Transfer Talk Topic

[RDCW]

37 minutes ago, Ham said:

If you're going to picture me exploding with venom, I use a phone as opposed to a computer. 

Puts me in mind of,

"Do you use a dictaphone?"

"No, I use my fingers, just like everyone else".

[Max Fowler]

2 hours ago, xceleryx said:

You're taking a situation which is entirely hypothetical per your digression, then trying to create a defining argument that supports this as if it's happening before our eyes. There's zero, completely zero, indication we're interesting in cashing in on players like Palmer.

Certain players will, as I said before, be signed with a view to flip for profits. These will likely fall inline within a certain cost bracket, because buying high entirely shoots this process down before it begins. Others will be signed with a view that they'll have senior roles, or can maybe develop into ones. These guys are likely to come in at higher prices. With some falling somewhere between both.

I am not saying we are interested in cashing in on Palmer. I am saying we are buying players with a strong preference to them retaining/growing value. The fact that Palmer has exploded proves their model to them and we will double and triple down. Noone's talking about selling him, but if at some point he wants to leave and Man United or someone comes in with 100 million, then the model has worked.

"Others will be signed with a view that they'll have senior roles, or can maybe develop into ones. These guys are likely to come in at higher prices. With some falling somewhere between both."

Higher prices?! I have no idea what you are rambling on about here. We are expressly not buying first-team players on high prices. Yes we may have done in our opening windows, yes we spunked way over the odds for Enzo, Mudryk, and Cucurella.

We now operate in the 30-40 million bracket and would much rather spend that on a 20 year old than 80 million on a 26-28 year old.  You might say that makes financial sense but it will never, ever make us a winning team. Players in their prime tend to depreciate in value, hence the fact that they are in their prime.

[Max Fowler]

1 hour ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

Max, I come in peace, genuinely I do and also what i’m saying goes for many more than you, but yours happens to be the post I’ve picked.

I think you would get a better response to your posts and a more constructive discussion if you posted as opinion rather than fact, especially when you’re talking about things you believe will happen but haven’t happened yet.

You’re moaning about a transfer window that hasn’t even opened yet.

I accept you are not solely picking out me Sam, but I've unfortunately long since given up on having much constructive discussion.

It seems to me there are those of us who think that this project needs constant patience and we just need to wait and see and give Potter time and give Poch time and give Enzo time and give the owners time and on and on and on...

And those of us who feel that that is kicking the discussion down the road and we need an honest conversation now about what the owners are doing right and wrong.

We have had two seasons to kick the can down the road. How many transfer windows have we had under these owners? We can all see what the model is. Why wait!

[Ham]

26 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

You might say that makes financial sense but it will never, ever make us a winning team. Players in their prime tend to depreciate in value, hence the fact that they are in their prime.

Here you go again getting your opinion mixed up with facts and using EMPHASIS to do so. 

[Mark Kelly]

3 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

I accept you are not solely picking out me Sam, but I've unfortunately long since given up on having much constructive discussion.

It seems to me there are those of us who think that this project needs constant patience and we just need to wait and see and give Potter time and give Poch time and give Enzo time and give the owners time and on and on and on...

And those of us who feel that that is kicking the discussion down the road and we need an honest conversation now about what the owners are doing right and wrong.

We have had two seasons to kick the can down the road. How many transfer windows have we had under these owners? We can all see what the model is. Why wait!

Didn't the new owners say something like it would take six transfer windows to see what they're trying to achieve? 

What are we on now? Five? 

And that was to just see what they were trying to achieve not actually achieving. 

Should it all go Pete Tong again I don't expect any amount of wheedling will save Stewart and Winstanley but I'd still like to see what we can achieve in the near future before I go ballistic. 

Some of us worked out Pochettino was a fraud pretty quickly so we will have to watch Maresca very carefully. 

[Chelsea_Matt]

19 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

Didn't the new owners say something like it would take six transfer windows to see what they're trying to achieve? 

What are we on now? Five? 

And that was to just see what they were trying to achieve not actually achieving. 

Should it all go Pete Tong again I don't expect any amount of wheedling will save Stewart and Winstanley but I'd still like to see what we can achieve in the near future before I go ballistic. 

Some of us worked out Pochettino was a fraud pretty quickly so we will have to watch Maresca very carefully. 

Agreed. I can see how @Max Fowler is impatient, espesh as under our last ownership change we had immediate success, though that was a lifetime ago. We are where we are and we’re way past the point of any change of direction. It shouldn’t be this way imo but all we can do is fasten our seatbelts and hope it all works. 

