Chelsea 0-1 Nottm Forest

[Mário César 1,249]

bohley is playing football manager

[NikkiCFC 8,300]

[DDA 9,928]

23 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

Saw this yesterday. Silva needs to chill.

[Mário César 1,249]

3 hours ago, milka said:

Yep Academy Football Club .  

They expect to take over the world with inexperienced children .The Yankees are living in a parallel world if they think this will work.

Just talent is not enough if you don't have leaders by your side to push you. When we took  Hazard, Mata, Oscar, they were talented players, but they had leaders to learn from, such as Cech, Terry, Cole, Mikel, Lampard.Now we take talent from all over the world and just throw them

 

exactly

mudryk and madueke alone cost 100M and neither is ready

the management is betting everything on youngsters with potential and that has proven to be a mistake

it's good to buy a few players like that, but that's it. it's not about living off them.

they're ruining the club. 

[MoroccanBlue 5,378]

They'll never be ready if all they see is the bench and a LB starting over them for fucks sake. 

[Vesper 30,119]

14 hours ago, Vesper said:

I have little problem with is at all

let's look at my dream wants ages from the last two windows 

by position

(not listing pipedreams who are also under 26: Mbappe (24), Håland (23), Vini Jr (23), Bukayo Saka (21), Phil Foden (23), Pedri (20), Donnarumma (23), William Saliba (22), Bastoni (24), Rodrygo (20), Martin Ødegaard (24), or Martinelli (22))

ALL of these are 25 or under (and lower down in my 'too old' list you will see that only SEVEN non GKers are over 26. and of those 7, only Skriniar was actually possible)

Diogo Costa    
Goalkeeper
23

Giorgi Mamardashvili   
Goalkeeper
22

Josko Gvardiol   
Centre-Back
21

Ronald Araújo
Centre-Back
24

António Silva
Centre-Back
19

Alphonso Davies
Left-Back
22   

Nuno Mendes
Left-Back
21  

Theo Hernández  
Left-Back
25

Achraf Hakimi
Right-Back
24

Jeremie Frimpong   
Right-Back
22

Aurélien Tchouaméni
Defensive Midfield
23

Bruno Guimarães   
Defensive Midfield
25

Manuel Ugarte
Defensive Midfield
22

Jude Bellingham
Central Midfield
20

Federico Valverde
Central Midfield
25   

Gavi  
Central Midfield
19   

Eduardo Camavinga  
Central Midfield
20

Jamal Musiala 
Attacking Midfield
20    

Florian Wirtz   (IF healthy) 
Attacking Midfield
20

Xavi Simons 
Attacking Midfield
20

Rafael Leão
Left Winger
24    

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia
Left Winger
22

Federico Chiesa  (if healthy)
Left Winger
25

Moussa Diaby  
Right Winger
24

João Félix  
Second Striker
23

Victor Osimhen  
Centre-Forward
24    

Randal Kolo Muani   
Centre-Forward
24   

Julián Álvarez   
Centre-Forward
23

Dusan Vlahovic   
Centre-Forward
23    

 

The only 26yo or older players I rated to buy (very few and many are impossible, and FIVE are GKers and many (8) are 26yo, so missed it by months)

no 30yo and up non GKers (only Kane, De Bruyne, and Salah are excluded, guck Neymar, I never wanted him once he left Barca, he was a pipedream and is poison)

only 15 non GKers and of those 15, EIGHT are 26yo

bold are the only 27yo and up who are non GKers, and only one of those 7 (Skriniar), was actually available

