Transfer Talk Topic

[Original 21]

Just looking at Man City’s centre backs: Ake, Gvardiol?, Dias, Stones, and compare it to ours. Maybe Colwill would get in ahead of Ake, but we’re really not on the same level. The injury to Fofana has just exposed that. 

[Ham]

1 hour ago, bertles86 said:

Don't forget Humphries.

He's on the tour, capped for Chelsea and could be a handy squad player.

He's a wonderful player. Plays well beyond his years.  Coolness personified under pressure.  

Him and Angelo Gabriel have surprised me most on this tour.  

I'll be watching Strasbourg very closely this season. My new second team.  

 

[My Blood Is Blue]

For all the good the owners have done shipping out the deadwood, I’ll be very angry with them if they sell Chalobah and Gallagher now.

[Mark Kelly]

3 minutes ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

For all the good the owners have done shipping out the deadwood, I’ll be very angry with them if they sell Chalobah and Gallagher now.

Exactly how I feel too.

[Lump Of Celery]

Gallagher only has 2 years left on his contract, so possibly they are looking to sell while his value is at its max, or don't plan on extending etc (if the rumours are true, im not beleiving anything atm)

Chalobah has 5-6 years on his so no need to sell this summer

[Sleeping Dave]

3 hours ago, Mark Kelly said:

Yes I suppose years of Premier League experience is worthless when you can generate £30m of pure profit. 

Especially if you're desperate to beat Palace and Brighton to an undiscovered gem in a farmers league. 

They're playing Football Manager in real life if you ask me and they're selling out the Youth team for someone else's youth team. 

 I'm going on record to say I'm not happy. 

I refuse to believe they’d sell Chalobah and Gallagher. That would be so silly. Especially since we are now very short of centre backs with PL experience. Based on appearances in the PL our current CB set-up is as follows;

Silva (82)

Chalobah (45)

Colwill (17)

Badiashile (11)

Based on this, I really see no point in selling Chalobah to Inter of all teams. If they have £30m for Chalobah they should surely first pay up £40m minimum for the fat donkey. 

3 hours ago, RDCW said:

Of those, Chalobah, Broja and Gallagher are reputed to be unwanted by the club, which IF TRUE, would leave 4 from the richest generation of academy and youth players we have ever produced, only 1 of whom is a guaranteed starter if fit.

To me it looks like the facile application of financial theory without any sensitivity to culture, motivation, or the soul of the club. I am a bit worried that Boehly and Eghbali are indeed as arrogant, crass and ignorant as we fear.

Agreed. Plus Hall and Maatsen are most likely going to be loaned out. 

Considering that we have produced players such as James (Chelsea), Mount (Man U), Abraham (Roma), Tomori (AC Milan), Hall (loan likely), Livramento (Southampton), Broja (loan likely), Rice (Arsenal), Musiala (B Munich), Ake (Man C), Loftus-Cheek (AC Milan), Gallagher (sale?), Chalobah (sale?), Solanke (Bournemouth), Christensen (Barcelona), Nketiah (Arsenal), Guehi (C Palace), Hudson-Odoi (Lazio or Fulham), Lamptey (Brighton), Gilmour (Brighton), Brewster (Sheffield U), Colwill (Chelsea), Iling-Junior (Juventus), Boga (Nice) and Sterling (Rangers) it’s staggering we may only see James and Colwill in the squad for next season. 2 out of 25… 

I think Rhian Brewsters reasons for leaving us for Liverpool sums it up perfectly; 

“There was nothing special or different about that day,” Brewster told Joe. “It was after football, and as usual, my dad and I spoke about how it went and the areas I wanted to do extra work on.”

“We then got talking about players who were doing well at the academy and ones that had done so in the past. I realised all the names we were mentioning hadn’t played for Chelsea’s first-team and there didn’t seem to be a chance for those still at the club to get promoted to the seniors.