[Max Fowler]

40 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

Didn't the new owners say something like it would take six transfer windows to see what they're trying to achieve? 

What are we on now? Five? 

And that was to just see what they were trying to achieve not actually achieving. 

Should it all go Pete Tong again I don't expect any amount of wheedling will save Stewart and Winstanley but I'd still like to see what we can achieve in the near future before I go ballistic. 

Some of us worked out Pochettino was a fraud pretty quickly so we will have to watch Maresca very carefully. 

I will never see what the owners are trying to achieve until they invest heavily in a handful of 26-30 year old signings. Or invest heavily in players who have actually been there, done it, and won trophies at the very highest level.

And they never will, not after 5 transfer windows, not after 10 transfer windows. It doesn't fit the model.

We will never achieve success unless we buy ready made leaders for now, who can help the youngsters along the way. The youngsters are not going to learn to be Premier League winners on their own. I am sorry, they are just not. 

Okay there are exceptions like Palmer, as there always will be, but if we keep just buying 20 year old after 20 year old as we are doing, then the teams who buy the world class players will be ahead of us.

We could easily have a more mixed strategy, but we don't. It's staring us right in the face.

Go get a Julian Alvarez and we'll make a step up next season. Add a Jhon Duran and we'll be in exactly the same place as we were last season. Nicolas Jackson could learn from a player in Alvarez who has now won 2 Premier Leagues, a Champions League and a World Cup. 

Instead Nicolas Jackson has got to be the main man striker and teach himself to be that guy, which never worked for any club ever. And Jhon Duran has got to learn from Jackson. Madness.

Edited June 16 by Max Fowler

[asvaberg]

10 minutes ago, Chelsea_Matt said:

Agreed. I can see how @Max Fowler is impatient, espesh as under our last ownership change we had immediate success,

"Immediate" as in ending 2nd in the league with 79 points, no silverware (including cups).

However, the 2nd season with Roman is a very different story, of course.

About time the new owners in their 3rd season begins to collect silverware 😁

[Chelsea_Matt]

5 minutes ago, asvaberg said:

"Immediate" as in ending 2nd in the league with 79 points, no silverware (including cups).

However, the 2nd season with Roman is a very different story, of course.

About time the new owners in their 3rd season begins to collect silverware 😁

2nd and 79 is successful espesh compared to Todd’n’Eggy and for me there was the sense we were set for an amazing era. We don’t know what’s going to happen with this mob but it hasn’t exactly been good so far imo. 

[xceleryx]

7 hours ago, Chelsea_Matt said:

2nd and 79 is successful espesh compared to Todd’n’Eggy and for me there was the sense we were set for an amazing era. We don’t know what’s going to happen with this mob but it hasn’t exactly been good so far imo. 

Hard to really compare the two, which is why I've always found it such a silly comparison to be attempting to make. 

We could swap the two eras of ownership and maybe we'd be signing a different tune about both, we just don't know.

[Max Fowler]

5 hours ago, xceleryx said:

Hard to really compare the two, which is why I've always found it such a silly comparison to be attempting to make. 

We could swap the two eras of ownership and maybe we'd be signing a different tune about both, we just don't know.

It's @xceleryx's good ol' counterfactual argument! We can never possibly know how something would be if things went another way, the trump card which invalidates any argument!

Thank god humanity as a whole has realised that weighing up decisions based on knowns and unknowns, pasts, presents and futures is central to having insight and making grown up decisions.

[Ham]

21 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

It's @xceleryx's good ol' counterfactual argument! We can never possibly know how something would be if things went another way, the trump card which invalidates any argument!

Thank god humanity as a whole has realised that weighing up decisions based on knowns and unknowns, pasts, presents and futures is central to having insight and making grown up decisions.

The world isn't black and white. There are variables. 

Had the current ownership bought in 2003, they'd have the benefit of being ahead of the arms race. 

Had Roman bought in 2022, unlimited money wouldn't have guaranteed success, immediate or otherwise. 

 

 

[ROTG]

1 minute ago, Ham said:

The world isn't black and white.

Correct, however the earth is flat 

[xceleryx]

52 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

It's @xceleryx's good ol' counterfactual argument! We can never possibly know how something would be if things went another way, the trump card which invalidates any argument!

Thank god humanity as a whole has realised that weighing up decisions based on knowns and unknowns, pasts, presents and futures is central to having insight and making grown up decisions.

And from the top rope we have @Max Fowler completely missing the point, again.

See @Ham's follow up.

