Transfer Talk Topic

[Chelsea_Matt]

19 minutes ago, Holymoly said:

Anyone else getting slightly concerned with the amount of money we are splashing around? Not so much FFP as I'm sure we can wriggle our way through that minefield with the correct creative accounting but rather where the money is actually coming from? With Roman the money pumped in was regarded as loans that were eventually waived. The Clearlake investment however is a commercial business venture and while I'm sure anything spent on Cobham or a new stadium will be capitalised I imagine that transfer funds, in the absence of UCL or general sponsorship, will be in the form of loans which will need to be serviced. Are we going back to the bad old days of Mears and Co? This smacks to me of funding Christmas on your credit card when you don't have a salary coming in.

My instinct - most probably wrong - is that Todd ‘n’ Eggy will have had this all planned and can deal with it. 

[Rob B]

2 minutes ago, Holymoly said:

Anyone else getting slightly concerned with the amount of money we are splashing around? Not so much FFP as I'm sure we can wriggle our way through that minefield with the correct creative accounting but rather where the money is actually coming from? With Roman the money pumped in was regarded as loans that were eventually waived. The Clearlake investment however is a commercial business venture and while I'm sure anything spent on Cobham or a new stadium will be capitalised I imagine that transfer funds, in the absence of UCL or general sponsorship, will be in the form of loans which will need to be serviced. Are we going back to the bad old days of Mears and Co? This smacks to me of funding Christmas on your credit card when you don't have a salary coming in.

I think concerned is probably too strong a word to sum up my feelings but the huge initial outlay is clearly a gamble and we definitely need regular CL football and on-field success over the next few years to sustain it. 

If that doesn’t happen, we will see stadium naming sponsorship, increases to ticket prices, more academy player sales and less big ticket signings like Enzo and Caicedo,

All of that said, we have an unbelievable amount of young talent at the club currently - someone recently listed the 10 midfielders we have all under 23 who simply cannot all make it here, and then there are the likes of Moreira, Angelo, Vale, Anjorin, Humphreys, Burstow, Hutchinson, Fofana, Dujon Richards, Kendry Paez  and to a much lesser degree, Broja, Chalobah, Hall, Slonina, Maatsen etc and the brutal reality is that many of these will be sold for a profit. 

So instead of funding Christmas on your credit card without the salary, I’d compare what Clearlake are doing to owning a £1m house and borrowing an extra £500k on your mortgage to completely renovate it, with the aim for it to be your retirement fund in a decade.  Risky, but a solid start point and certainly not insanity. 

[Sciatika]

Worried is the wrong word, but I think about it and make spreadsheets to help me understand what is happening. I have a few issues with the long contracts. For one thing, it is risky. I hope the club is using insurance to hedge the risk of long-term injury, but the loss of form or simply a player not meeting expectations leaves a risk that cannot be evaded. I suppose you just have to hope it doesn't happen often. I also think that it does not take into account the need to frequently refresh squads because players become too "comfortable". The amount of money being spent is less of a problem, assuming you believe that global sports, especially football) will continue in its upward trajectory. The problem is that the average supporter does not understand modern business accounting. I am no expert, but I have run companies. Most of it looks normal, let alone legal, and I am pretty sure it can meet regulatory frameworks such as FFP, at least in the short term. Also, as @Rob B says, there s considerable value in the players and the academy, which can be used to mitigate losses.

Edited August 16, 2023 by Sciatika

[Holymoly]

16 minutes ago, Sciatika said:

I hope the club is using insurance to hedge the risk of long-term injury

Looks like they may be having to make their first claim with Fofana

[Morgs]

9 minutes ago, Sciatika said:

Worried is the wrong word, but I think about it and make spreadsheets to help me understand what is happening. I have a few issues with the long contracts. For one thing, it is risky. I hope the club is using insurance to hedge the risk of long-term injury, but the loss of form or simply a player not meeting expectations leaves a risk that cannot be evaded. I suppose you just have to hope it doesn't happen often. I also think that it does not take into account the need to frequently refresh squads because players become too "comfortable". The amount of money being spent is less of a problem, assuming you believe that global sports, especially football) will continue in its upward trajectory. The problem is that the average supporter does not understand modern business accounting. I am no expert, but I have run companies. Most of it looks normal, let alone legal, and I am pretty sure it can meet regulatory frameworks such as FFP, at least in the short term. Also, as @Rob B says, there s considerable value in the players and the academy, which can be used to mitigate losses.