“I spent a lot of time thinking about that and I kept asking myself why that was. There were some unbelievable youngsters at the academy. It became clear that the problem was opportunities and that they weren’t being made available, even to guys we thought would 100 per cent move up.”

To have procured those 25 players I listed above and not having more of them established here with us is absolutely criminal. Imagine how much money we’ve wasted by selling/releasing those players and replacing them with expensive foreign flops. It’s quite hard to get your head around it, it’s almost a more likely explanation that we’ve knowingly sabotaged for ourselves than simply misjudging those players. Sure, not many of them are stars today. But imagine if we had a bulk of the squad made up of;

GK: -

RB: James, Livramento

LB: Ake, Maatsen

CB: Christensen, Colwill, Tomori, Guehi, Chalobah

CM: Musiala, Mount, Rice, Gallagher, Loftus-Cheek, Hall

LW: Iling-Junior

RW: Hudson-Odoi

S: Abraham, Nketiah

Thats 19 players that would make up a pretty damn solid base to build upon. Add a few world class players (over the last three seasons we’ve bought players for £720m) and that squad is challenging for the title. Imagine we spend £720m on world class players instead of mostly rubbish squad fillers. It’s so mad one has a hard time actually believing we managed to fuck up such a golden generation. The club should absolutely be ashamed! 

[Backbiter]

^^ To be fair, the club really didn't want to part with Livramento, Christensen, Mount or Musiala.

[Sleeping Dave]

10 minutes ago, Backbiter said:

^^ To be fair, the club really didn't want to part with Livramento, Christensen, Mount or Musiala.

That’s a fair observation. Still 21 players on my list though…

Also. You would have to ask yourself why four such talented players felt they had to leave Chelsea. 

[Backbiter]

A very good question.

[xceleryx]

1 hour ago, Backbiter said:

^^ To be fair, the club really didn't want to part with Livramento, Christensen, Mount or Musiala.

Or Guehi and Iling-Junior, both left pure their own accord.

Guehi wanted regular first team minutes upon his return from Swansea, as he's spoken about before. The club tried to convince Iling-Junior to stay but he had opted to begin his professional career at Juve. 

[xceleryx]

11 hours ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

<snip>

Enzo/Casadei - CM2/Santos

<snip>

If that's our midfield for this upcoming season it's a concern. 

The issue with virtually all of our young midfielders is that none are naturally suited to playing within a pivot, with virtually all having strengths that tend to lie more on the attacking side of the ball which suits more of a midfield three. 

Casadei is more of an #8 that likes to get forward, make runs into the box, and generally have an impact closer to goal. He's also a bit slower, so if he was to be thrown into a pivot and get left isolated he'd likely be exposed through quick transitions. 

Santos is more box-to-box and capable of having an impact on both sides of the ball, he is however probably the most capable of playing in a pivot but it doesn't necessarily maximise all of his qualities. 

Hall is probably similar to Casadei where his game naturally tends to favour more attacking aspects, so probably suits a greater attacking based role than a deeper defensive one. Not entirely sure what type of role he'd suit best at Premier League level, but it certainly isn't within a pivot.

Out of the three Santos makes the most sense to keep from a fit perspective as a 4th choice option, but we seriously need to be signing two defensive minded players so we've actually got a proper alternative. Santos could ultimately end up backing up Enzo in this situation, which would let him still have some attacking influence. 

[ROTG]

6 hours ago, Mark Kelly said:

I used to complain regularly that the old regime only saw cost and price and not value but this lot are worse. 

Their entire modus operandi appears to be sell the youth team who's quality we know to be at the least adequate for the pure pfofit they can then turn  into a greater slice of FFP buying power. 

So they can buy players with no Premier league or champions league experience. 

 

It called project 2030, sustainability and get rid of anything to do with the old regime and the 20 years of success. 

Quite a few more years of choppy waters ahead IMO

[ROTG]

4 hours ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

For all the good the owners have done shipping out the deadwood, I’ll be very angry with them if they sell Chalobah and Gallagher now.

