Wearyourblue

My thoughts on a Gallagher description, a poor fit for Barca a great fit for Atleti

I thought his press conference is great, and totally disagree Bob on your interpretation. He pretty much says, guys are a Chelsea player until they are not, Sterling was important until he wasn't. But Maresca didn't rate any of the wingers that went to the US, there's a good chance thats why the Omorodion deal fell through. Maresca saying I don't need another project striker, I need a winger upgrade. Remember where Sterling fell out of favor was Man City, it's not like Maresca hasn't seen him play in that system, he knows his flaws. Also how many starts did Sterling get in the US? The SD's didn't take Sterling from Maresca, Maresca didn't want him. "Sterling was also part of maresca squad, Maresca himself said he is an important player. Right now Maresca is doing his job which is to be the front for our sd. "

I think Felix is a great gamble, he's top class in so many things, was bought young for a huge fee and huge wages, still 24 and sounds at least somewhat humbled. I like him proactively betting on himself willing to dramatically reduce his wages to prove himself.

"Seems pretty clear to me Sterling was part of the plans until Neto and/or Felix joining changed the ownerships mindset and they now look at him like they do Kepa, Trev, Conor etc etc. Us fans are customers, the players are commodities and the owners are of course the brokers." Or maybe after preseason, Maresca said that our wingers were lacking in what he wanted to do and we needed to upgrade our wings. The owners brought in Felix and Neto which are much better at combining than Mudryk, Madueke, and Sterling. Palmer, Nkunku, Guiu, Fernandez, and Caicedo seem to do better with a rhythm and tempo to play with, Madueke and Sterling like a lot time on the ball, which kills rhythm if they aren't successful.

Needs to get his positioning and anticipation better. The first goal was given up, simply because he was pulled too wide.

Can we give them Casadei, Lukaku, Kepa and Sterling? and make it even?

"Only to substitute them for days where we can't get rid of players due to the high price we've paid for them and no other team is willing to pay (e.g. Mudryk)." Mudryk signed at 21, with a 20 mil per year ammortization + salary, not great... but Lukaku signed at 28, with a 37 mil per year ammmortization + salary Mudryk was a much better gamble than Lukaku

I'd like to see in the second half: Guiu Jackson. Nkunku. Palmer

Yeah, looks like they want 5 of our top 12 earners gone. Lukaku, Sterling, Sarr, Chillwell, and Kepa. I know some don't like the new ownerships plan, but I am glad to see the days disappearing of not being able to rid ourselves of players due to wages.

I just see Poch's system as so reliant on his 9, it was get the ball to Harry Kane, then get the ball to Nico Jackson. Jackson did ok, but he had a total strikers system, and didn't thrive.

The problem looking at a graph like this is, everything looks equal in weight. Jackson 9.1 Turnovers and 2.6 shots per game Osimhen 7.7 Turnovers and 3.7 shots per game So Jackson gets turns the ball over more and shoots less every game. The chart shows Jackson dribbles more, but it's a pretty shocking chart for strikers. It has nothing on heading. It looks more like something that would compare two wingers.more than 2 9's. I want 9's that move off the ball well and finish well, 1 or 2 touch finishing is huge.

brahim diaz laughing at noni

Badiashile holding Diaz onside behind Colwill.

That was pretty poor on Sterling. If Sterling and Madueke were starting to ask questions of possibly being starters for us last week, this week they are shutting down those thoughts.

I think a lot more people would appreciate how he's played this preseason if he were playing with Gallagher as opposed to instead of Gallagher.

Blaming the club for signing Santos and Willian is just silly. Santos costs the club roughly 2.5 mill / year on his deal. So 5 mil spent on him so far, and probably less with some loan fees. (14 mil over 7 years amoritzed, and .5 mil / year in salary). And I'm not sure we've even spent any money on Willian yet, we have contract, but really not sure on the financials. It may all come due on his 18th birthday. The transfers fees aren't whats holding it up, the club clearly doesn't want to have players with important roles on a 1 year deal. They are giving Conor 3 options, sign, transfer or sit. The deal that set us back werent on the current owners it was the Lukaku deal. We are still on the hook for 16.9 M in salary and 19.5 in transfer fees. So this year Lukaku can still cost us 36.4 M, but you're upset about Santos? Mount, Challobah, and Gallagher together won't cover what we've wasted on Lukaku.

"Remember when Sarri Ball encountered Citeh? We lost 6-0. I wonder if we shall see that again OR will it be like the 4-4 of last season? Most likely this game will end in a low scoring draw." Yeah, despite that Sarri's team only gave up 39 goals. Sarri made Rudiger significantly better in his system.

I think for me right now: Nkunku, Guiu, Palmer Caicedo, Gallagher, Enzo Cucurella, Colwill, Disasi, James Jorgenson.

It keeps the valuations high for the clubs, without FFP; Clearlake would not have spent 2.5 billion on Chelsea, they would have bought Bournemouth for much less, and then spent a billion on players.

"AndyDowsleftflank When you sell, you get the whole fee as income for this fiscal year. When you buy, the cost is spread over the length of the contract. So lets say we sell Maatsen for 40 mill and buy Duran also for 40 million on a four year deal, you get an income of 40 mill for Maatsen and a cost of 40/4=10 million for Duran. Overall, you’ve made a profit for this fiscal year of 30 million. If you sell for 50 and buy for 50 you get 50 mill income and a cost of 50/4=12,5 million - overall a profit of 37,5 million. Its a neat little trick to improve your accounts now, but at the same time you get a higher cost for the remaining three years of Durans contract so you are just kicking your problems down the road" Its not just kicking problems down the road. by out bidding Arsenal by 10 M on Mudryk, we may have saved our selves 5 M over the life of the contract. Overpaying some on the transfer fee allows us to not negotiate against other teams on wages. Low wages make it much easier to sell a player in the future too. Also inflation takes some of the costs away as well. 2M five years from now isn't worth as much as it is today.

"The Rising Sun So villa gave us an extra £10 million on top for Maasten, and then we gave Villa an extra £10 million on top for their player ? Er,.am I missing something here ?" That's the way I'm reading it. I also think that's why we're so focused on low wage players right now. Just looking at FFP, while Mudryk seems really high for a transfer fee, he costs about the same as Lukaku did if we got Mudryk on the free. I know it's unpopular..but I think we've done some brilliant business for the long term. What really killed our momentum was the Lukaku transfer, and the money we were spending on wages prior to the sale. Lukaku was 97.5 M Transfer fee over 5 years + 17 M / year in salary =. 36.5 M / year for FFP Mudryk was 88 M Transfer fee over 7 years + 5M / year in salary = 17.6 M/ year for FFP

AndyDowsleftflank: yeah.. if we both added 10 M over what the deal would be on the cheap... we both get 8 M this year in FFP gain.

What are those figures in brackets mate ? You don't seem to have included the £19m we played for villa player in the " for us" ? ...Cheers If we're armotizing the fees over 5 years... it's 19/5 on this years balances sheet or a 3.8 M loss... so for this year we net 33.7.. (my bad on the 4)

I think many are missing the point. We both needed financial help. This is the type of deal that can help you hold on to a Gallagher. For us for this year : +37.5 M for Maatsen, -4.75 M (19/4)... so FFP + 32.75 M For them: + 19M for Kellyman, - 7.5 M for Maatsen (37.5/5)... so FFP + 11.5 M If we would have sold for 30 and bought for 10... we'd be at +28 and they'd be at + 4.

As much as people are reacting to the Clearlake moves. I think the Lukaku move when you combine transfer fees and wages, really set up some of our direction.