I think what we are seeing is a pivot towards using "residual player value" as a means of adding value to the enterprise. 

The thinking in plain terms is - bizarrely, considering how much we have been buying lately - we are a selling club now. We use loans and a young, hungry squad stacked with youngsters with exceptional promise to create value. 

The strategy isn't ""buy Caicedo for 115m" it is "sell players like Caicedo for 115+", if that makes sense.  I think the owners have looked at the profile of the business and its revenue streams and sussed out pretty quickly that a new stadium isn't the priority. We make (vastly) more in player sales than we could from a new stadium. The latter will happen but not until the cost to do it can be met with a huge chunk of equity to reduce financing cost and liability burden and that wont be happening for a while yet.

Advertising and sponsorship revenue is key and success is not necessarily defined by winning trophies any more. Those days are gone. 

The Academy is stacked full of exciting and talented young kids of which 80% will never player for the senior team, but we nurture, develop and grow these kids so we can loan them when the time is right and sell them for big fees later on. We will look back on Jake Livramento as arguably one of the first "new Chelsea" deals in terms of his development pathway. 

What this also means is that we have some tough decisions coming up where the club will dispose of really in demand youngsters for big money instead of integrating them into the first team. A lot of these decisions wont be popular but we'll see a lot more of it moving forward. 

[Sciatika]

I hadn't really thought about it this way, but there may be some truth in it provided there is the caveat that it depends to some degree on the club having a reputation for success (i.e. being a top club), and that is why trophies are still important. 

[Morgs]

I've been thinking a bit last night about what our targets are for this season. 

I came across a lot - surprising number in fact - of fans who have been stating as absolute fact "top four is now the minimum" and "anything less than top four and a domestic cup would be a failure."

Further - "Top four and a proper title challenge next season, no excuses" 

This is in stark contrast to where we ended up last season. I genuinely believe had the season gone on for another month we'd have been relegated.  Do people have such short term memory loss these days that we do not remember studying the table, looking at Leicester's run-in, Everton's run-in and needing a calculator to work out that we were *JUST ABOUT* mathematically safe from the drop...? 

This is the risk we are dealing with. When you break the British transfer record on a world class midfielder and overhaul the squad with 300m+ of incomings, people tend to automatically assume we will be back "where we belong" and that worries me a bit. We still need a number one keeper and we still probably need a striker. We could crack on with what we have but top four would be a bit of dicey proposition and be by no means guaranteed. We are still miles away from a credible title challenge. 

Lets hope people are willing and able to be a bit patient and give the lads a season to bed in and consolidate. Top four next season is the target in my opinion. We have a lot of ground to make up before we can say we deserve top four in my opinion. 

Or, conversely, maybe the opposite is true?

Was last season a weird statistical anomaly and the DNA of the club is to sit resolutely in the top four spots and all this summer has done is ensure we are indeed "back where we belong". Are calls to be patient and temper expectations therefore just a fundamental misunderstanding of where the club really is, and where it is headed? 

What do you all think? 

[Morgs]

5 minutes ago, Sciatika said:

I hadn't really thought about it this way, but there may be some truth in it provided there is the caveat that it depends to some degree on the club having a reputation for success (i.e. being a top club), and that is why trophies are still important. 

Trophies are important not because of the prize money but because of the cachet. Being a successful club by winning trophies can multiply the commercial opportunities for sponsorship and so on. 

Running Man City close in a really exciting title race could still net the club nine figures in sponsorship and so on, though obviously winning it is better. 

[ChelseaJambo]

7 minutes ago, Morgs said:

I've been thinking a bit last night about what our targets are for this season. 

I came across a lot - surprising number in fact - of fans who have been stating as absolute fact "top four is now the minimum" and "anything less than top four and a domestic cup would be a failure."

Further - "Top four and a proper title challenge next season, no excuses" 

This is in stark contrast to where we ended up last season. I genuinely believe had the season gone on for another month we'd have been relegated.  Do people have such short term memory loss these days that we do not remember studying the table, looking at Leicester's run-in, Everton's run-in and needing a calculator to work out that we were *JUST ABOUT* mathematically safe from the drop...? 

This is the risk we are dealing with. When you break the British transfer record on a world class midfielder and overhaul the squad with 300m+ of incomings, people tend to automatically assume we will be back "where we belong" and that worries me a bit. We still need a number one keeper and we still probably need a striker. We could crack on with what we have but top four would be a bit of dicey proposition and be by no means guaranteed. We are still miles away from a credible title challenge. 

