Transfer Talk Topic

[Mark Kelly]

Just now, Thiago97 said:

I would expect Conor to know and understand how to influence a game more. 

When played out of position against one of the best teams in the league?

If we get Caicedo and we have him holding and play two number 8's in Enzo and Gallagher lets judge him then 

Edited August 14, 2023 by Mark Kelly

[kev61]

5 minutes ago, Morgs said:

Amusing though that would undeniably be, I would hope Boehly et al would be more professional than to get involved in shenanigans like 

Their track record would suggest otherwise.

[Thiago97]

Just now, Mark Kelly said:

When played out of position against one of the best teams in the league?

I’m not talking specifics on that one game. I am talking knowing his game better and how to influence a game, compared with Chuk who is 3-4 seasons behind him in experience. I’m not sure if Chuk ever had a loan when at villa.

I am struggling a little with your logic. If his defence is he was out of position yesterday and you really want him to stay. Well where does he play then ?  We are well stocked everywhere except up front, based on Caicedo and possibly Lavia joining 

[thevelourfog]

3 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

That's what I think happened to be honest 

It's not a transfer that makes a whole lot of sense to me in any other terms. I don't share @Morgs optimism, or rather I don't think Bohely and Co. would consider as an issue of professionalism, but more as a necessary response to an act of war. I wouldn't approve but could definitely see it as a motivation.

I'd be amazed if Lavia chose Chelsea over Liverpool just in football terms given the respective midfield competitions, but then I suppose Liverpool may well have damaged their relations with him by pleading poverty in attempts to get him, suddenly finding £110m for someone else, getting knocked back and then fluttering their eye lids again.

[Mark Kelly]

Just now, Thiago97 said:

I’m not talking specifics on that one game. I am talking knowing his game better and how to influence a game, compared with Chuk who is 3-4 seasons behind him in experience. I’m not sure if Chuk ever had a loan when at villa.

I am struggling a little with your logic. If his defence is he was out of position yesterday and you really want him to stay. Well where does he play then ?  We are well stocked everywhere except up front, based on Caicedo and possibly Lavia joining 

I think he should be one of two number 8's partnering Enzo with Caicedo holding , he'll get us goals and is good in the tackle and he'll help free Enzo to be more advanced .

The only reason I'm mentioning Chuk is that if you were looking for a player who had absolutely no influence on the game whatsoever it would be him , how he got in the team is a complete mystery to me. 

[RDCW]

Well Liverpool desperately need Lavia now, whereas we do not, so I suspect they will get him. Gallagher is nowhere near as bad technically as some people are making out and I hope he is given a chance to improve his all-round game under Poch. What Conor does have is what we need more of : an eye for a goal, bags of PMA, energy, willingness and enthusiasm, all of which go an awful long way on the pitch and off, even in this neo technical football age.

[kev61]

3 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

 

The only reason I'm mentioning Chuk is that if you were looking for a player who had absolutely no influence on the game whatsoever it would be him , how he got in the team is a complete mystery to me. 

He got into the team because Poch picked him.Blame Poch if you don't agree.

[Mark Kelly]

Just now, kev61 said:

He got into the team because Poch picked him.Blame Poch if you don't agree.

Nope I'm blaming you .

[Thiago97]

Just now, Mark Kelly said:

I think he should be one of two number 8's partnering Enzo with Caicedo holding , he'll get us goals and is good in the tackle and he'll help free Enzo to be more advanced .

The only reason I'm mentioning Chuk is that if you were looking for a player who had absolutely no influence on the game whatsoever it would be him , how he got in the team is a complete mystery to me. 

Conor would probably do ok there. His limited technique would still be an issue there though. We even seen this last season when he was in deeper areas. However, maybe playing in a similar way to Ramires did for us a, he could probably make that work.

