Transfer Talk Topic

[Blue_in_TX]

Injuries notwithstanding, of which there have been many.  Especially Carney's which was heart breaking. 

 Poch will must have the team's personality in mind and is looking to ensure those roles have cover.  I loved Hall last year and am sorry to see him go, but it is better to get something for him and move him on to Newcastle if he was never going to really play.   

I would have loved to see a left footed player and try to develop him a bit (since he was supposed to be a midfield player) when the Elise deal caved. 

[Mark Kelly]

1 hour ago, Chelsea_Matt said:

Look at our injury record. Three players for 2 spaces ain’t so bad. I agree with your wider points though Mr K

But my friend, it's three players for one place. 

One "holding" midfielder. 

If we get to the part where Lavia and or Caicedo are expected to be more attacking options we should have stuck with Kovacic for all the good it will do. 

[Chelsea_Matt]

25 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

But my friend, it's three players for one place. 

One "holding" midfielder. 

If we get to the part where Lavia and or Caicedo are expected to be more attacking options we should have stuck with Kovacic for all the good it will do. 

True. But if it’s a 4-2-3-1 for example…saying that the players have to be good enough no matter what formation you use. And to have more intelligence than sand 😉💙🤣

Edited August 22, 2023 by Chelsea_Matt

[chara]

9 hours ago, JaneB said:

@Morgs

Can I just say that I love your posts.  A lot of thought goes into them and you're so articulate and amusing.

Glad you joined the forum 🙂

(without prejudice as I'm a mod!!)

I take CREDIT for accurately allocating Mr Morg to the bad boy corner with the usual suspects.... not that I approve of that radical crowd.

[chiswickblue]

We now have six or seven players suitable for playing in the central midfield 2 in Poch's preferred 4231, but no one fit to play in the number 10 role now that Nkunku and Chukwuemeka are out.

We'll probably see a change of shape, but a midfield 3 of Caicedo, Gallagher and Enzo has only marginally more goal threat than Jorginho, Kovacic, Kanté. This will put a lot of pressure on Jackson, Sterling and Mudryk/Madueke to score our goals.

[Blue_in_TX]

Oh, to have Casadei back

[Miguelito07]

56 minutes ago, chiswickblue said:

We now have six or seven players suitable for playing in the central midfield 2 in Poch's preferred 4231

with the number of injuries we currently have and will probably have - this isnt such a bad move

[Chelsea_Matt]

1 hour ago, chiswickblue said:

We now have six or seven players suitable for playing in the central midfield 2 in Poch's preferred 4231, but no one fit to play in the number 10 role now that Nkunku and Chukwuemeka are out.

We'll probably see a change of shape, but a midfield 3 of Caicedo, Gallagher and Enzo has only marginally more goal threat than Jorginho, Kovacic, Kanté. This will put a lot of pressure on Jackson, Sterling and Mudryk/Madueke to score our goals.

That’s why they (the forwards) were bought. We desperately needed more steel in midfield. 

Edited August 22, 2023 by Chelsea_Matt

[Rob B]

2 hours ago, chiswickblue said:

We now have six or seven players suitable for playing in the central midfield 2 in Poch's preferred 4231, but no one fit to play in the number 10 role now that Nkunku and Chukwuemeka are out.

We'll probably see a change of shape, but a midfield 3 of Caicedo, Gallagher and Enzo has only marginally more goal threat than Jorginho, Kovacic, Kanté. This will put a lot of pressure on Jackson, Sterling and Mudryk/Madueke to score our goals.

Gallagher, Enzo, Sterling or even Jackson could all do a job in the number 10 role I think.   The focus should be on scoring goals so I wouldn’t be adverse to something like this in a few weeks if Broja is fit enough:

                            Broja 

 Jackson.     Gallagher.     Sterling 

                 Enzo.    Caicedo 

I think Jackson could do a job anywhere across the front line and you wouldn’t necessarily limit his goal threat, and I’m sure I’ve read he has played from the left before.
I know Gallagher won’t be the popular choice, but he shoots from distance, presses high and gets into the box on the end of second balls etc.   In fact, that front 4 would be a defenders nightmare in terms of being pressed / harassed etc. 

Against better teams, you could bring Lavia in to play alongside Caicedo and push Enzo on, but I think against low blocks, I’d be looking to get the maximum amount of attackers on as possible.  

[Original 21]

Does this mean what I think it means?

[Michael Tucker]

19 minutes ago, Original 21 said:

Does this mean what I think it means?

