🇵🇹 Joao Felix

[Vesper 30,195]

56 minutes ago, Pizy said:

Plus, I think Oblak’s contract is up this summer and he’s heavily rumored to be leaving.

Joined:
Jul 16, 2014
Contract expires:
Jun 30, 2028
Date of last contract extension:
Jul 20, 2022

[Vesper 30,195]

Joao Felix looks at home at Chelsea and is already making a case for longer stay

https://theathletic.com/4185663/2023/02/12/joao-felix-Chelsea-west-ham/

Todd Boehly’s smile during Chelsea’s 1-1 draw at West Ham United looked bittersweet.

When the TV cameras panned back to where the Chelsea chairman was sitting at the London Stadium, the player who caused him to beam broadly the most was one the club do not even own.

Joao Felix had to wait a month to make his second appearance since joining from Atletico Madrid on loan after serving a three-match suspension for a red card at Fulham. But for his second game running, the Portugal international was Chelsea’s best player.

Chelsea’s co-owners have spent more than £500million ($603m) — not including add-ons — on new players since taking over last summer. Joao Felix’s loan fee cost Chelsea £9.7m, a decision that was criticised, but you can already see why the 23-year-old is valued so highly.

Most of the recent arrivals have not made an instant impact. Out of the other 17 (including another loan in Denis Zakaria) to join in the past two transfer windows, only Benoit Badiashile and Enzo Fernandez have made similarly strong starts.

There has not been a great deal for Chelsea fans to get excited about on the pitch. Their team have won just two of their past 12 games in all competitions, scoring only six goals in the process. But Joao Felix is giving them some hope, a reason to get off their seats and a catchy song about coming from Portugal and ‘hating the Arsenal‘. Against West Ham, he also did what seems alien to many of his team-mates: he found the back of the net.

It helped that, with the assist, Fernandez provided the kind of vision and creativity that has also been lacking too much from Chelsea’s play. But Joao Felix’s well-timed run also caught West Ham’s defence unawares, and his finish was just too good for Lukasz Fabianski.

The attack has been crying out for this kind of spark, which is one of the reasons the Boehly-Clearlake consortium sanctioned a significant transfer spend in January.

Mykhailo Mudryk and Noni Madueke have shown flashes of what they will bring once they settle in, but Joao Felix already looks like he has been at Chelsea for some time and is enjoying the opportunity to represent the west London club.

Talking to the Spanish newspaper AS before the fixture, he said: “I’ve only been here a few weeks, a month. I know everything. I am very comfortable, but nobody knows the future.”

You get the impression he would like to make the move permanent already. However, there was no option to buy included in the loan and Atletico also extended his contract until 2027 to protect his value and their position. Reports in Spain last week said Atletico value Joao Felix at £124m, although Chelsea believe they can be persuaded to accept a lower sum than that.

If he keeps playing like this, he will give the hierarchy a decision to make. They do not intend to sign another raft of players in the summer but are prepared to spend big again in a few key positions. One of those will be another forward, despite having already put a deal in place to sign RB Leipzig forward Christopher Nkunku.

When Chelsea made their loan move for Joao Felix, they did so on the proviso that if he impresses, the club will consider adding him to the squad on a permanent basis.

Granted, Joao Felix faded in the second half against West Ham, surely a symptom of not playing for a month, but his numbers still stood out.

In Graham Potter’s side, the Portugal forward registered the most shots (three) and shots on target (two), supplied the most crosses (eight) and was also Chelsea’s most-fouled player (three) — an indication of how much West Ham struggled to contain him.

Among the attacking players who started the game for Chelsea, which included Kai Havertz, Mudryk and Madueke, he also had the most touches (66) and passes (35).

What was noticeable is that even though he started out as a No 10 behind Havertz in a 4-2-3-1 formation, Joao Felix roamed all over the pitch, giving all his new team-mates an option to pass to at some point, as his touch map below shows:

A sign of just how confident he is in a Chelsea shirt was provided by one scooped pass over a bewildered Jarrod Bowen, followed later by a smart jink that sent Said Benrahma on his way to the nearby Stratford train station.

Perhaps all the acquisitions will click too late to correct all the damage inflicted on their standing in the Premier League table, but Joao Felix can help inspire a Champions League run. They face Borussia Dortmund in the first leg of their last-16 tie on Wednesday in Germany and his name has been added to Chelsea’s squad for the knockout phase.

“I love the atmosphere in the Premier League,” Joao Felix told Chelsea’s Fifth Stand app after the West Ham game. “Now it’s about focusing on the next game. It’s the Champions League — that’s the competition we want to win. Our Champions League starts on Wednesday and it needs to be ours.”

That’s just the kind of fighting talk Boehly and the supporters want to hear.

[Pizy 18,928]

2 hours ago, Vesper said:

Joined:
Jul 16, 2014
Contract expires:
Jun 30, 2028
Date of last contract extension:
Jul 20, 2022

Weird. Then why have I been seeing constant rumors about him finally wanting out? 

