Who should we keep for the 23/24 season?

[Mark Kelly]

18 minutes ago, Holymoly said:

What's perhaps more sobering is that the board could just sell Mount, James, Gallagher and Chalobah, get the same return and keep hold of all the rest for another season or three.

That is the horror of our finances laid bare 

[Bert19]

3 hours ago, Mark Kelly said:

Just seen this breakdown on Twitter , these figures apparently represent the minimum amount of money we need to recoup on the players to break even , many of these players we have little intention of selling just yet but it's still a sobering list:

 

As a point of interest, what do we actually reckon we could get for players? 

Ziyech - £10-15m 

Lukaku - who knows 

Pulisic - £30-35m 

Gallagher - £35m 

Trev - £25-30m 

Kepa - £10m 

Mendy - £15m 

Cucurella - £25m 

CHO - £15-20m 

RLC - £20-25m 

Havertz - £40-45m 

Koulibaly - £15-20m. 

Kovacic - £25m 

Azpi - Free

Auba - Free 

 

I'm perhaps being quite conservative on some of those numbers, but I can't see many we'd get big money for.  I think we'll need to sell 7-10 of them to really generate some decent revenue (unless we can persuade someone to front up £40-50m for Lukaku, which seems unlikely).  None of them really have particularly high value given recent performances. 

 

[Mark Kelly]

Just now, Bert19 said:

 

As a point of interest, what do we actually reckon we could get for players? 

Ziyech - £10-15m 

Lukaku - who knows 

Pulisic - £30-35m 

Gallagher - £35m 

Trev - £25-30m 

Kepa - £10m 

Mendy - £15m 

Cucurella - £25m 

CHO - £15-20m 

RLC - £20-25m 

Havertz - £40-45m 

Koulibaly - £15-20m. 

Kovacic - £25m 

Azpi - Free

Auba - Free 

 

I'm perhaps being quite conservative on some of those numbers, but I can't see many we'd get big money for.  I think we'll need to sell 7-10 of them to really generate some decent revenue (unless we can persuade someone to front up £40-50m for Lukaku, which seems unlikely).  None of them really have particularly high value given recent performances. 

 

Whilst David Moyes remains at West Ham we have a chance...

[My Blood Is Blue]

1 hour ago, Bert19 said:

 

As a point of interest, what do we actually reckon we could get for players? 

Ziyech - £10-15m 

Lukaku - who knows 

Pulisic - £30-35m 

Gallagher - £35m 

Trev - £25-30m 

Kepa - £10m 

Mendy - £15m 

Cucurella - £25m 

CHO - £15-20m 

RLC - £20-25m 

Havertz - £40-45m 

Koulibaly - £15-20m. 

Kovacic - £25m 

Azpi - Free

Auba - Free 

 

I'm perhaps being quite conservative on some of those numbers, but I can't see many we'd get big money for.  I think we'll need to sell 7-10 of them to really generate some decent revenue (unless we can persuade someone to front up £40-50m for Lukaku, which seems unlikely).  None of them really have particularly high value given recent performances. 

 

Hard to say as clubs will know we need to sell, which will drive down the price for some.

I think we could get more than £10m for Kepa.

CHO we may struggle to get a lot for as he’s in the final year of his contract and he hasn’t exactly set the world alight in Germany.

Havertz, I think we could get more for him as I do think in the right league he could actually be a very good player.

[Rob B]

5 hours ago, Mark Kelly said:

Just seen this breakdown on Twitter , these figures apparently represent the minimum amount of money we need to recoup on the players to break even , many of these players we have little intention of selling just yet but it's still a sobering list:

 

Thanks Mark, I actually came on here to post the same thing! 

Albeit I read this a little more positively.  I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t make a book profit on Kovacic, Mendy, Pulisic, Ziyech, Kepa, Auba and even Havertz if we wanted to. 

Lukaku and Cucerella are the problems. 

The rest of the squad are either homegrown and have no transfer fee (eg CHO or Chalobah) so it’s pure upside,  future prospect and likely to go on loan (eg D. Fofana or Slonina) or you wouldn’t want to sell anyway. 

[thevelourfog]

1 hour ago, Bert19 said:

 

As a point of interest, what do we actually reckon we could get for players? 

Ziyech - £10-15m 

Lukaku - who knows 

Pulisic - £30-35m 

Gallagher - £35m 

Trev - £25-30m 

Kepa - £10m 

Mendy - £15m 

Cucurella - £25m 

CHO - £15-20m 

RLC - £20-25m 

Havertz - £40-45m 

Koulibaly - £15-20m. 