If they do sell them, you have to question what is poch remit, seeing as he said he would be involved in transfer dealings from 01-july 

[xceleryx]

Just now, ROTG said:

It called project 2030, sustainability and get rid of anything to do with the old regime and the 20 years of success. 

Quite a few more years of choppy waters ahead IMO

Not as if we were winning a league title much less challenging for one with how things were. 

This reset was needed in a general sense. Granted, not fond of seeing us shop players like Chalobah and Gallagher around when we're in the situation we're in, particularly when we're then going to buy squad level players (at best) to replace them with. 

[ROTG]

29 minutes ago, xceleryx said:

This reset was needed

 

29 minutes ago, xceleryx said:

Not as if we were winning a league title much less challenging for one with how things were. 

One can only hope the fan base are here for the long run, Actual history proves that when owners have epiphany's to reset the club it usually end in a long wait for the dream or failure

Top team and how long since they won the league ManUre 13 years, The Arse 20 years?, it took the dippers 30 years to win the league

Then you have the other spectrum of team who one the league and over stretched themselves and ended up bankrupt and relegated with a short space of time Blackburn, Leicester are examples

At least the old model delivered some kind of trophy year after year. I agree that there was a need for freshening up the squad, however never to the extend which has taken place

13-Aug it all begins and ends on 30-May-24, I guess that will be the time to assess how TB epiphany is working out 

[ROTG]

55 minutes ago, xceleryx said:

Not as if we were winning a league title much less challenging for one with how things were. 

If you are referring to last season, then that is purely down to the Management and hiring a nobody coaching team. If you are going back further then I guess it will be measured on 30-May-24 and how many points the team finish behind the champions 

[xceleryx]

17 minutes ago, ROTG said:

One can only hope the fan base are here for the long run, Actual history proves that when owners have epiphany's to reset the club it usually end in a long wait for the dream or failure

Top team and how long since they won the league ManUre 13 years, The Arse 20 years?, it took the dippers 30 years to win the league

Then you have the other spectrum of team who one the league and over stretched themselves and ended up bankrupt and relegated with a short space of time Blackburn, Leicester are examples

At least the old model delivered some kind of trophy year after year. I agree that there was a need for freshening up the squad, however never to the extend which has taken place

13-Aug it all begins and ends on 30-May-24, I guess that will be the time to assess how TB epiphany is working out 

The football landscape has changed a lot over the years, it wouldn't be feasible for example to operate like Roman did for a large part of the earlier years in this day and age. Not only is the league more competitive as a whole, but more teams have money and the costs has drastically risen. And in all fairness, we arguably underachieved with that golden generation somewhat. That aside, the latter part of Roman's tenure showcased how far we had fallen as a side, even if we still managed to pick up a few trophies via cup comps our league form wasn't good enough either. 

I think most fans understand the situation and that the direction we're heading in now may not see immediate results, but like always they'll always be a noisy section. The important thing is seeing progress, even if we've had to take a step or two back to try and restore that. 

In an ideal world all of this would've been done over 4, 5 or even 6 years, sort of like what Man City did before they got Pep in place. We've gone the fast tracked route in the hope of maybe speeding that up a little, only time will tell us if the decisions of today benefit us down the line. Either way, me personally, I'm more excited about this upcoming season than I have been for some time. 

[xceleryx]

23 minutes ago, ROTG said:

If you are referring to last season, then that is purely down to the Management and hiring a nobody coaching team. If you are going back further then I guess it will be measured on 30-May-24 and how many points the team finish behind the champions 

It's not necessarily as linear as this though. Not everything has to be quantified by points alone, at least not yet. Improvement and progress can still be made and it not be necessarily reflected via the league table or by how many points we get. Of course, the hope is we see improvement in all areas but it's not the be all and end all either - at least yet. 