Depends on what you think it means

 

[kev61]

5 hours ago, chiswickblue said:

Poch's preferred 4231, 

 

Jesus.How can a manager have a 4231 preference?.Not that I question your statement, but you set up a team dependent on the  players you have at your disposal and the opposition.

A 4231 set up seems  too fanciful.Imo a 442 or a 451 is all you need and within that as a coach you can be more flexible.

[kev61]

8 hours ago, Blue_in_TX said:

 

I would have loved to see a left footed player and try to develop him a bit (since he was supposed to be a midfield player) when the Elise deal caved. 

We have a left footed player that looks streets ahead of Hall and can play in more positions.

[Michael Tucker]

1 minute ago, kev61 said:

We have a left footed player that looks streets ahead of Hall and can play in more positions.

Care to give us a name? Or should we guess?

[kev61]

10 minutes ago, Michael Tucker said:

Care to give us a name? Or should we guess?

How many players do we have that are left footed?.I got my knuckles rapped for not knowing that Chabolah was injured!.

Keep up Michael or we will both be labelled as being senile😉

 

Edited August 23, 2023 by kev61

[kev61]

14 hours ago, McCreadie said:

Not that fussed about Hall going. I think Celery said we have better LBs and better CMs. He’s right.

Then who are they?.Michael Tucker needs to know and I would like to hear names!.

[xceleryx]

12 hours ago, boratsbrother said:

Along with his excellent passing, those praising Gilmour highlighted his defensive work, tackling, interceptions and by how physically aggressive he was. So, apart from pace, he excelled in all the things you think he's crap at.

Simply not true, even the Brighton faithful complained about his defensive input. An issue that was also present during his time at Norwich the season prior. All of which is backed up statically if you choose to ponder down that path. 

Anyway, he's not a Chelsea player and therefore it matters little. We don't miss him in any capacity and I'd rather focus on those we have.

[kev61]

14 hours ago, chiswickblue said:

We probably have better CMs and one better LB, but that isn't the point - he's 18 and we expect him to develop further. So he could easily have been kept as a rotation player, then sold 2-3 years down the line 

The thing is he may not have "developed futher".I think it was good business.

He never impressed me.The only players I got wrong were Salah and debruyne.

Hall looked like Le Saux,very ordinary and  functional  at best.

[Michael Tucker]

25 minutes ago, kev61 said:

Then who are they?.Michael Tucker needs to know and I would like to hear names!.

Sounds like you don't know either then! It wasn't a trick question by the way.

[kev61]

2 minutes ago, Michael Tucker said:

Sounds like you don't know either then! It wasn't a trick question by the way.

I like to keep my cards close to my chest.If I let rip I would be be banned.

The empty vessels are gaining momentum and I need to tread carefully.

 

[xceleryx]

12 hours ago, chiswickblue said:

The issue, and one you are highlighting here, is that we have not created a successful pathway for talented academy youngsters to make it into the first team squad where they can contribute, even if  not regular first XI players. And this is even taking into consideration that we may have 6 academy products in the squad for the majority of the season. We are taking punts on players from elsewhere, but not on players from within that would find adapting to the first team and premier league football much easier.

Looking at academy products as short-term financial wins is exactly that - a short-term plan and not one you would associate with a leadership that is supposed to be here for at least 10 years and a squad that is obviously not yet ready for top honours. This is exactly the time when you should be capitalising on your academy and using the money you have to buy players that will make a real difference - not on squad-fillers and speculative punts. Given the injuries we have and the ability to make 5 subs, there would have been enough minutes for Hall to develop here. He has shown that he is good enough to compete, and the fact that he's been effectively sold will be a lesson to other academy players thinking if they should sign that contract that ties them to the club during the crucial pathway years.

There has been pathways provided though, if there wasn't we'd be featuring no one from the academy within the first team and that's obviously not the case. Maybe it's more that the idea of what a pathway is differs from to person, and therefore there's a lot of back and forth because of that.

We're taking punts on players from elsewhere for a variety of reasons, one of which I addressed the other day which more or less covered the notion of people complaining for years about our scouting not picking up young players sooner before they get big and have massive fees attached to them. So now that we've gone out and been proactive in trying to get some of these young talents in earlier, at a cheaper price point, people still complain and see it as wasted money or blocking academy players. It's a winless situation because people ultimately complain either way, unsurprising given the fickle nature of football fans as a whole really.