[Hashishi 148]

25 minutes ago, Pizy said:

Weird. Then why have I been seeing constant rumors about him finally wanting out? 

Things seem uncertain in general over there, they had money problems after covid but this was overshadowed by Barcas levers. Their wage budget is bursting full and they probably want to get rid of their high earners like Felix and Oblak, and even Simeone is rumored to be leaving.

[TheHulk 2,467]

 

[TheHulk 2,467]

 

[TheHulk 2,467]

 

[DDA 9,941]

🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

[NikkiCFC 8,327]

Atletico is deluded if they want same type of money they paid 3 and a half seasons ago.  80m is fair price. 

It's like us asking 80m for Havertz in the summer. 

[OneMoSalah 8,886]

On 13/02/2023 at 23:10, NikkiCFC said:

Atletico is deluded if they want same type of money they paid 3 and a half seasons ago.  80m is fair price. 

It's like us asking 80m for Havertz in the summer. 

His Atleti deal runs to the summer of 2027 though. Ultimately think a fee will be around £90-100m if we do make it permanent but not entirely sure because Nkunku is coming in the summer and plays the same position. Plus if he starts scoring goals or making assists regularly he will only strengthen Atleti’s valuation.

Edited February 15, 2023 by OneMoSalah

[Special Juan 28,141]

Possible Pulisic makeweight.

[Reddish-Blue 2,509]

16 minutes ago, Special Juan said:

Possible Pulisic makeweight.

Pulisic playing with a manager like Simeone?   I highly doubt that.  

We're better off asking Eddie Howe for a favor, he seems to like his wingers (Fraser at Bournemouth, Gordon at Newcastle etc)

[Reddish-Blue 2,509]

On 14/02/2023 at 10:10, NikkiCFC said:

Atletico is deluded if they want same type of money they paid 3 and a half seasons ago.  80m is fair price. 

It's like us asking 80m for Havertz in the summer. 

Difference is... Felix has potential to improve in the right tactical setup.   

Bit of a difference from Havertz who has just looked bang average at Chelsea.   Even Werner had more about his game than Havertz, probably the reason why Leipzig agreed to take him back

[NikkiCFC 8,327]

42 minutes ago, Reddish-Blue said:

Bit of a difference from Havertz who has just looked bang average at Chelsea.  

Same with Felix in Atletico. 

Don't see much difference tbh. Both looked amazing in Benfica and Bayer and didn't reach expectations in Chelsea and Atletico. In fact, you may argue Havertz did more with winning CL, scoring in the final... 

Same Atletico sold Griezmann for 120m to Barca and got him back for peanuts because he flopped in Barcelona. I also think Felix flopped there due Simeone and system but that's not the point, they absolutely have no logic to expect anything close to what they paid. 

You used Werner as example and same thing happened with him. Leipzig got him back for half price what we paid them. 

Also I'm sure Havertz would score for fun in Bayern for example. 

Edited February 15, 2023 by NikkiCFC

[Superblue 6,372]

I'm starting to wonder where this Nkunku deal fits in with Felix. It's widely reported and assumed that Nkunku is a done deal but I'm surprised then that it hasn't yet been announced to happen in the summer (i.e. like Pulisic was a few years back), or knowing the FFP rules coming in why we didn't try to do the deal in January and loan him back a little bit like Gusto so the deal was completed under the old FFP rules.

I think a deal may well be in place, but I'm not so sure whether its actually been signed off. Or perhaps Nkunku has provisionally agreed but there's a caveat to the deal regarding whether we qualify for the Champions League next season.

I cannot see a situation where we're buying both Felix and Nkunku for the summer at somewhere in the region of £150m combined for essentially the same position both will be eyeing up in the team.

Was this Felix loan actually made with that in mind - to help make a decision on him or Nkunku for the summer?

[TheHulk 2,467]

Better to sell Mount individually to get the fee for FP.

[Fernando 6,585]

On 10/01/2023 at 09:41, Fernando said:

Not excited. My expectations are those of Higuain, Morata and lukaku. 

I thinking his performance will fare on those type of players. 

 

I have been very wrong. 

Show's how much I know about transfer. 

In the end it seems the January transfer window was the best we done in a while. 

[Pizy 18,928]

Fantastic footballer who opponents are genuinely concerned about whenever he gets on the ball. 

Finishing isn’t where it needs to be but everything else is great. We NEED to keep him.

[Fernando 6,585]

2 minutes ago, Pizy said:

Fantastic footballer who opponents are genuinely concerned about whenever he gets on the ball. 

Finishing isn’t where it needs to be but everything else is great. We NEED to keep him.

We actually haven't had a player like this since Hazard. 

Definitely worth paying big for him in the summer. 

[DDA 9,941]

I just love watching the lad play.. he is a throwback to the 90's and early 00's where players would play with an artistic flair and arrogance that can't be taught.