At the same time, Poch has been 4231 all pre season , so if that is going to be his go to formation. We won’t be seeing a 3 man midfield with this type of set up to allow him to play there. So we could end up having one defined role for him, or you can make £40 million and help balance the books for a player who is a squad player at best. 
I don’t agree on Chuk. I think you often go into games with pre conceived thoughts . You were making similar comments on Chuk from pre season, so it’s no surprise to see you saying he had zero influence, he did ok yesterday in a game which is the biggest challenge of his career to date. It was a 6/10 performance from a player with limited experience playing with a bunch of new players. Yes , Conor was more like influential, but not always for a positive perspective. 

[kev61]

2 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

Nope I'm blaming you .

Fair enough.I have broad shoulders and a thick skin(and a small penis) but I don't like to boast.

[Mark Kelly]

1 minute ago, Thiago97 said:

Conor would probably do ok there. His limited technique would still be an issue there though. We even seen this last season when he was in deeper areas. However, maybe playing in a similar way to Ramires did for us a, he could probably make that work.

At the same time, Poch has been 4231 all pre season , so if that is going to be his go to formation. We won’t be seeing a 3 man midfield with this type of set up to allow him to play there. So we could end up having one defined role for him, or you can make £40 million and help balance the books for a player who is a squad player at best. 
I don’t agree on Chuk. I think you often go into games with pre conceived thoughts . You were making similar comments on Chuk from pre season, so it’s no surprise to see you saying he had zero influence, he did ok yesterday in a game which is the biggest challenge of his career to date. It was a 6/10 performance from a player with limited experience playing with a bunch of new players. Yes , Conor was more like influential, but not always for a positive perspective. 

I may have said similar things pre season , I can't remember , but if I did it was because he did absolutely nothing during any of the games other than look busy  , I don't want to sound like I'm bashing him , I just cannot see what he brings that Angelo Gabriel or Maatsen , both who out performed him in pre season do. 

We all see players , formations, tactics slightly differently to each other so I don't expect we'll agree here 😉

[Thiago97]

 

Short video....but if anyone has seen Conor posses this level of skill, pace, technical ability in receiving the ball and playing the ball.......well then you are watching different football to me.

[Miguelito07]

 

[Mark Kelly]

9 minutes ago, Thiago97 said:

 

Short video....but if anyone has seen Conor posses this level of skill, pace, technical ability in receiving the ball and playing the ball.......well then you are watching different football to me.

The main  thing is you'll be able to enjoy watching him doing all these good things at Liverpool if sources are to be believed 

[Thiago97]

3 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

The main  thing is you'll be able to enjoy watching him doing all these good things at Liverpool if sources are to be believed 

I believe the Joe Shields link is very strong between these two. If Chelsea want him and pay the money, I think that link could prove key in his decision to maybe come here.

[RDCW]

20 minutes ago, kev61 said:

Fair enough.I have broad shoulders and a thick skin(and a small penis) but I don't like to boast.

That's enough of that, young lady!

[Mark Kelly]

Shamelessly stolen from Reddit , I found this very interesting and hope you do.

A lot has been said in recent days about FFP and that Chelsea Football Club is breaching the rules or at least in danger of falling into noncompliance. Plenty of our own fans are worried and uneasy about the situation (as well as the salt coming from other clubs' fans (*cough* Liverpool *cough*)) so I decided to write a couple of things about why it is unlikely to be a problem.

