Transfer Talk Topic

[Rob B]

I don’t actually mind Felix the player, supremely talented, has a goal in him, can play in multiple positions and still only 24. (In the interests of balance, appreciate he needs to become more consistent and work harder too) 

But what I hate about this is the circumstances.  This isn’t squad planning this is a ploy to prevent the Gallagher deal from collapsing and line the pockets of Jorge Mendes.

All of those scouts, recruitment and SD personnel and we have resorted to this.  With the greatest respect intended, this is the sort of deal you’d expect with Marina at the helm. 

Every week that goes by I become more and more disillusioned 

[Chelsea_Matt]

We don’t need any more players, for God’s sake!! We need to get rid of about 6 at least plus loans.  

Utter morons.
 

IMO. 🤣🤣🤣🎯💀💀

[ChelseaJambo]

I liked Felix and was disappointed we didn't keep him. Signing him like this would be farcical though.

 

That said if someone gave me a straight choice of Gallagher or Felix I'd pick Felix every day. 

[CarefreeMuratcan]

Happy with Felix, we should have permanently signed him last year. The short spell was erratic but I thought he was similar to Palmer if not as productive. But that was a very different team he had around him. Imagine having 2 Palmers un the squad, that's what this feels like to me. 

[MickyDroy]

I like Felix but I wonder if we'll end up with one too many "cooks" here. Palmer, Nkunku, Felix, Enzo - that's four players that like to have the ball a lot and if they all start they may end up being in eachothers way. Last season it was pretty simple, Palmer was the head honcho and everyone looked for him in attacking areas, now it will clearly be different.

[chiswickblue]

Felix looks good but has zero end product and is a waste of time and space. He's been touted all over Europe and no one is interested.

If we actually are interested, this would show that our Sporting Directors are under the thumb of Jorge Mendes and have prioritised this relationship over footballing matters and building a coherent squad.

The only hope to cling to is that we're doing Mendes a favour by pretending to be interested, to drive up interest somewhere else - I think they were trying to convince Benfica to spend a bit of money to bring him back.

We have a lot of good players, but the general approach to squad-building and future-proofing the club is a disaster.

[martin1905]

14 minutes ago, MickyDroy said:

I like Felix but I wonder if we'll end up with one too many "cooks" here. Palmer, Nkunku, Felix, Enzo - that's four players that like to have the ball a lot and if they all start they may end up being in eachothers way. Last season it was pretty simple, Palmer was the head honcho and everyone looked for him in attacking areas, now it will clearly be different.

Think City though, when they were at their best......

KDB, Silva, Gündoğan, Foden, Mahrez, Grealish. Always amazed me the way they would line up, with Rodri plus loads of attacking midfielders, who all wanted the ball, played to feet yet it worked. Really well.

[martin1905]

At this stage we still don't know how Maresca intends to use Palmer or Nkunku. 

Lots of talk about Palner being played more central but I just dong see it happening. For me Nkunku has to, and will.

So last season we had Sterling,  Palmer, Madueke,  Mudryk as our wide options.

Adding Felix and Neto so Felix/Sterling on the left and Palmer/Neto on the right is a monumental upgrade yet I'm reading it's poor squad planning.  Looks like we've massively improved in the wide areas and that's before you even consider the style of football we want to play. 

Who's better suited to a highly technical,  possession based game, Mudryk and Madueke or Felix and Neto?

Then think about how much better Palmer and Enzo in particular will be playing with Nkunku, Neto and Felix compared to last season.

You can call it poor squad planning, I'd say we are adding pieces to the puzzle, very good ones at that. 

[Lump Of Celery]

Apparently Omorodion was going to be sent out on loan anyway. Not interested in Felix, already been here and was crap. Really embarrassed with how desperate we are to facilitate dumping Gallagher 

[Original 21]

Am hoping this farce is because Omorodion was always a back up option in case we couldn’t sign Osimhen. Not convinced by us suddenly switching our attention to Felix though. Thought he was underwhelming during his loan spell here.

The board seem obsessed with Felix for some reason and Pochettino isn’t  around this time to put a stop to it. I wonder if it’s because we just signed Neto and we’re thinking he might need a mate from Portugal to keep him company.

[thevelourfog]

28 minutes ago, chiswickblue said:

Felix looks good but has zero end product and is a waste of time and space. He's been touted all over Europe and no one is interested.