Kovacic - £25m 

Azpi - Free

Auba - Free 

 

I'm perhaps being quite conservative on some of those numbers, but I can't see many we'd get big money for.  I think we'll need to sell 7-10 of them to really generate some decent revenue (unless we can persuade someone to front up £40-50m for Lukaku, which seems unlikely).  None of them really have particularly high value given recent performances. 

Honestly, I think the opposite. Some of them are very optimistic! Pulisic with a year left and multiple years of sh*t performances behind him is not going to fetch £30m, not with his huge wages to pay. Anyone at a level he is worth having at is not paying what he wants. Just getting him off the books is probably the best we can hope for. I think the same is true of a fair few of them ... Ziyech, Hudson-Odoi and Loftus-Cheek specifically. All paid much more than they can contribute.

It really is only Mount who I see bringing in serious money, as much as I want him to stay. Gallagher and Chalobah are also very sellable (as in have PL quality to match the PL wages they will want), but I do wonder how much we can really get for them when our financial position is plain to see.

[Bert19]

28 minutes ago, thevelourfog said:

Honestly, I think the opposite. Some of them are very optimistic! Pulisic with a year left and multiple years of sh*t performances behind him is not going to fetch £30m, not with his huge wages to pay. Anyone at a level he is worth having at is not paying what he wants. Just getting him off the books is probably the best we can hope for. I think the same is true of a fair few of them ... Ziyech, Hudson-Odoi and Loftus-Cheek specifically. All paid much more than they can contribute.

It really is only Mount who I see bringing in serious money, as much as I want him to stay. Gallagher and Chalobah are also very sellable (as in have PL quality to match the PL wages they will want), but I do wonder how much we can really get for them when our financial position is plain to see.

Yeh, it really feels like a lottery on some of them.  But the reason I went with some of the prices is compared to some similar profile players in the PL and also because we have had a pretty good record with player sales in recent years (albeit under Marina's management of that).  So maybe there are deals to be done.  

What worries me is that our most sellable assets are Chilwell, Reece and Mount.  

[Original 21]

Okay. Who voted to keep Ziyech? 

[xceleryx]

10 hours ago, thevelourfog said:

Honestly, I think the opposite. Some of them are very optimistic! Pulisic with a year left and multiple years of sh*t performances behind him is not going to fetch £30m, not with his huge wages to pay. Anyone at a level he is worth having at is not paying what he wants. Just getting him off the books is probably the best we can hope for. I think the same is true of a fair few of them ... Ziyech, Hudson-Odoi and Loftus-Cheek specifically. All paid much more than they can contribute.

It really is only Mount who I see bringing in serious money, as much as I want him to stay. Gallagher and Chalobah are also very sellable (as in have PL quality to match the PL wages they will want), but I do wonder how much we can really get for them when our financial position is plain to see.

I don't really believe our financial situation is at a point where other clubs can leverage us over fees and players. Granted, a lot of who we will likely be wanting to shift aren't going to bring in big figures, we're still likely to cover book costs in most cases because most of those on the chopping block will only have a year or two remaining on their contracts. The big saving will had in the wage section.

Based on January reports Gallagher was close to fetching around the £40m mark, and I could certainly see that still being the case in the summer. Chalobah, if sold, could likely get us around a similar fee considering his profile and experience. Ideally I'd like to hang onto both players, and we're not going to cash in on all our fringe players because we're still going to need some depth beyond just a handful of raw young players. 

[chara]

3 hours ago, Original 21 said:

Okay. Who voted to keep Ziyech? 

Spartacus?

[ROTG]

6 hours ago, Original 21 said:

Okay. Who voted to keep Ziyech? 

Maybe someone who thought, that next season is about getting into the top 4 as minimum where experience counts.

[Sciatika]

4 hours ago, chara said:

Spartacus?

I'm Spartacus ... it wasn''t me.

[Blue Moon]

11 hours ago, Original 21 said:

Okay. Who voted to keep Ziyech? 

On 10/04/2023 at 13:12, McCreadie said:

Ok, own up. Who voted to get rid of James?

 

I reckon it was @My Blood Is Blue - I'd guess Sam's the only person with access to individual votes, so he can do so without anyone knowing ... 

 

[ROTG]

Many of the January recruits which are championship / Mid PL Level players and require a loan or two are getting more vote than Sterling - Bizarre 

Edited April 12, 2023 by ROTG

[Mark Kelly]

1 minute ago, ROTG said:

Many of the January recruits which are championship / Mid PL Level players and require a loan or two are getting more vote than Sterling - Bizarre 

We haven't really seen what they can offer properly yet whereas with Sterling it's evident what he can do.

Some would say he's the best winger in the World.

Apparently. 