1. Financial Fair Play is a set of regulations that has been brought in to stop clubs from spending virtually unlimited amounts of money. Is it successful? Partially, yes. The Saudis cannot take over Newcastle and pump in a billion quid a year just because they want to. On the other hand, it failed to stop big clubs from spending big money. Then again, the idea was never for City and Burnley to have the same 'transfer cap', but to stop clubs being so overstretched financially that they might collapse with a couple of bad decisions.
2. From this year on, the FFP rules have changed. Previously, we were operating on the assumption of maximum allowable loss over any three year period. Now that has changed to a cap on transfers and wages equivalent to a percentage of club revenue. This year it's 90%, next year it will be 80% and from 25/26 in it will be at 70% revenue.
3. What does it mean for Chelsea Football Club? According to Deloitte Football Money League, our revenue has totalled €568.000.000,00 last year. This means that no more than €511 million can be spent on transfer amortisation and wages this season.
4. Next year will be much more problematic. Looking at revenues of clubs that miss out on playing in the Champions League, the revenue drop is consistent at around 10-15%. For my very simple calculations I have assumed a 20% fall. That would mean that our maximum transfer and wage spend for 2024/25 will be around €360 million.
5. So... what is the actual spend? Well, we've all already learnt that spending €100 million on a player doesn't mean that the club accounts are charged with that amount. The transfer fee is divided by contract length, which has been restricted to a maximum of 5 years starting this summer. (It's very important to note that this restriction applies only in UEFA. The Premier League imposed no such regulations.)
6. What does the numbers look like? Not counting in Caicedo as it remains unconfirmed, we spent a total of around €750.000.000,00. It's an astronomical amount, sure, but the yearly financial outlay comes in at slightly above €120.000.000,00. This is the number we're looking at against the max allowable spend. There is also an outstanding €40.000.000,00 from the transfers of Romelu Lukaku (€22.5 pa), Kepa (€11.50 pa) and Chilwell (€6m pa). The total comes in at €160.000.000,00 per annum spent on transfers.
7. At the same time we have drastically reduced our wage bill. In the season 2022/23, we spent €265 million on wages. This year it will come in at around €175 million. Slightly higher than Liverpool, €20 million lower than Arsenal and a whopping €65 million lower than City and United.
8. This means that our total financial outlay on transfers and wages comes in at around €340 million. €150 million below what we can spend this season, but only slightly below what will be available for 2024/25. The biggest problem is Lukaku, which costs us €40 million every single year. Finding a transfer away here is an absolute priority.
9. This however, is before we take any note of the outgoings. We have sold players for a total of €314 million and made a profit of €200.50 million on those transfers. As I have said many times before, selling one or two players per window makes absolutely no sense from an accounting perspective. UEFA rules stipulate that for accounting purposes transfer income is calculated as the highest profit made in the past three seasons. This means that those sales, or the €200.50 million to be exact, will add value to our books for the next *three years*. Another sign of just how well thought out the strategy of Boehly and Eghbali actually is.
10. The new FFP regulations are actually very beneficial for us. Clubs like Newcastle have a simple problem. They have a wealthy owner, but they had very limited revenues in the past few years which means that they can actually spend relatively little. Chelsea on the other hand has been one of the biggest clubs in the world for the past two decades and we have the revenues to prove it. AND this is even with just how badly mismanaged the commercial side was under Abramovich. (For comparison, the sponsorship income of CFC last year was €210 million. This is Spurs/Juventus/Dortmund region. United brought in €310m, Liverpool €275m and City €373m.)
11. Why then, do we negotiate for two months to sign a player for £80 million instead of 100 and end up paying £115m. There are two simple reasons here. Just because we are safe doesn't mean that we should be paying anything and everything. Being safe today doesn't mean being safe tomorrow and it's prudent to be careful. The second, and much worse, is cash in hand. No club in the world (and a handful of companies in general) can generate enough cashflow to spend €750.000.000,00 in cash. We could go to third parties (like we did with Enzo since Benfica wanted cash up front), but that adds extra costs.

TLDR - The FFP problems that Chelsea might be facing are way overblown by people who have no clue what the numbers and regulations actually are. At this point there is no real risk of falling into noncompliance with FFP rules.

 

EDIT. As suggested by one of you lovely people below, the sources...