Lets hope people are willing and able to be a bit patient and give the lads a season to bed in and consolidate. Top four next season is the target in my opinion. We have a lot of ground to make up before we can say we deserve top four in my opinion. 

Or, conversely, maybe the opposite is true?

Was last season a weird statistical anomaly and the DNA of the club is to sit resolutely in the top four spots and all this summer has done is ensure we are indeed "back where we belong". Are calls to be patient and temper expectations therefore just a fundamental misunderstanding of where the club really is, and where it is headed? 

What do you all think? 

 

I was a bit underwhelmed with the team we lined up with at the weekend and felt it wasn't much, if at all, better than last year. It put in a performance though, I imagine largely due to us having a proper manager again.

Now we've got Caiciedo and looking like Lavia coming in too I think the weakest areas from Sunday are plugged and we can really kick on.

Nkunku is a major blow though. With him, top 4 all day long. Without I'm not sure. Well definitely be too 6, provided the signings live up to their billing.

Edited August 16, 2023 by ChelseaJambo

[xceleryx]

25 minutes ago, Sciatika said:

Worried is the wrong word, but I think about it and make spreadsheets to help me understand what is happening. I have a few issues with the long contracts. For one thing, it is risky. I hope the club is using insurance to hedge the risk of long-term injury, but the loss of form or simply a player not meeting expectations leaves a risk that cannot be evaded. I suppose you just have to hope it doesn't happen often. I also think that it does not take into account the need to frequently refresh squads because players become too "comfortable". The amount of money being spent is less of a problem, assuming you believe that global sports, especially football) will continue in its upward trajectory. The problem is that the average supporter does not understand modern business accounting. I am no expert, but I have run companies. Most of it looks normal, let alone legal, and I am pretty sure it can meet regulatory frameworks such as FFP, at least in the short term. Also, as @Rob B says, there s considerable value in the players and the academy, which can be used to mitigate losses.

Re the long contract part specifically.

I'm not as worried about this as some others may. Sure, there's of course risk involved but the one big factor with a lot of these players we're signing to these long deals is that they are heavily cost controlled from a wage perspective. They aren't on £200k upwards, which if that was the case I'd be far more concerned about the eventual failures. As such they'll be easier to sell on with wages not being far less of a sticking point, particularly when it comes to selling to sides outside of England.

There's some exceptions when it comes to those who've come at premium transfer costs, but by large a lot of the young talent we're picking up are coming in around that £20m mark give or take. Peanuts in this day and age. Spreading that out, even with the shorter UEFA amortisation period of 5 years, which the Premier League doesn't abide by yet, is super manageable even with their contracts added on top. Keep these guys for a few years for example, maybe pick up some loan fees on top to offset costs further in the short term, then sell when their book value decreases and making profit isn't particularly farfetched. 

As @Morgsalso said, we'll have to acknowledge and accept that we may not see all of these guys get opportunities here before being sold, similar will apply to the better academy kids on top. But that's also part of the purpose of an academy in this day and age, it's not jut about developing first team players for ourselves. 

[Morgs]

6 minutes ago, ChelseaJambo said:

 

I was a bit underwhelmed with the team we lined up with at the weekend and felt it wasn't much, if at all, better than last year. It put in a performance though, I imagine largely due to us having a proper manager again.

Now we've got Caiciedo and looking like Lavia coming in too I think the weakest areas from Sunday are plugged and we can really kick on.

Nkunku is a major blow though. With him, top 4 all day long. Without I'm not sure. Well definitely be too 6, provided the signings live up to their billing.

Hard to actually say what our best XI is now. 

 

(new keeper)

James 

Colwill

Silva

Chilwell

Enzo

Caicedo

Nkunku

Jackson 

Mudryk

 

then you have 

 

Sanchez

Gusto

Disasi

Badiashile

Maatsen

Lavia

Santos

Madueke

Sterling 

(new striker)

 

Two really strong XIs there. 

We havent been able to say that since the Abramovich heyday. 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by Morgs

[paulw66]

14 minutes ago, Morgs said:

 

What do you all think? 

There are two things to consider.

1. How well do, and how strong we are

2. How strong the competition is.

With the new arrivals, our defence and midfield looks superb, with plenty of depth and variety. Now that Caicedo (and Lavia) are in, we are also likely to revert to a back 4 and allow us to play one more forward than we saw on Sunday. My biggest worry is lack of goals (not compared to last season, but compared to our rivals).