If we actually are interested, this would show that our Sporting Directors are under the thumb of Jorge Mendes and have prioritised this relationship over footballing matters and building a coherent squad.

The only hope to cling to is that we're doing Mendes a favour by pretending to be interested, to drive up interest somewhere else - I think they were trying to convince Benfica to spend a bit of money to bring him back.

We have a lot of good players, but the general approach to squad-building and future-proofing the club is a disaster.

Two loans in two years with neither club having any interest in keeping him on. Genuine comedy that we were one of those clubs, and it still hasn't stopped us. All with the massive caveat that it might be complete tosh, of course.

[martin1905]

6 minutes ago, MickyDroy said:

All hard workers these guys though despite their obvious quality. From what i've seen in a Chelsea shirt all 4 of those that I mentioned cheats defensively and unless Maresca can really whip them into shape I would worry about the impact on the team as a whole.

Not sure I'd label Palmer or Nkunku that but anyway....

Personally I've said for a long time we have built a very good squad, with some incredibly talented players but lacked the managers,  Potter and Pochettino to turn them into a team. 

Is Maresca the right man? Absolutely no idea but he's everything I've said this squad has needed in a manager, in terms of a coach that has a system and will drill them to death on the training ground to implement it.

So, I hold off judging this squad until we have seen what they can do under the new man. Can the players you mention, who you label cheats defensively change? I don't know but again absolutely zero judgement from me based on the last two, inept coaches.

 

[east lower]

12 minutes ago, thevelourfog said:

Two loans in two years with neither club having any interest in keeping him on. Genuine comedy that we were one of those clubs, and it still hasn't stopped us. All with the massive caveat that it might be complete tosh, of course.

We already have ‘mentality-midgets’, don’t need any more of those.

Nice footballer, but we’ve already seen his limitations in the PL.

 

[Chelsea_Matt]

15 minutes ago, east lower said:

We already have ‘mentality-midgets’, don’t need any more of those.

Nice footballer, but we’ve already seen his limitations in the PL.

 

Like Enzo. 💀💀👀🎯

[Bison]

34 minutes ago, thevelourfog said:

Two loans in two years with neither club having any interest in keeping him on. Genuine comedy that we were one of those clubs, and it still hasn't stopped us. All with the massive caveat that it might be complete tosh, of course.

Doubt it, the club's main client journalist is reporting it so there must be some truth to it. 

[east lower]

1 minute ago, Chelsea_Matt said:

Like Enzo. 💀💀👀🎯

I really am going to try to not mention that fella’s limitations any more, yesterday was enough.

Today marks a ‘No Enzo Fernandez comments zone’ for me.

Day zero.

🙊🙊🫏🦃

[Sleeping Dave]

10 hours ago, Sleeping Dave said:

 

And I know what you will say. At the time they were not good enough, they had player X Y Z ahead of them, they aren’t world class blah blah blah. That’s just bad excuses for bad squad planning. Succession planning is absolute key to any successful organisation. Being able to look ahead, plan for it and execute is important. Perhaps even more so in a sports team. We’ve utterly failed with that, both under Roman but also very much so with the new ownership.

 

 

6 hours ago, xceleryx said:

Okay, but you're also warping the context of the situation to justify keeping those players, while ignoring the side at the time and the influx of straight up better options that we had. When we sold Guehi and Tomori for example they were behind Rudiger, Christensen, Silva, Zouma and at times Azpilicueta - when we played a back three. No sane person would've selected either of those two ahead of what we had at that point, so what then? Looking at it retrospectively completely negates this, then tries to make it an argument around our present day CB's. 

I'm sure had we known with hindsight that we were going to be sanctioned, lose Rudiger on a free, and then have Christensen go from extending his deal to changing management and reneging to join Barca, we'd have maybe approached things a little differently. None of that was foreseeable at the time. 

You also continue to ignore the fundamental factor that Guehi wanted guaranteed first team football upon returning from his Swansea loan, something that simply wasn't ever going to be possible. Similar applies with Livramento, which you've had explained to you before. Continuing to ignore that these players CHOSE to leave on their own accord isn't fault of the club either. There simply wasn't space for them, not unless we sold some of the options ahead of them to make room. 

 

Like I said… Bad squad planning, zero foresight and no proper plan for the players we already own. Not much has changed under the new owership, actually it’s worse now. 

