the heart of midfield to the centre of defence. He has a physicality in the air and on the floor that Lampard’s current centre-backs lack and his passing range would suit being a defender in a possession team.

If he were to stay at West Ham for the long term, Rice has been assured of his importance. “I think Declan is the future captain of West Ham going forward,” David Moyes said last month. “When Mark Noble comes to an end, I think it will be Declan Rice. We have no intention of letting him go but if it does come, it will need to be ‘Bank of England’ money.”

Therein lies the problem. West Ham’s owners David Gold and David Sullivan are not only aware of how valuable Rice is — they are also mindful of how unpopular a decision it would be to sell him to Chelsea and to Lampard, the man who burned his bridges forever in that part of east London when he made the same move in 2001. Glen Johnson and Joe Cole followed in his footsteps two years later, and no player has made the journey since.

Chelsea would be hard-pressed to pay in the region of £80 million for Rice without significant income from player sales, given that Havertz is the top priority and Chilwell will not come cheap. There is also the concern that paying Virgil van Dijk money for a 21-year-old could generate unfair expectations on him to single-handedly fix a defence that too often looked shambolic in 2019-20.

The list of potential centre-back signings stretches beyond Rice, of course, and Chelsea like to keep their options open during transfer windows. Sources have told The Athletic that talks have been held with Brighton over captain Lewis Dunk, a powerful defender who has matured into a reliable Premier League performer and earned England recognition over the last three years.

Dunk, like Rice, is a natural leader who would help address Chelsea’s glaring weaknesses defending crosses and set-pieces. In terms of profile, there is a reasonable comparison to be made with Gary Cahill, who arrived at Stamford Bridge from Bolton Wanderers in January 2012 to little fanfare but went on to be a consistent presence in teams that won every major domestic and European trophy.

The difference is that Cahill cost Chelsea around £7 million. Sources have told The Athletic that Dunk believes he has an understanding with Brighton that means he can leave if an acceptable offer is received from one of the Premier League’s “big six” but what that offer needs to be is less clear. If it is in the region of £50 million, his appeal as an alternative target is greatly reduced.

Chelsea’s talks with Brighton should, at this stage, be regarded as market research — nothing more. Those close to the situation currently rate the chances of a deal actually happening as low. Dunk’s highly-rated team-mate Ben White, subject of a third and final offer of £25 million-plus performance-based bonuses from Leeds United, would likely be cheaper but the 22-year-old is totally unproven in the Premier League.

At the other end of the experience scale is Paris Saint-Germain’s outgoing captain Thiago Silva, who could well enter the free agent market as a newly-crowned Champions League winner. Reports that he has been offered to Chelsea are accurate, though his time working under Carlo Ancelotti at AC Milan and in the French capital means a close eye should be kept on Everton in any battle that develops to sign him.

Silva turns 36 in September but he still harbours an ambition to play in the Premier League and would back himself to rise to the challenge of one of the fastest, most intense competitions in Europe despite being in the twilight of his career. If he does succeed in leading PSG to a maiden Champions League crown on Sunday, keeping Bayern Munich’s rampant attack at bay in the process, it will become harder to argue against him.

It would be a surprising deal for Chelsea to do and not simply because Silva would be the oldest outfield signing of the Roman Abramovich era. His lack of speed at this stage of his career makes him ill-suited to playing the high defensive line required for Lampard’s intense pressing game; Unai Emery blamed him for dropping too deep in PSG’s infamous 6-1 defeat against Barcelona out of fear that his athletic limitations would be exposed. That was three years ago.

Perhaps he could help guide Chelsea’s younger defenders. On the surface, his leadership credentials are unassailable: he is PSG’s most successful-ever captain and also wore the armband for Brazil in the 2014 World Cup. But he was not a paragon of inspiration there, bursting into tears after a last-16 penalty shootout win over Chile and picking up a silly booking against Colombia that ruled him out of his team’s 7-1 thrashing against Germany in the semi-finals. His club captaincy is also punctuated by a litany of embarrassing Champions League failures.

Chelsea know they need a centre-back. They will keep pushing for Rice and, if that fails, turn their attentions elsewhere. But if they are forced to go further down their list of targets, they will do so mindful of the fact that none are without their risks.

[killer1257 3,282]

Best video of Ed Mendy I found so far. He looks very athletic and proactive coming out of his goal with good timing. He has crazy long arms and hands. When he just stands he can move hand and wrist above the crossbar. Looks weird but this is why doesnt usually make saves with outstretched arms like a normal goalkeeper. The big downside I see is that he parries most shots right back into the danger area like courtois did at atletico.
 
 

He seems to me like the african version of Nick Pope

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[Vesper 27,341]

31 minutes ago, Artandur said:

@VesperI'm sure you already talked about him at some point, but what's your take on this Mendy guy? 

he is not in my top 10

I say pass unless he is literally the only stopgap option left

[Ryan Fong 2,776]

Really don't think we can afford to take another big gamble at GK after Kepa. Mendy would be another big risk.
We need as close to a sure thing as we can get. 

Depends on the price I guess, Rennais conceded the second fewest in Ligue 1 last season and he can’t be worse than Kepa I guess, no one can be really.

[Jase 43,479]

 

[Special Juan 27,104]

Silva would be a great deal on a free, not even a debate for me. If we can convince him and agree wages he will be a quality addition to our squad for both ability and leadership.

The big people are reporting this as well as Chilwell deal.....really exciting times.

[Alabama 1,992]

Thiago will bring composure and organisation our defense lacks...

 

[Liuxas 121]

I have feeling that he gonna fail in PL. He's to old and to slow already for high speed competition like BPL.The  Athletic have their point and I agree. 

[milka 3,308]