[Mark Kelly]

45 minutes ago, ROTG said:

Correct, however the earth is flat 

Having seen your other opinions on a daily basis , I believe you actually believe this 😉

[Max Fowler]

Okay I'll admit that in this case the conversation was heading in the right direction, but it's a general criticism of @xceleryx.

"We don't know what would have happened if we had bought x player instead or had x strategy - maybe it would have been even worse!"

i.e. "We don't know what would have happened if we would have bought Julian Alvarez instead of Jhon Duran, maybe he would have just inflated the wage bill and not been worth the extra money!"

Just get rid of the counterfactual get-out-of-jail-free card and tell me the following:

Why do you agree with signing Jhon Duran instead of Julian Alvarez?
1) Because you trust the board
2) Because you think Julian is overpriced
3) Because Duran is talented

As an example.

1 hour ago, Ham said:

The world isn't black and white. There are variables. 

Had the current ownership bought in 2003, they'd have the benefit of being ahead of the arms race. 

Had Roman bought in 2022, unlimited money wouldn't have guaranteed success, immediate or otherwise.

 

Edited June 17 by Max Fowler

[Mark Kelly]

25 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

Why do you agree with signing Jhon Duran instead of Julian Alvarez?
 

 

Is this happening then?

I think Jhon Duran is a good player having seen him .

I also think Alvarez is a good player too . 

We don't know what's happening until it actually happens , lets lose our shit if and when it does if they're rubbish .

The game is littered with players with reputation who moved to a new club and flopped its not solely a Chelsea thing , Arsenal signed a winger for a reported £72m a few seasons back and he's been appalling for instance. 

[Max Fowler]

1 minute ago, Mark Kelly said:

Is this happening then?

I think Jhon Duran is a good player having seen him .

I also think Alvarez is a good player too . 

We don't know what's happening until it actually happens , lets lose our shit if and when it does if they're rubbish .

The game is littered with players with reputation who moved to a new club and flopped its not solely a Chelsea thing , Arsenal signed a winger for a reported £72m a few seasons back and he's been appalling for instance. 

It's not about losing our shit. It's about giving our opinion.

If the board signs Jhon Duran, what will your answer be?

"Duran is a good player, Alvarez is a good player. I trust the board."

If that's your prerogative, okay.

Again, we don't need to come up with every counterexample or counterfactual under the sun. Just tell me your opinion.

If the board go for Duran and we have Jackson and Duran as our strikers next season, will you say I'm happy with that?

[Chelsea_Matt]

2 hours ago, Ham said:

The world isn't black and white. There are variables. 

Had the current ownership bought in 2003, they'd have the benefit of being ahead of the arms race. 

Had Roman bought in 2022, unlimited money wouldn't have guaranteed success, immediate or otherwise. 

 

 

No but I think we’d have done better given the behind the scenes team RA had compared to now. Anyway, irrelevant I know. 🫶🏻☀️✌️

[Mark Kelly]

37 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

It's not about losing our shit. It's about giving our opinion.

If the board signs Jhon Duran, what will your answer be?

"Duran is a good player, Alvarez is a good player. I trust the board."

If that's your prerogative, okay.

Again, we don't need to come up with every counterexample or counterfactual under the sun. Just tell me your opinion.

If the board go for Duran and we have Jackson and Duran as our strikers next season, will you say I'm happy with that?

I think you're expecting us to be in the market for Kane and his excessive wages or Lewandowski when we just aren't able to do that sustainably. 

If we sign Duran, I'm happy, if we sign Alvarez I'm happy on the proviso that the coach is happy to have either of them. 

If Maresca is putting his neck on the line then it's his funeral and I'm happy to go with him. 

[McCreadie]

Worth remembering that there could be all manner of reasons why we might or might not sign Duran over Alvarez.

Absolutely none of which we are a party to.

[Morgs]

My mate said something interesting to me last night - he mentioned that he didn't want to see Palmer come on for England in the second half of the Serbia game because he was worried he would change the game, put Serbia to bed and look the player we all know he is. The thinking of course being that if he was to shine as he did in a Chelsea shirt last season on the international stage, we'd start seeing silly money bids coming in for him much faster.

It got me thinking and I make him spot on correct. In all the furore about who are we supposed to be signing and whether the new manager is any good, people seem to have this collective myopia about Palmer. It is an understatement to say he was the shining star last season, and I dread to think where we would be without him. But exactly this is a scenario that has to be coming up around the bend faster than any of us might be thinking. 

Fact is he is a world class number ten who can play behind the striker, track back, play out wide on the right, take players on and beat them, is good in the air and a clinical finisher goalscorer.  He's creative, he can beat a press and he works really hard. 