That said, City and Arsenal will finish in the top 4, clearly. The rest..........meh. Newcastle look strong, but let's see how they go when they are playing twice a week. United looked ordinary on Monday. Spurs without Kane.....forget it. Liverpool have loads of firepower but look in midfield, defensively weak

With the money and players we have now got, and with no Europe, we HAVE to be looking to cement top 4. No questions. 

Edited August 16, 2023 by paulw66

[xceleryx]

12 minutes ago, Morgs said:

I've been thinking a bit last night about what our targets are for this season. 

I came across a lot - surprising number in fact - of fans who have been stating as absolute fact "top four is now the minimum" and "anything less than top four and a domestic cup would be a failure."

Further - "Top four and a proper title challenge next season, no excuses" 

This is in stark contrast to where we ended up last season. I genuinely believe had the season gone on for another month we'd have been relegated.  Do people have such short term memory loss these days that we do not remember studying the table, looking at Leicester's run-in, Everton's run-in and needing a calculator to work out that we were *JUST ABOUT* mathematically safe from the drop...? 

This is the risk we are dealing with. When you break the British transfer record on a world class midfielder and overhaul the squad with 300m+ of incomings, people tend to automatically assume we will be back "where we belong" and that worries me a bit. We still need a number one keeper and we still probably need a striker. We could crack on with what we have but top four would be a bit of dicey proposition and be by no means guaranteed. We are still miles away from a credible title challenge. 

Lets hope people are willing and able to be a bit patient and give the lads a season to bed in and consolidate. Top four next season is the target in my opinion. We have a lot of ground to make up before we can say we deserve top four in my opinion. 

Or, conversely, maybe the opposite is true?

Was last season a weird statistical anomaly and the DNA of the club is to sit resolutely in the top four spots and all this summer has done is ensure we are indeed "back where we belong". Are calls to be patient and temper expectations therefore just a fundamental misunderstanding of where the club really is, and where it is headed? 

What do you all think? 

Anyone expecting instance success just because we've spent a lot needs to understand the context of how we've spent first. We're investing in young players, players that will need to still develop in certain regards and may as such also lack consistency right now. As talented as some are, and may go on to be, we're not signing ready made superstars here who immediately raise both our floor and ceiling. 

A top 6 finish for me would be a win based on what last season provided, the players we've signed, and the sheer volume of turnover had. That for me would be a good platform to start that's achievable without expecting too much. I think with less games and confidence we could certainly finish higher, but that's something we can reassess later in the season once we know the lay of the land a lot better.

[paulw66]

3 minutes ago, xceleryx said:

Anyone expecting instance success

Again, define "success" this season. You might get a few different ideas. 

I think 4th is obtainable. 

[Chelsea_Matt]

7 minutes ago, Morgs said:

Hard to actually say what our best XI is now. 

 

(new keeper)

James 

Colwill

Silva

Chilwell

Enzo

Caicedo

Nkunku

Jackson 

Mudryk

 

then you have 

 

Sanchez

Gusto

Disasi

Badiashile

Maatsen

Lavia

Santos

Madueke

Sterling 

(new striker)

 

Two really strong XIs there. 

We havent been able to say that since the Abramovich heyday. 

 

 

Agreed, Señor Morgerino. But I would also say that I hadn’t heard of most of those players before they joined us 🤣🤣🤣

[Original 21]

[Sleeping Dave]

7 hours ago, xceleryx said:

Disagree that Wes didn't have a £70m ceiling, he's been a genuine top talent for years and why Leicester paid up to initially sign him at like 19. He was then exceptional in his first season before that horror leg break he suffered. Looking at it now after these follow up knee injuries it may no longer be the case, but that's a risk every transfer carries really - some just being more vulnerable than others. 

But yeah, right now his health matters most and everything else comes secondary. If this information turns out to be valid then hopefully there's something that can be done to maybe aid his recovery and career. The silver-lining I suppose is that he's young and has time up his sleeve, he may end up being our equivalent of Ledley King because it's not as if he's a bad player in isolation. May just have to be managed for the remainder of his career. 

He's 22, very soon 23, has one cap for France, five U-21 caps and at the time we bought him he had roughly 3 000 PL minutes to his name. Roughly 34 full games. At that point in time, he had showed nothing to suggest he should command a £70m fee, especially when you also factor in that he had virtually missed the majority of the 2021/22 season. France alone has a plethora of CBs who are all better than him, many of them are even in the same age group. 