You can’t see how the club is at fault here and try to find every excuse under sun to vindicate how the club has shipped out the best bunch of academy players any English club has produced in modern times apart from Man U and the Becks/Scholes batch. That’s your right of course. But it’s a laughable attempt to be honest. 

[Original 21]

I thought it was Pochettino who didn’t want Felix. Just who in the Board is now pushing for this and for what reason? It’s farcical. Don’t Atletico have someone else they can offer us?

Edited August 12 by Original 21

[Chelsea_Matt]

3 minutes ago, Original 21 said:

I thought it was Pochettino who didn’t want Felix. Just who in the Board is now pushing for this and for what reason? It’s farcical. 

🤡 🌎🎯🎯🎯

[xceleryx]

1 minute ago, Sleeping Dave said:

 

Like I said… Bad squad planning, zero foresight and no proper plan for the players we already own. Not much has changed under the new owership, actually it’s worse now. 

You can’t see how the club is at fault here and try to find every excuse under sun to vindicate how the club has shipped out the best bunch of academy players any English club has produced in modern times apart from Man U and the Becks/Scholes batch. That’s your right of course. But it’s a laughable attempt to be honest. 

Laughable is convincing yourself the club should've had the foresight to see war breaking out and having its owner forced to sell because of it.

Your argument would hold more weight if we owned Tomori, etc now. At the time though there just wasn't the room for them, unless you'd have preferred us to sell Rudiger? Christensen? Thiago Silva? In the end we sold Zouma, the same summer Ghuei chose to pursue regular football. Maybe if he'd shown a touch of patience he'd have ended up getting the opportunity that eventually got afforded to Chalobah. 

But hey, it's your right to believe as you wish.

[xceleryx]

8 minutes ago, Original 21 said:

I thought it was Pochettino who didn’t want Felix. Just who in the Board is now pushing for this and for what reason? It’s farcical. 

I just don't really know where he fits exactly? 

He's not a winger, he's not a striker, and his best position is probably in behind centrally where we're likely to see Palmer and Nkunku occupy. 

The only realm where I could get behind this would be if he was on loan with no obligation to buy, reduced his contract to £100k or below per week, and if buying him was the only way for it to happen he'd have to cost no more than like £25m. 

[paulw66]

12 hours ago, NoblyBobly said:

 Sarri gave him just 10 starts and he didn’t rupture his Achilles until well after Sarri left

Played 24 times. For a 17 year old, that's a lot, irrespective if Conte gave his debut at the back end of the previous season for 5 minutes.

Moreover, was Sarri supposed to pick CHO over Hazard, Willian and Pedro?

12 hours ago, NoblyBobly said:

 . He ignored  other academy products too 

who?

12 hours ago, NoblyBobly said:

. If Hazard had been English he’d have struggled to get in that team. 

That's just silly. 

12 hours ago, NoblyBobly said:

. Lampard is the coach that gave 17 and 18 years olds a chance to shine, 

Well, we had a transfer ban, and the vast majority of those youth players certainly were not 17/18

Timing is also everything though. Lampard arrived when James, Mount, Tomori, and Abraham had all just had successful loans to the Championship and were far more first team ready. That is exactly what CHO should have done too. Hazard had also gone, which left a gaping hole to fill (and we couldn't buy anyone)

When Lampard started picking James, Mount, Tomori and Abraham, they were 19, 20, 21 and 21. 

Lamptey, Broja, and Anjorin all made 1 sub appearance each aged 19,18,18.  Those 2 18 year-olds getting 10 minutes each.

Gilmour was the only 18 year old who was picked with any sort of frequency, having 6 starts across all competitions. 

So out of Sarri and Lampard, only Sarri picked a 17 year old. Not that it means anything. other than it's factual. 

[Original 21]

Eh? Fifty per cent? Who owns the other half? At least Maresca seems to have his priorities right.

[paulw66]

2 minutes ago, Original 21 said:

Eh? Fifty per cent? Who owns the other half? At least Maresca seems to have his priorities right.

Sorry, but that's guff.

English clubs are not permitted to do co-ownership.

[chrisb]

1 minute ago, Original 21 said:

Eh? Fifty per cent? Who owns the other half? At least Maresca seems to have his priorities right.

Maybe they just want to buy his bottom half to transplant onto Sanchez to make him better at playing out from the back.