[ROTG]

2 hours ago, Mark Kelly said:

We haven't really seen what they can offer properly yet whereas with Sterling it's evident what he can do.

We all know what Sterling can do when coached.

sterling like the rest of the squad had 7 months of their careers wasted, on the bright side they were all still payed heaps of money :0)

[Mark Kelly]

41 minutes ago, ROTG said:

We all know what Sterling can do when coached.

sterling like the rest of the squad had 7 months of their careers wasted, on the bright side they were all still payed heaps of money :0)

This season really has been a complete waste of time and money hasn't it ? I'd say and effort too but there's been very little of that on display recently 

[My Blood Is Blue]

4 hours ago, Blue Moon said:

 

I reckon it was @My Blood Is Blue - I'd guess Sam's the only person with access to individual votes, so he can do so without anyone knowing ... 

 

Haha, you are correct that I can see who has voted for which player, but I can promise you, it was not me!

[chara]

47 minutes ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

Haha, you are correct that I can see who has voted for which player, but I can promise you, it was not me!

I have it on good authority that Sam IS Spartacus!...as am I of course!

Edited April 12, 2023 by chara

[xceleryx]

I know this moves away from the original criteria of the thread but its probably the most appropriate areas to post/discuss. 

There's lots of debate about who should go, who should stay, so wanted to take a closer look at our situation. Touched a little on this in the Brighton match thread, so apologies if some of it is regurgitated. 

First up, contracts.

Kante currently sits as the sole player who has a contract that expires at the end of this season. We'll also have Zakaria and Joao Felix finishing up their loan deals and returning to their respective clubs (for now). 

We've currently got 7 players that have contracts that run until 2024. Those being; Thiago Silva, Kovacic, Azpilicueta, Aubameyang, Loftus-Cheek, Pulisic and Mount. Of those listed only Mount has had known concrete talks over extending, with some tentative stories also suggesting talks with Kovacic have been explored. Thiago Silva on the other hand is a year-by-year situation. With ownership looking to avoid losing players on a free moving forward there's a real possibility we see quite a few, if not all (minus Thiago Silva) leave. 

Looking ahead a year further we currently have 6 players with deals until 2025 - Kepa, Ziyech, Havertz, Mendy, Gallagher and Hall. All of these, with maybe the exception of Hall, all having uncertain futures beyond their deals. Ziyech is surely out the door in the summer, you'd have to imagine Mendy will also follow suit with his decision to turn down an extension earlier in the season. There's been no talks over new deals for any of the others, with Gallagher turning down a January move by reports also. 

Taking all of this into account there's a high probability most, if not all of these players, will be gone in the next 12-24 months. That's a total of 16 players, 15 if you exclude Hall, 13 if you factor in the loan returns. Of those in question Mount is the most worthwhile in keeping, with arguably Kante, Kova, Gallagher and Havertz the only others with a possibility of being here next season, along with Thiago Silva. 

With the above taken into account the bones of our squad for next season could look a little like this.

GK: Kepa, Bettinelli, Slonina
RB: Reece James, Azpilicueta
LB: Chilwell, Cucurella
CB: Thiago Silva, W.Fofana, Badiashile, Koulibaly, Chalobah
DM:
CM: Enzo, Gallagher, Hall, Chukwuemeka, 
W/AM: Sterling, Mudryk, Madueke, Havertz
CF: Broja, D.Fofana, 

From here we'll also have Gusto joining us in the summer as RB cover, there's the return of Colwill at CB, plus the arrival of Nkunku in attack to add to the group. We may even have the return of Lukaku upfront depending what happens there. There's also players listed that could arguably be best served with a season out on loan - Slonina, Hall, Chukwuemeka, Madueke, Broja and D.Fofana could all potentially fall into this category. 

There's the possible additions of the main three in Mount, Kovacic and Kante should they extend their deals. Just as we have some uncertainty surrounding tied down players such as  Chalobah, Koulibaly, Cucurella and Sterling. 

Taking all of this into account we look strongest in defence, with ample depth and some exciting talent - although lacking in leadership.

The midfield is a complete mess, even if we retain all three of Kante, Kova and Mount it still severely lacks balance and bonafide starting quality outside of Enzo. Kante's usefulness will be more situational and best suited in a midfield three, but still only a short term option due to age and decline. Kovacic is also in a similar boat to Kante, making the most sense in a midfield three. While the verdict remains out on just how impactful Mount can be as a bonafide #8 over a full season. In possession there's a real lack of creativity, technical quality, penetrative passing, and goals.  Out of possession there's virtually no defensive stability to be found, meaning a holding midfielder is a must - ideally I'd like two so we have genuine backup.