1. Deloitte Football Money League (Revenues) - https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/sports-business-group/articles/deloitte-football-money-league.html
2. Capology (Wage bills) - https://www.capology.com/
3. TransferMarkt (Transfer spend) - https://www.transfermarkt.com/fc-chelsea/transfers/verein/631

And below are my calculations of transfer costs over the past two windows.

https://preview.redd.it/b02x17mdm1ib1.png?width=1186&format=png&auto=webp&s=4f7a319bf8f011b2c606e33a36c07fd841e728a2

https://preview.redd.it/gy1n56mdm1ib1.png?width=1172&format=png&auto=webp&s=03f69dffa5d8f670e2bbddfb9f6334142da04d76

https://preview.redd.it/vrx2z5mdm1ib1.png?width=1410&format=png&auto=webp&s=b8facb125e5d4ea529c87ec5d8b72eace7ee8abd

Edited August 14, 2023 by Mark Kelly

[Mark Kelly]

2 minutes ago, Thiago97 said:

I believe the Joe Shields link is very strong between these two. If Chelsea want him and pay the money, I think that link could prove key in his decision to maybe come here.

More noise about him "wanting Chelsea" 

And why wouldn't he?

[RDCW]

23 minutes ago, Thiago97 said:

 

Short video....but if anyone has seen Conor posses this level of skill, pace, technical ability in receiving the ball and playing the ball.......well then you are watching different football to me.

He does look classy, but I have to say that some of that trickery could easily have ended up differently and I'd like to see the instances where it didn't come off! 

I'm not dissing Lavia and would like to see him here, but maybe we already have our Lavia in Caicedo and need Gallagher for other reasons. Perhaps the answer is to have all 3!

[xceleryx]

@Mark Kellyyou may want to edit the reddit post about FFP and change the font colour, it's not readable when using the dark theme on the forum unless one highlights the entire post. 

 

[Mark Kelly]

Just now, xceleryx said:

@Mark Kellyyou may want to edit the reddit post about FFP and change the font colour, it's not readable when using the dark theme on the forum unless one highlights the entire post. 

 

I've turned it purple . does that help?

[xceleryx]

Just now, Mark Kelly said:

I've turned it purple . does that help?

It's beautiful. 😘

[RDCW]

9 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

Shamelessly stolen from Reddit , I found this very interesting and hope you do.

A lot has been said in recent days about FFP and that Chelsea Football Club is breaching the rules or at least in danger of falling into noncompliance. Plenty of our own fans are worried and uneasy about the situation (as well as the salt coming from other clubs' fans (*cough* Liverpool *cough*)) so I decided to write a couple of things about why it is unlikely to be a problem.

