Chelsea Transfers

[Jype 6,398]

1 hour ago, King Kante said:

Not going to happen. It is kind of like a Barca situation but with lower figures. I mean seriously, where are we finding a crack head who will pay any of the following wages: 

Kepa - £170k a week

Baka - £110k a week

Drinky - £100k a week

Batsh*t - £110k a week

RLC - £120k a week

Barkley - £100k a week

I am sorry, but those players above are sunk costs, we are not getting a fee for them, because no one is insane enough to pay those wages. At best we get a loan with wages covered, however most will require subsidised wages and forget about a loan fee. 

Zappa - £80k a week

Emerson - £50k a week

Batshuayi, Bakayoko, Drinkwater, Zappacosta and Emerson all have just a year left on their high wage contracts though.

While those players are not good enough to play for Chelsea they are still good enough to play for many top flight clubs around European leagues. 

Assuming there are clubs who consider them good enough to play for them and are willing to pay market value transfer fees for these players with reasonable wages, Chelsea should only really have to subsidise the wages for the first year at their new club so in other words till the end of their current deals.

Surely the players themselves know they're not going to get wages like that anywhere else now that their stock has plummeted in recent years, so let's say they accept a 5 year deal at £50K/wk at their new club. Chelsea will pay the difference (£50-70K/wk) for the first year and after that they only receive the lower wage from their new club. That way the buying club will get the players on wages they're happy to pay and can even pay a fair transfer fee for the players (most should vary from around €5M-15M).

The real problem are players still on long-term deals like Kepa who still has four years left. No one is going to pay him as much as he currently makes and it's also difficult for Chelsea to subsidise the high wages for four years without getting anything in return. Most of the others on the list (especially Zappa, Drinkwater, Bakayoko) have been such problems before but are currently nearing the end of their contracts so it should be getting a lot easier to shift them.

[Jase 43,479]

26 minutes ago, Pizy said:

Wonder how we’d even line up with if we bought Rice. All summer people have been talking about Jorginho as an outside Balon D’or candidate (which is silly, tbf) and he has been a key player for club and country. Would be extremely harsh to just bench him and he’s way too good to simply be a squad player getting the odd game. Kante is a nailed on starter of course.

So where would he play? Even if we were to switch formation to a 4-3-3 to fit all 3 of Rice, Kante, and J5 we’d be leaving out someone extremely important in attack like Mount. Not to mention Kova would find minutes harder to come by and he’s always great to have in the biggest games.

Rotation. Rotation. Rotation.

[Jase 43,479]

34 minutes ago, Blues Forever said:

 

 

Which "people" is Simon Johnson referring to? 

Wasn't the club not keen on Rice last year because they weren't convinced by him? Or was that due to the high fee wanted by West Ham?

Everything was pinned on Lampard for wanting Rice last summer but now the club have seemingly jumped onto the bandwagon, on top of Tuchel also reportedly liking Rice. 

[Pizy 17,860]

5 minutes ago, Jas said:

Rotation. Rotation. Rotation.

True. Could imagine seeing a Rice + Kante midfield pairing against teams like City/Liverpool/United and then against teams where we’ll have 80% of the ball we’d switch it up and rotate Kante for Kova of J5.

[Jase 43,479]

8 minutes ago, Strike said:

For all the talk of Jorginho as a Ballon D'Or candidate, he was not even a lock in the XI under Tuchel. Didn't Kovacic and Kante start a bunch of games?

Eh?

Jorginho did not start in only 7 games under Tuchel last season - he was suspended for 1 of them; another 2 of those games were in the FA Cup while the remaining 4 were likely due to rotation/resting him. 

Kante and Kovacic had their injury issues but Tuchel rotated more between those two and some times between the three of them a bit when all 3 were available. 

[Artandur 938]

I don't really want Rice here anymore, simply because of the fan discourse he would bring with him. Would be worse than Mount where after a good game he is the best midfielder in the world for one camp, and after a bad one he is the biggest fraud in the world to the other camp.

[Jype 6,398]

4 minutes ago, Jas said:

Which "people" is Simon Johnson referring to? 

Wasn't the club not keen on Rice last year because they weren't convinced by him? Or was that due to the high fee wanted by West Ham?

Everything was pinned on Lampard for wanting Rice last summer but now the club have seemingly jumped onto the bandwagon, on top of Tuchel also reportedly liking Rice. 

To be fair it probably helps Rice enjoyed a great season, both on a personal level and team performance.

Back in 19/20 he was also one of West Ham's top performers but that year they only narrowly escaped relegation, whereas this past season they finished in European places with Rice again one of their most consistent players and England went on to play in the Euros final with Rice starting every game. If the club's higher ups weren't convinced by him before they certainly should be now.

[Strike 6,961]

2 minutes ago, Jas said:

Eh?

Jorginho did not start in only 7 games under Tuchel last season - he was suspended for 1 of them; another 2 of those games were in the FA Cup while the remaining 4 were likely due to rotation/resting him. 

Kante and Kovacic had their injury issues but Tuchel rotated more between those two and some times between the three of them a bit when all 3 were available. 