Thibaut Courtois   
Goalkeeper
31    

Ederson
Goalkeeper
30    

Jan Oblak    
Goalkeeper
30

Alisson   
Goalkeeper
30    

Mike Maignan 
Goalkeeper
28 

Rúben Dias   
Centre-Back
26    

Marquinhos  
Centre-Back
29    

Milan Skriniar   
Centre-Back
28    

Rodri    
Defensive Midfield
27   

Joshua Kimmich    
Defensive Midfield
28

Frenkie de Jong   
Central Midfield
26    

Nicolò Barella  
Central Midfield
26

Lucas Paquetá   
Attacking Midfield
26

James Maddison   
Attacking Midfield
26

Luis Díaz  
Left Winger
26   

Kingsley Coman   
Left Winger
27

Leroy Sané  
Right Winger
27   

Ousmane Dembélé  
Right Winger
26   

Serge Gnabry  
Right Winger
28

Lautaro Martínez    
Centre-Forward
26

I wanted to revisit this and vastly narrow it down

first off the ONLY 27 and older actually available WC players we could have bought and passed on were just 2, (maybe 3 if you add Maignan, which I listed but did not call a vital WC buy above), and 2 were GKers (Oblak (30) and possibly Maignan (28) ), plus Skriniar (28), with Oblak and Skriniar the 2 players of I have begged for us to buy for years

now that said

the board said no one over 25 

IF that is true

they should have said 26

I will admit that only ONE YEAR did make a difference, to a point, (albeit a narrow one, but potentially massive) on the following

as IF 26 (not 25) and under we could have went for these 26yo players (all listed in my original post)

only 6 names, but all would have been extremely beneficial buys, especially either of the 2 26yo AMFs (my first 3 AMFs, all who are well UNDER the 25yo cutoff, so not affected by it, were all impossible this window)

(I will add, of these 6 total players, I know many here do not rate Dembele and Lautaro as much as I do, but they are 26 as well)

Frenkie de Jong   
Central Midfield
26    

Nicolò Barella  
Central Midfield
26

Lucas Paquetá   
Attacking Midfield
26

James Maddison   
Attacking Midfield
26

Ousmane Dembélé  
Right Winger
26   

Lautaro Martínez    
Centre-Forward
26

 

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Vesper

[Vytis33 1,263]

 Yesterday was demoralizing

 

[MoroccanBlue 5,378]

I don't want to hear about transfers. It's done. 

All I want to hear is tactics and how Poch will develop this lot. 

[NikkiCFC 8,300]

2 hours ago, Mário César said:

mudryk and madueke alone cost 100M and neither is ready

For that money we could have got Leao. 

[Mário César 1,249]

33 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

For that money we could have got Leao. 

no way we could get leao for 100M. at least 150M

but is shambolic spend so much money with players with potential.

what a disaster 

[NikkiCFC 8,300]

11 minutes ago, Mário César said:

no way we could get leao for 100M. at least 150M

but is shambolic spend so much money with players with potential.

what a disaster 

We could get him for even less than 100m. His previous contract was expiring in 2024. He signed new one this summer. 

[Mário César 1,249]

3 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

We could get him for even less than 100m. His previous contract was expiring in 2024. He signed new one this summer. 

milan would only sell through his clause value 

anyway, what a disaster has been this club in the last year 

I couldn't imagine any worst even in my worst nightmares 

[Vesper 30,119]

24 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

We could get him for even less than 100m. His previous contract was expiring in 2024. He signed new one this summer. 

zero chance we could get him for less than £100m

zero

I will make a big boy list for summer 2024 and drop it in transfers

he is on it

[Duppy Conqueror 1,530]

Havertz with the air shot..

Onto us we looked promising in pre-season but large chunk of those have either been loaned out or out injured,then we have new signings having their pre-season now.we still have flaws that can't be fixed until next window but majority of them should be soon enough.

Next summer i think we'll be in a position where we can get our smaller number of additions required in earlier,have a more settled squad.and start the season better than we have this one. 

Title was always gonna be out of reach this year but if we sort ourselves out soon enough we can catch the other teams.

[Mário César 1,249]

40 minutes ago, Duppy Conqueror said:

Havertz with the air shot..

Onto us we looked promising in pre-season but large chunk of those have either been loaned out or out injured,then we have new signings having their pre-season now.we still have flaws that can't be fixed until next window but majority of them should be soon enough.

Next summer i think we'll be in a position where we can get our smaller number of additions required in earlier,have a more settled squad.and start the season better than we have this one. 

Title was always gonna be out of reach this year but if we sort ourselves out soon enough we can catch the other teams.

why are you so optimist?