[ROTG]

53 minutes ago, xceleryx said:

It's not necessarily as linear as this though. Not everything has to be quantified by points alone, at least not yet. Improvement and progress can still be made and it not be necessarily reflected via the league table or by how many points we get. Of course, the hope is we see improvement in all areas but it's not the be all and end all either - at least yet. 

Unfortunately, points make prizes. The club cannot afford 2-3 season out CL, the club would not be sustainable in regards to the loss of revenue from TV deals etc. along with any big sponsorships as paying top dollar for a club only in the PL, as seen this season

So it probably is the end if the club cannot make it, with any prize assets "players" being sold off, similar to this season to meet things like FFP.

[Mark Kelly]

2 hours ago, ROTG said:

 

So it probably is the end if the club cannot make it, with any prize assets "players" being sold off, similar to this season to meet things like FFP.

We've only got one.

[paulw66]

8 hours ago, Sleeping Dave said:

That’s a fair observation. Still 21 players on my list though…

Also. You would have to ask yourself why four such talented players felt they had to leave Chelsea. 

Well Livramento (and Lamptey) clearly felt they were stuck behind Reece James. Ironically if Tino had stayed he would have had LOTS of opportunities in 2021/22.

Christensen slightly different........played 161 games before deciding he wanted to move on. Not like he was not playing and was dumped by the club. Also a massive bottle job.

Musiala......who knows, but perhaps he wanted to move back to the country of his birth.

Mount........well, who knows, but game time / opportunity certainly wasn't the problem

There are plenty of reasons why players move on, and often we don't know the full picture.

Edited July 26, 2023 by paulw66

[paulw66]

13 hours ago, RDCW said:

Of those, Chalobah, Broja and Gallagher are reputed to be unwanted by the club, which IF TRUE, would leave 4 from the richest generation of academy and youth players we have ever produced, only 1 of whom is a guaranteed starter if fit.

To me it looks like the facile application of financial theory without any sensitivity to culture, motivation, or the soul of the club. I am a bit worried that Boehly and Eghbali are indeed as arrogant, crass and ignorant as we fear.

You said it yourself "IF"

Also, provided we can get a replacement, 50m for Gallagher is bite-your-hand-off territory

[exiledblue]

13 hours ago, RDCW said:

Of those, Chalobah, Broja and Gallagher are reputed to be unwanted by the club, which IF TRUE, would leave 4 from the richest generation of academy and youth players we have ever produced, only 1 of whom is a guaranteed starter if fit.

To me it looks like the facile application of financial theory without any sensitivity to culture, motivation, or the soul of the club. I am a bit worried that Boehly and Eghbali are indeed as arrogant, crass and ignorant as we fear.

Whats the point of buying a club with a great youth set up and training facilities if you are not going to keep the players it produces, its mysterious how these guys opertae unless its seen as free money for now with an eye to profiteering by closing cobham down and in future just buying

[Sciatika]

We can't keep them all. So, we sell off those who will not make it as part of the first-team squad, and we try to keep the best. However, sometimes they decide to move, and sometimes, the amount offered means that a sale is the best outcome for the club, as a business. Personally, I have no problem with letting Mount go if he wants to go, or CHO. I don't want players who don't want to be here (cf. Lukaku). There is no way on this planet I would let Colwill go unless he demanded it. I would try to keep Conor because I think he fits our needs, but if someone offered a ludicrous amount of money, I would consider it. I'd be mad not to. 

[thevelourfog]

1 hour ago, paulw66 said:

There are plenty of reasons why players move on, and often we don't know the full picture.

Quite, and this is exactly why our youth system operates at the scale it does. Because there are so many variables that cannot really be predicted or mitigated against, not just in football terms but in life generally. So you aim for overproduction, to bring through more players than you realistically could use. Because you can't always predict with accuracy who will just stop improving, who will do both ACLs, who will fall in with a party crowd, who will just fall out of love with football, whose family will move away, who will get an offer that feels a better fit for them, and so on. The sheer number of players we have seen move on is the exact function and consequence of the number we have brought through.