1. Financial Fair Play is a set of regulations that has been brought in to stop clubs from spending virtually unlimited amounts of money. Is it successful? Partially, yes. The Saudis cannot take over Newcastle and pump in a billion quid a year just because they want to. On the other hand, it failed to stop big clubs from spending big money. Then again, the idea was never for City and Burnley to have the same 'transfer cap', but to stop clubs being so overstretched financially that they might collapse with a couple of bad decisions.
2. From this year on, the FFP rules have changed. Previously, we were operating on the assumption of maximum allowable loss over any three year period. Now that has changed to a cap on transfers and wages equivalent to a percentage of club revenue. This year it's 90%, next year it will be 80% and from 25/26 in it will be at 70% revenue.
3. What does it mean for Chelsea Football Club? According to Deloitte Football Money League, our revenue has totalled €568.000.000,00 last year. This means that no more than €511 million can be spent on transfer amortisation and wages this season.
4. Next year will be much more problematic. Looking at revenues of clubs that miss out on playing in the Champions League, the revenue drop is consistent at around 10-15%. For my very simple calculations I have assumed a 20% fall. That would mean that our maximum transfer and wage spend for 2024/25 will be around €360 million.
5. So... what is the actual spend? Well, we've all already learnt that spending €100 million on a player doesn't mean that the club accounts are charged with that amount. The transfer fee is divided by contract length, which has been restricted to a maximum of 5 years starting this summer. (It's very important to note that this restriction applies only in UEFA. The Premier League imposed no such regulations.)
6. What does the numbers look like? Not counting in Caicedo as it remains unconfirmed, we spent a total of around €750.000.000,00. It's an astronomical amount, sure, but the yearly financial outlay comes in at slightly above €120.000.000,00. This is the number we're looking at against the max allowable spend. There is also an outstanding €40.000.000,00 from the transfers of Romelu Lukaku (€22.5 pa), Kepa (€11.50 pa) and Chilwell (€6m pa). The total comes in at €160.000.000,00 per annum spent on transfers.
7. At the same time we have drastically reduced our wage bill. In the season 2022/23, we spent €265 million on wages. This year it will come in at around €175 million. Slightly higher than Liverpool, €20 million lower than Arsenal and a whopping €65 million lower than City and United.
8. This means that our total financial outlay on transfers and wages comes in at around €340 million. €150 million below what we can spend this season, but only slightly below what will be available for 2024/25. The biggest problem is Lukaku, which costs us €40 million every single year. Finding a transfer away here is an absolute priority.
9. This however, is before we take any note of the outgoings. We have sold players for a total of €314 million and made a profit of €200.50 million on those transfers. As I have said many times before, selling one or two players per window makes absolutely no sense from an accounting perspective. UEFA rules stipulate that for accounting purposes transfer income is calculated as the highest profit made in the past three seasons. This means that those sales, or the €200.50 million to be exact, will add value to our books for the next *three years*. Another sign of just how well thought out the strategy of Boehly and Eghbali actually is.
10. The new FFP regulations are actually very beneficial for us. Clubs like Newcastle have a simple problem. They have a wealthy owner, but they had very limited revenues in the past few years which means that they can actually spend relatively little. Chelsea on the other hand has been one of the biggest clubs in the world for the past two decades and we have the revenues to prove it. AND this is even with just how badly mismanaged the commercial side was under Abramovich. (For comparison, the sponsorship income of CFC last year was €210 million. This is Spurs/Juventus/Dortmund region. United brought in €310m, Liverpool €275m and City €373m.)
11. Why then, do we negotiate for two months to sign a player for £80 million instead of 100 and end up paying £115m. There are two simple reasons here. Just because we are safe doesn't mean that we should be paying anything and everything. Being safe today doesn't mean being safe tomorrow and it's prudent to be careful. The second, and much worse, is cash in hand. No club in the world (and a handful of companies in general) can generate enough cashflow to spend €750.000.000,00 in cash. We could go to third parties (like we did with Enzo since Benfica wanted cash up front), but that adds extra costs.

TLDR - The FFP problems that Chelsea might be facing are way overblown by people who have no clue what the numbers and regulations actually are. At this point there is no real risk of falling into noncompliance with FFP rules.

 

EDIT. As suggested by one of you lovely people below, the sources...

1. Deloitte Football Money League (Revenues) - https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/sports-business-group/articles/deloitte-football-money-league.html
2. Capology (Wage bills) - https://www.capology.com/
3. TransferMarkt (Transfer spend) - https://www.transfermarkt.com/fc-chelsea/transfers/verein/631

And below are my calculations of transfer costs over the past two windows.

https://preview.redd.it/b02x17mdm1ib1.png?width=1186&format=png&auto=webp&s=4f7a319bf8f011b2c606e33a36c07fd841e728a2

https://preview.redd.it/gy1n56mdm1ib1.png?width=1172&format=png&auto=webp&s=03f69dffa5d8f670e2bbddfb9f6334142da04d76

https://preview.redd.it/vrx2z5mdm1ib1.png?width=1410&format=png&auto=webp&s=b8facb125e5d4ea529c87ec5d8b72eace7ee8abd

Thanks for that. It won't stop the nonsense in the media, but it is a concise summary of reality, so we can rest easily (even smugly) in our beds for now!

[RDCW]

2 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

I've turned it purple . does that help?

😳

[kev61]

1 hour ago, kev61 said:

A dose of reality is needed in this whirlwind of nonsense.

The reality is Connor is not a player that a top team will keep.

He is ok on a good day but he is not a player for the future.

Certainly keep him for now but he is a player in the out tray imo. 

If we didn't have a decent second half people  would be singing a different tune about Conor.

I'm sick of this wise after the fact mentality.