They aren't seen as short term financial wins. Selling an academy player for example has the potential to create longer term benefits from a FFP perspective purely because of how football accounting works, this can then be used to fund bigger deals and either better or higher talented players. We're also needing to consider how the transfer market is these days, the prices of players have become outrageous and it doesn't take much at all for a players value to skyrocket. We've obviously seen that first hand with some of those we've signed or targeted ourselves. Buying genuine established players that can immediately raise a teams floor level is tougher than ever, generally comes in at a higher price point, wages and can arguably be more of a risk if they don't pan out as expected. 

As for Hall directly, he's shown he can somewhat complete as a wingback which is a position we're no longer going to use. People also thought Lamptey was going to be the next big thing because of his brief cameos, so it's mindful to consider Hall's 600 odd minutes really isn't much of a sample size to be presuming he's going to be this foregone conclusion. The reality with Hall is quite simple at the end of the day - he's a midfielder by trade that wasn't better than anyone we have, arguably not suited to a pivot role, isn't a fullback and barely featured there, nor was better than anyone we currently still have in that position. So yeah, even in an absolute best case scenario he could've quite easily found himself on the outer barely getting a sniff. 

[kev61]

17 hours ago, JaneB said:

@Morgs

Can I just say that I love your posts.  A lot of thought goes into them and you're so articulate and amusing.

Glad you joined the forum 🙂

(without prejudice as I'm a mod!!)

Yep.He's an absolute cutie.I said the same to other members.. .. ffs.

[kev61]

15 minutes ago, xceleryx said:

There has been pathways provided though, if there wasn't we'd be featuring no one from the academy within the first team and that's obviously not the case. Maybe it's more that the idea of what a pathway is differs from to person, and therefore there's a lot of back and forth because of that.

We're taking punts on players from elsewhere for a variety of reasons, one of which I addressed the other day which more or less covered the notion of people complaining for years about our scouting not picking up young players sooner before they get big and have massive fees attached to them. So now that we've gone out and been proactive in trying to get some of these young talents in earlier, at a cheaper price point, people still complain and see it as wasted money or blocking academy players. It's a winless situation because people ultimately complain either way, unsurprising given the fickle nature of football fans as a whole really.

They aren't seen as short term financial wins. Selling an academy player for example has the potential to create longer term benefits from a FFP perspective purely because of how football accounting works, this can then be used to fund bigger deals and either better or higher talented players. We're also needing to consider how the transfer market is these days, the prices of players have become outrageous and it doesn't take much at all for a players value to skyrocket. We've obviously seen that first hand with some of those we've signed or targeted ourselves. Buying genuine established players that can immediately raise a teams floor level is tougher than ever, generally comes in at a higher price point, wages and can arguably be more of a risk if they don't pan out as expected. 

As for Hall directly, he's shown he can somewhat complete as a wingback which is a position we're no longer going to use. People also thought Lamptey was going to be the next big thing because of his brief cameos, so it's mindful to consider Hall's 600 odd minutes really isn't much of a sample size to be presuming he's going to be this foregone conclusion. The reality with Hall is quite simple at the end of the day - he's a midfielder by trade that wasn't better than anyone we have, arguably not suited to a pivot role, isn't a fullback and barely featured there, nor was better than anyone we currently still have in that position. So yeah, even in an absolute best case scenario he could've quite easily found himself on the outer barely getting a sniff. 

Do you ever think you talk cobblers.I do constantly.

[xceleryx]

8 hours ago, Mark Kelly said:

But my friend, it's three players for one place. 

One "holding" midfielder. 

If we get to the part where Lavia and or Caicedo are expected to be more attacking options we should have stuck with Kovacic for all the good it will do. 

Is it really three players for just one position though? 

Caicedo will likely be the main DM, but also has capabilities of playing outside of that.

Lavia is similar in the sense that he played deeper but his skillset and strengths tend to crossover more with what Enzo provides, realistically he can probably fill both midfield positions. 

Big Les is an unknown for me because I've not really seen enough of him to have an informed opinion over. However looking at his chart he's more along the lines of Caicedo defensively minus the progressive passes, key passes and through balls. Using that as a rough guide he looks more of a true DM. 

To summarise; Caicedo and Lavia could cover both pivot positions and Big Les fits solely the DM position. 

There's more flexibility to our option compared to prior years.

[xceleryx]

22 minutes ago, kev61 said:

Do you ever think you talk cobblers.I do constantly.

That's nice, Kev. Thankfully I couldn't care less.