Ah stand corrected

[Jase 43,479]

2 minutes ago, Jype said:

To be fair it probably helps Rice enjoyed a great season, both on a personal level and team performance.

Back in 19/20 he was also one of West Ham's top performers but that year they only narrowly escaped relegation, whereas this past season they finished in European places with Rice again one of their most consistent players and England went on to play in the Euros final with Rice starting every game. If the club's higher ups weren't convinced by him before they certainly should be now.

Isn't that kinda worse, in that the club want him now on the back of a good season as opposed to basing on proper scouting, regardless of personal/team success? 

[Hashishi 148]

8 minutes ago, Jas said:

Isn't that kinda worse, in that the club want him now on the back of a good season as opposed to basing on proper scouting, regardless of personal/team success? 

He is saying that the reason people weren't raving about him was because the team was bad,even though he was a consistent performer in both seasons. 

[Jase 43,479]

5 minutes ago, Hashishi said:

He is saying that the reason people weren't raving about him was because the team was bad,even though he was a consistent performer in both seasons. 

I was talking from the club's perspective. 

[Pizy 17,860]

Think it’s all a moot point. Why would WH accept anything less than £100m or something? Unless Tammy is involved in the deal.

We’d be raving mad to spend that kind of cash straight up for a DM.

[Jype 6,398]

10 minutes ago, Jas said:

Isn't that kinda worse, in that the club want him now on the back of a good season as opposed to basing on proper scouting, regardless of personal/team success? 

Maybe, maybe not. Us fans obviously don't know the full circumstances behind the scenes so it's hard to say.

We're talking about a huge investment needed to land Rice so I suppose it makes sense for the club to see whether he can keep playing consistently at a high level for a longer period of time to prove the previous season wasn't just a fluke and that he's the real deal before committing so much money on him?

Also, it could be that the club simply couldn't afford to get him last year and it ultimately came down to choosing either Rice or Havertz but not both, and the club ended up walking over Lampard to get the latter instead. There was some talk of the board not being fully convinced by Lampard as the manager so they may have had some doubts over committing so much funds on Rice if the next manager didn't fancy him anymore so instead they went for the universally highly rated player in Havertz, which I would think is the right thing to do at the time because the club can still get Rice later (he clearly wants desperately to play for Chelsea) whereas Havertz might not have been available this year anymore.

Now that Rice had a great season and Tuchel seems to rate him too it's "easier" for the board to sanction a deal if West Ham are open to negotiating. In a way it's a lot like Harry Maguire to Man Utd. Jose wanted him in 2018 after the World Cup but the club said no, only for them to pay up and get the player for Ole a year later.

[Superblue 6,331]

16 minutes ago, Jas said:

Isn't that kinda worse, in that the club want him now on the back of a good season as opposed to basing on proper scouting, regardless of personal/team success? 

Possibly but then it's also possible that they had reservations to certain aspects of his game that they've now seen improve and develop over the last 12 months.

For me, I'll sit on the fence with Rice. He's clearly not as comfortable on the ball in a progressive team as Jorginho is but he does offer a different skillset which we don't have within the squad, i.e. an old fashioned holding midfielder with good pace and a good engine and a big physical presence. Tuchel maybe looking at having that alternative option to sometimes change the way we play. For example some have mentioned about the possibility of changing to a back 4 at times to help with the offensive side of the team and Tuchel may be thinking the same, but feels he needs a more defensive presence then in midfield to balance things.

There is also the possibility that he can be viewed as an option for the defence which means we may be able to move someone like Zouma on to help towards funding a move. Or he does provide an option to change mid game between a back 4 to back 5 with him on the pitch, without needing to make sweeping substitutions. 

So he does bring a number of options and possibilities with him. It's a lot of money though for someone who I think still has areas of his game on the ball which need to continue to improve.

[Superblue 6,331]

4 minutes ago, Pizy said:

Think it’s all a moot point. Why would WH accept anything less than £100m or something? Unless Tammy is involved in the deal.

We’d be raving mad to spend that kind of cash straight up for a DM.

My brother in law is a hammers fan and is adamant the owners would find it hard pressed to reject anything in the £60m bracket. 

[NikkiCFC 7,580]

If we didn't sign Havertz I would be at least 40% less excited for this squad. 

I see many want Rice. His partner in double pivot in WH scored double digits last season. Isn't he better player? He didn't finish last 5 games at EURO for England. 

At one point we will move to 4atb and 3 midfielders. Rice and Mount would play. If we are committing to that MF for next decade we are also committing to no attractive, attacking, progressive football for the next decade as well. With pragmatic football usually everything falls apart after a year or two. 

[Fernando 6,376]

Lampard wanted Rice, and all the target he was aiming for have come good. 

So I trust Lampard in that. Not as good as manager but good at spotting talent. 

I mean if it wasn't for Lampard we wouldn't have Mount. 

If Lampard, the club and now Tuchel are on board with Rice then I'm happy with that. 

[DDA 9,570]

Apparently Timo Werner is open to a move away with being part of the deal to secure Haaland. 

🤔