To me he is a fancier Michael Duberry. Clumsy, prone to lose his head, always prone to a mistake and doesn't really posses any stand out qualities. I'd say we have 5 CBs at the club who are all better and we seem hell bent in selling one of them to finance ludicrous deals such the one with Fofana. 

[Miguelito07]

3 minutes ago, Original 21 said:

No news on the fee

[Bob Singleton]

25 minutes ago, Morgs said:

Hard to actually say what our best XI is now. 

 

(new keeper)

James 

Colwill

Silva

Chilwell

Enzo

Caicedo

Nkunku

Jackson 

Mudryk

 

then you have 

 

Sanchez

Gusto

Disasi

Badiashile

Maatsen

Lavia

Santos

Madueke

Sterling 

(new striker)

 

Two really strong XIs there. 

We havent been able to say that since the Abramovich heyday. 

 

 

Brave of you to only play with 10 men in both formations!

[paulw66]

17 minutes ago, Chelsea_Matt said:

Agreed, Señor Morgerino. But I would also say that I hadn’t heard of most of those players before they joined us 🤣🤣🤣

I tend to take that as a good thing. Any fool can spot the best players at the best clubs.

[Thiago97]

7 minutes ago, Sleeping Dave said:

He's 22, very soon 23, has one cap for France, five U-21 caps and at the time we bought him he had roughly 3 000 PL minutes to his name. Roughly 34 full games. At that point in time, he had showed nothing to suggest he should command a £70m fee, especially when you also factor in that he had virtually missed the majority of the 2021/22 season. France alone has a plethora of CBs who are all better than him, many of them are even in the same age group. 

To me he is a fancier Michael Duberry. Clumsy, prone to lose his head, always prone to a mistake and doesn't really posses any stand out qualities. I'd say we have 5 CBs at the club who are all better and we seem hell bent in selling one of them to finance ludicrous deals such the one with Fofana. 

Personally, I would disagree here. I know you were against the transfer from the start and you would have to say so far, the way it is playing out, you are being proven correct.

I disagree he hadn’t shown enough to warrant that fee though. He had some exceptionally good PL performances for Leicester, if anything he has proven himself at this level more than Disasi , Colwill and Badiashille so far.

Injuries have clearly had an impact on him. It was clearly early on at Leicester that is was £30m well spent and he would not be there long. Real Madrid were reportedly closely monitoring him after a handful of PL appearances, this was reported in a number of outlets not long after he joined.

His ceiling as a CB is very high and I would say he has as much potential than the other CB’s we have , if not even higher in my opinion. His main fault is a bit similar to Cucurella in that he tries to win the ball too often, he would learn that he doesn’t need to compete for everything with experience. 
Let’s just hope he can return to full fitness and still achieve a good career here from next season. 

[Holymoly]

53 minutes ago, Morgs said:

I think the owners have looked at the profile of the business and its revenue streams and sussed out pretty quickly that a new stadium isn't the priority.

I'm sure I saw something earlier in the year that the owners were going to make an announcement regarding the stadium in the summer?

[Chelsea_Matt]

22 minutes ago, Miguelito07 said:

No news on the fee

If I was Todd I’d pay his air fare 

[asvaberg]

31 minutes ago, Original 21 said:

Güle güle, Hakim 🙂 😁

[Bob Singleton]

Man City have accepted a bid from a Saudi Arabian club for Ameyric Laporte, while Liverpool goalkeeper Alison is also being targetted (and apparently is tempted to move).  These are hardly players coming to the end of their careers. Clearly money talks for some. Trophies or cash? I'll have the cash, please!

We've tied down our new signings to long-term contracts, which may backfire if they don't reach the levels expected and we then have difficulty moving them on, but I do wonder - apart from the 'amortisation' side of things, which makes sense - if our new owners (who have business links with Saudi Arabia, including with many who help run the sovereign wealth funds) knew in advance of this new league with almost unlimited wealth, and have mitigated against us being pillaged in similar fashion?

Timing is everything. We needed a squad overhaul and we've got it in spades. At the same time, almost unlimited money has appeared from the middle east, luring players of all ages. As we've rebuilt, so we have ensured the club have greater 'control' over the players. As that money weakens our rivals, we hopefully can continue to build this 'new project' with exciting young players, managed by a coach who enjoys moulding young talents.