Arsenal won't pay it, but if Man City, Bayern, PSG, Barcelona, Real or even dare I say it Liverpool were to offer us £120m+ for him, (IE: three times what he cost us) there is no way on God's earth Winstanley and his merry band say no to that. From Palmer's point of view he wants to be playing Champions League football, he deserves to be there, that is his level, and I very much doubt the Conference League is going to excite him much. Imagine if we miss out on top four next season, fall short in the Cups etc, whilst managerial upheaval continues, the club still makes stupid errors and offs the likes of Gallagher, Chalobah and maybe Madueke (all of whom are young English lads Palmer is close to) then what would he make of it all? He'd be off.  And none of us could blame the lad in the slightest. 

Now imagine Palmer has a really amazing Euros and the aforementioned clubs start taking a serious, nine figure interest in him, a season earlier than we were expecting to have to fend off such bids? 

Do we get top four without Palmer next season? No. Will that factor in any way into the club's thinking when they are totting up the crazy return on investment he would bring at that price? Also no. 

Scary. 

[martin1905]

1 hour ago, Max Fowler said:

It's not about losing our shit. It's about giving our opinion.

If the board signs Jhon Duran, what will your answer be?

"Duran is a good player, Alvarez is a good player. I trust the board."

If that's your prerogative, okay.

Again, we don't need to come up with every counterexample or counterfactual under the sun. Just tell me your opinion.

If the board go for Duran and we have Jackson and Duran as our strikers next season, will you say I'm happy with that?

Personally I will be happy with Jackson +1.

I think it is vital we do not hinder Jackson's progress as he has the potential to be one of the very best in the world and if he continues his progress we should expect more from him next year.

Julian Alvarez has started 15 league games as a striker. Very difficult to make any decision on whether he will be able to play that position in the Premier league. At 5ft 7 he'd have to be absolutely elite, judging by past players and I very much doubt he is that and doubt he ever will be.

I do wonder if he didn't play for City would anyone be that bothered about him.

[Max Fowler]

Just now, McCreadie said:

Worth remembering that there could be all manner of reasons why we might or might not sign Duran over Alvarez.

Absolutely none of which we are a party to.

Okay, but we're not party to any of the full facts about anything that goes on. So what are we here to do? Stick our head in the sand? I accept that people use the forum for different reasons, but if we are here to give our opinion on the state of the club then for me it's just an easy get out to say:

"We don't know the facts" or the counterfactual "Maybe it would be even worse if we signed player Y"

You can argue that fans know nothing and therefore shouldn't spout their mouth off, but frankly I think they know a lot more than is given credit for here. Fans watch the team religiously every week, follow every kick of every ball, and presumably have done for generation after generation. They might not be privy to the entire truth, but usually they have a pretty good intuition and eye for when something is working and when it is not.

Certainly there are cases like the Glazers at United where the fans have recognised that something is fundamentally broken and caused the change that we are seeing now. Now you can say that the United fans don't know the full facts, or maybe things would have changed anyway, but to me that's a cop out. They watched what was going on, saw it was broken, were informed on many of the facts (if not all of them) about why and made a stand.

I give the fans far more credit than most on here because of the sheer amount of investment that they make into the club. They follow every detail religously and yes there are some morons (you might think I am one of them) but again:

Simply. engage. with. the. argument. You are simply saying, as far as I can tell:

"If the board chooses to sign Duran over Alvarez I trust that the board has done that for good reasons and because I don't feel privy to those reasons, I will support the player and assume that it is the right decision."

To me given what we have seen, this is an absolute nonsense and wilful delusion of the highest order, but at least you would be clearly arguing your point rather than arguing that none of us even have the possibility of having a viable opinion anyway. 

[Max Fowler]

1 minute ago, martin1905 said:

Personally I will be happy with Jackson +1.

I think it is vital we do not hinder Jackson's progress as he has the potential to be one of the very best in the world and if he continues his progress we should expect more from him next year.

Julian Alvarez has started 15 league games as a striker. Very difficult to make any decision on whether he will be able to play that position in the Premier league. At 5ft 7 he'd have to be absolutely elite, judging by past players and I very much doubt he is that and doubt he ever will be.

I do wonder if he didn't play for City would anyone be that bothered about him.

Thanks for the honest opinion Martin. It's an absolute nonsense, as to fully develop Jackson needs to learn from someone who has been there and done it, also to take the pressure of him, but at least thanks for your clear opinion ✌️