weetee

Well, he did sign a new contract that says (at least that's how I understood it) you will earn xyz from 2020-22 and then 500.000k per week from 22/23 onwards. What will he sue them for? It's what makes the whole thing so complicated. They can't kick him out of the club (without paying him what he's owned) but they sure love to apply heavy media pressure onto him. Quite unethical ofc but it's football business we're talking about after all. I guess that's also why they start playing him as a CB 😄

Ok? I think that's pretty amazing tbh. Lots of money though of course.

Because he agreed to "heavily" reduced wages during the covid years to help Barca out. He apparently re-signed a new contract back then that made him earn those deferred wages from this season on - that's why Barca is keen on selling him (saving those funds that they told him he'd earn later) and why deJong has little incentive to move away.

You make it sound as if they'd play Liverpool style, they don't. And if anybody was responsible to bring the ball quickly upfront it was mainly Dembele. Look at those goals and assists and tell me this is counter attacking style. I stand by my point: he still got the right instinct, positioning and speed to still beat his man in the box combined with the correct technique and coolness to finish those chances more often than not.

Contrary to Werner, Auba has very good positioning / instinct combined with excellent finishing qualities. By default he isn't suited to Barca's system as well but still was able to score his goals. He's not solely relying on his 50-100m sprints, which I agree would be a massive no-go with his age, but is also very threatening with his short sprints within the box to beat his man and make a "simple" tap in. As a back-up I think he'd be very useful.

TRUE✅ Christian Falk is no longer a reliable source. — weetee (@theshedend) August 3, 2022

Think top 4 really shouldn't be a problem without equally heavy bad luck regarding injuries and who knows how Corona may kick back in autumn / winter.. Title challenge isn't really a thing for now but I can also imagine Liverpool / City struggle a bit this year (compared to their incredible standards), can Haaland stay fit for a complete season? I think the outlook is pretty good so far. The new owner is obviously interested in setting up a very competitive squad - that's the best news. New targets all seemingly make sense structurally without any vanity / show-off transfers (for now). Could be much worse if you ask me. Arsenal and Spurs have to play much more games this season too, no? Spurs still 100% reliant upon Son/Kane to deliver week in week out imho and Arsenal..should be better than last year that's true, ManU I have still heavy doubts about that lot.

He can dribble well and has a very good eye / understanding plus an elite passing game so extremely helpful in build up play. He's not a #6 so in CFC-fantasy land he'd play here next year alongside Rice ripping it up.

I reckon if FdJ comes Jorgi is on his way out. RLC I guess is substituted by Chukwa who should battle it mostly out with Gallagher. Next season our current midfield will eventually lose 2/3 of our starters (on a free) so would be this transfer window all over again just that we have to overhaul our complete midfield instead of defense. RLC I don't think will cut it here. He's reached his ceiling here which in patches is good to very good but also incredibly unreliable imho which is necessary for a central midfielder in our system.

Wait. Is it official? Huzzah!

We need a fresh midfield come next year. Better to get some of the young 'uns in a season before. That's why I'm all for FdJ if possible.

City won't sell Silva last second though..highly unlikely. And Barca won't buy him before they've sold DeJong. Hence why it wouldn't make that much sense to gamble on a last second offer for him from our side. Unless of course we don't REALLY need him this season and just take a gamble on the whole charade.

If we can offload Sarr and Alonso (+ Emerson) in exchange I think we're far better off and recoup also a dollar or two.

Can play LCB and LWB and LB - pretty useful imho. Back-Up / real competitor for Chilwell or playing alongside him in setup like: Chilwell James Cucurella KK Thiago

He's most likely a Jorgi replacement (be it this year or next). Imagine him besides Rice next year..good combo! 😉 Now Werner out and some kind of goalscorer with technical skill in and we're all set!

Emerson, Alonso and Sarr can all leave though, right? Who'd be left besides Chilwell? Cucuella would be an amazing signing.

Except that Leipzig in fact moved away from their all out pressing game and play a lot more like Chelsea does now under Tedesco. still can see them being interested in him.

Take a look at the FdJ thread over at the RedCafe. Hilarious "Frankly too long"

Think it was their highest (@home ?) CL defeat since the early eighties or something like that.

We add a quality forward and I'm very positive we secure top 4 as "easily" as last season. Defensively we are rather solid by default - if Thiago and/or Koulibaly miss half a season it's another story, but let's not paint it all black. Sterling will be a huge upgrade almost guaranteed and Gallagher + Broja would add some depth to the squad while also offering aspects we missed before. We would need to reduce our squad though, no way TT can keep the locker room happy with those amounts of players for 3-4 spots (Pulisic, Werner, Havertz, Sterling, CHO, Hakim, Broja, Gallagher (eventually), Mount) - even considering the 5 subs rule which I assume helps us quite a good deal.

Yea, forgot to add that one tbh. 😉 I for one am thinking that nowadays, at top level, you need a fitting system within a fitting team to really get going: Timo is (imho) a heavily system based player. Those exist and you may call them bad footballers but is that really the case if he‘d flourish in a specific yet not exotic environment? Dunno. I‘d be surprised if you‘d tell me our system plays to Timo‘s strenghts. edit: just to be clear, just: Timo imho isn‘t one for AAA clubs, maybe Atleti or Juve (and mostly likely rather as a super sub) as he clearly lacks in rather basic parameters.

Nah, give him a little bit more space (aka not the PL or at least not a possession based system) and a second striker to play alongside with and I guarantee you that he'll hit double digits in no time again. There is a reason that he actually manages to get into all these dangerous situations regardless his "talent with the ball meets feet" but always lacks half a sec to make a sound decision resulting in a funny meme-loop.

Yea, right? Who in their right mind would offer Werner for deLigt? 😄 But honestly: they knew there is a good market for De Ligt and they also knew that there isn't for Werner. Beggars can't be choosers and all that.

Gvardiol could become for Chelsea what Werner became for Leipzig! A natural fit. Mukiele though, I don't rate that much, isn't he quite prone for costly mistakes?

They're punishing English clubs for backing out of the superleague.