On the wings and in attacking midfield it's a little underwhelming also. Sterling has a good track record in a great side but has looked anything but useful on too many occasions here, Mudryk has speed and directness but at the expense of being raw and rough around the edges, Madueke is equally as raw but also not seen enough of to know just where he's truly at, this leaves the inconsistent Havertz if he was to drop back into a more Leverkusen type of position behind a CF. Arriving will be Nkunku, another that thrives best behind a CF and can inject a bit more technical quality, speed and creativity. Overall, we could use another attacker in this area.

Upfront, the less said the better I suppose. Maybe Lukaku returns, maybe he doesn't. The need for a proper CF, dare I saw two, is imperative really. I'd like one of them to be focal point type that our attackers can play off, the other a pacer technical type that can take players on. 

I think things still look a little messy because we've got players that suit too many different systems. Some suit a back three, some a midfield three, and some that #10 attacking midfield role in behind. One of the biggest things we need to do here is pick a direction and then build a side that embraces that. Right now it's just all over the shop and we're forever trying to plug holes. It would be nice having a squad that's balanced to where we can make seamless adjustments.

It's a big job on hand to rectify properly, but hopefully we can take some encouraging steps this summer to at least amend some of the issues on hand and push us forward into a more cohesive and positive direction.

[asvaberg]

Just my usual pessimism, or my optimism has given up on these players:

GK: Kepa, Bettinelli, Slonina
RB: Reece James, Azpilicueta
LB: Chilwell, Cucurella
CB: Thiago Silva, W.Fofana, Badiashile, Koulibaly, Chalobah
DM:
CM: Enzo, Gallagher, Hall, Chukwuemeka, 
W/AM: Sterling, Mudryk, Madueke, Havertz
CF: Broja, D.Fofana, 

[thevelourfog]

What happens to Maatsen is interesting. Been brilliant at Burnley by all accounts, but 2nd choice LB is somewhat taken up by a £62m brainfart. No book value, so another one I can see being sold.

[My Blood Is Blue]

11 minutes ago, thevelourfog said:

What happens to Maatsen is interesting. Been brilliant at Burnley by all accounts, but 2nd choice LB is somewhat taken up by a £62m brainfart. No book value, so another one I can see being sold.

If Maatsen is willing to go out on loan again (he may not be after 3 years out on loan) then I would think a loan spell at a PL club would be a good move for him next season, potentially staying at Burnley. If he stays at Chelsea next season, playing time will be limited and so his development potentially stalls also, it would be good to see how he gets on at PL level playing regularly.

In terms of Cucurella, I really don't know what we do with him. Do we cut our losses after 1 season or hope that he settles down and improves next season under a better coach?

[thevelourfog]

9 minutes ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

If Maatsen is willing to go out on loan again (he may not be after 3 years out on loan) then I would think a loan spell at a PL club would be a good move for him next season, potentially staying at Burnley. If he stays at Chelsea next season, playing time will be limited and so his development potentially stalls also, it would be good to see how he gets on at PL level playing regularly.

In terms of Cucurella, I really don't know what we do with him. Do we cut our losses after 1 season or hope that he settles down and improves next season under a better coach?

At most other times in recent history, I'd agree with you. But this summer we need income that can go straight onto the books and wages off the weekly bill. I think that makes all our home grown players, especially those we haven't been using up until this point, vulnerable. Maatsen also has that question about doing it in the PL hanging over him; he may prove he can and be an enviable talent to keep, he may prove he can't and that his summer 2023 value is the most valuable he is ever going to be. That's a tough financial hit to take on the chin right now, I can imagine there will be some in the club looking at the disappearing CL money and thinking "£30m for Gallagher was not to be sniffed at, actually". All factors that make me think we'd accept any reasonable offer made, and you'd imagine Burnley will make a reasonable offer.

I also worry for Colvill for the same reasons. We can't have Colvill, Badiashile, Fofana, Silva and Koulibaly (and Chalobah!) here as CB options next year. 5 or 6 is simply too many. We won't be looking to sell Fofana or Badiashile, won't find a taker for Koulibaly at anything but our own considerable expense and clearly want Silva around. Colwill is, in that sense, sellable. Not what I want, but I can see it happening.

[Mark Kelly]

13 minutes ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

In terms of Cucurella, I really don't know what we do with him. Do we cut our losses after 1 season or hope that he settles down and improves next season under a better coach?

There is a player trapped in there , he was fantastic against us when he played for Brighton , admittedly he was only up against Lukaku so it may not be a great indicator .

Better coach ? 

Some coaching would be a vast improvement on the none he's received this season , even Lampard appears to be all rhetoric no coaching .