d-one

I think Hazardouschoice is right about our failure in negotiating reasonable price for players we want to buy. Lukaku was not worth more than 50m when we bought him. Kepa was massively overpriced, and same goes for Bakayoko and Drinkwater. I never understood why we bought Bakayoko over Fabinho and Pulisic for 58m was just insane. And if care is not taken, we would go and buy Declan Rice for 150 from Westham when there are several players that would do better in his position. The sad thing is that we pay world class fees for average players or good players that cannot fit in to our pattern of play

We badly need a creator in our midfield. A midfielder who makes quality first time passes to the attackers quickly. Jorginho is not the option for this. Eriksen is a free agent and a quality piece for this job. Coutinho would have been another good option for us unfortunately we missed the bus on that one.

We have Gallagher coming back to the team and at the very minimum we have RLC, Kante, Kova, Jorginho, Gallagher, Mount and even Gilmour next season. I daresay we can cope without another 2 seasons without Rice. If he wants to come to Chelsea that badly, he can run down his contract to make Westham lower his wages. We should not be agitated if other big clubs want him. The likes of Man city, Many, Liverpool can have him I'd they so desire the fact that they are willing to pay over the odds for him does not mean he is a world clas player. Man city paid a lot of money for Ake, but are now willing to let hi go for peanuts. That should be a lesson to us

Making a huge splash on Rice now would be stupid in the extreme. I still ask this question and no one has given me a quality answer. What exactly does Declan Rice do that makes him spectacular????? rice is a deep lying midfielder that protects the backline, break up play and distribute the ball. There are a lot of players in the Bundesliga, Laliga, Serie A that does this well a Rice. The only thing Rice does better than Jorginho is tackling. In all other parameters, Recycling ball, orchestrating play, passing, Rice cannot hold a candle to Jorginho.Declan rice does not score goals and is a little better than Ampadu as a DLP. We would be bigger fools to pay anything more than 25m for this guy. The error would be more than the error of buying Lukaku

Sterling is not really very different from Werner. Both need a lot of chances to score goals. Chelsea as a team does not create enough chances per game. There are plenty of games last season that we did not have a single chance that can lead to a goal created in an entire Half. Until we revamp our midfield and get quality goal scoring creators that can move the ball fast from defence to attack, every player we buy as an attacker will struggle. Having said that, a attacking trio of Werner , Jesus, Sterling backed by a fast paced midfield is a stuff of dreams. We would be super fast and fluid . But I still retariate that without a revamped midfield, there is no forward we can get that would matter much.

Unless we sort out our snail speed transitioning midfield, any attacker are going to have a hard time making any impact. We need to move the ball quicker in transition and give the ball to our attackers where they can hurt the opposition. With Jorginho doing is side to side passing, Jesus and Sterling will only join Werner on co on the frustrated list

Seems like he is heading back to Inter. One of the bad buys by Maria and it seems fitting to see that she gets to correct her wrong getting him back to Chelsea

Better we get Phillips from Leeds than Rice honestly. There is nothing special at all about Rice. He is just an average midfielder with decent metronomic ability and a good defensive sense. We would be bigger mugs to buy for a 100m than our purchase of Lukaku for 97.5

I would so happy if this turns out to be true. Rice is not worth more than 40m in my opinion. What exactly does he do except recycle the ball with a little bit more defensive nous than Jorginho. Mind you in the the area of ball recycling, he cannot hold a candle to Jorgiboy. Ben English and overhauled by the English press is not justification for been mugs..FFS

I would have loved us to get Coutinho on loan. He was the best fit ( goal scoring wise) for that our midfield. He is better than Mount and would have been a sweet addition to our attacking and goal scoring woes with his ability on freekicks, long range shots etc. I look in with envy at what he is doing in Villa and ark my words, he will still get better has he gets games consistently at Villa. If we can negotiate a deal for Hazard on loan at a reduced cost for a season, i think we should do it. As old and injury prone as he is, I can bet that he will still score more goals than Werner

That s so sad. I was hoping we could do a deal with with Juve for Chiesa with Lukaku going the other way. Such an excellent player and hardwoker would suit Tuchel's team to a T. No pun intended 😜😜😜

Rumours out there indicates that PSG are looking at Lukaku as a replacement for Mbappe. The President of PSG is rumoured to be a firm favourite of our No. 9 seeing him as a logical investment due to is age and unique characteristics as a mobile CF and would be willing to stump up the cash. Chelsea might also be willing to do business if we can recoup the amount spent getting him. Personally, if PSG is willing to pay what we paid to get him, we should bite their hands off and send him packing. His gameplay is not compatible with the way Tuchel teams plays and the funds should be re- invested to purchase a better striker that really complements Tuchel's team

It was unfortunate that Sevilla did not understand that what was at stake is more than money. It was a matter of "FACE". By coming out to expose all the back and forth between Sevilla and Chelsea , Monchi had removed any hope of negotiation and truncated all Hope of an agreement been reached without a loss of face to Chelsea or Sevilla. By insisting that Kounde would not be sold except the buy out clause is paid in full, Sevilla would have lost face had they accepted anything less than the full payment and Chelsea would have lost face by been seen to coerced into the deal. If Monchi had kept his big mouth shut, we could probably have increased out offer with structured payments, add ons and performance related clauses that would have satisfied Sevilla but we could no longer do that with loss of face after Monchi had blabbed. Sadly no one came out of this smelling Roses, Chelsea bungled it by getting serious too late for Sevilla to manoeuvre in th market, Sevilla talked out all negotiation options leaving Chelsea with no room to manoeuvre with losing their reputation and Kounde gor to see Sevilla for the 2nd time in two years destroy his chances of winning trophies because of the rigidity of his club. Wont be surprised if he hands in a transfer request next summer. While I am sad we didn't get Kounde, I understood why we didn't pay his buy out clause. ...... Sometimes, it's a matter "FACE"

We probably needed Saul more than Kounde at the moment to be fair to Marina. If we can work out something with Athletico without the obligatory buy option, I would be all in for it more especially with injuries to Kante that needs careful management. With Saul as the 4th midfielder and capable of playing all roles in the midfield, it free up ampadu and probably RLC to go on loan and develop more with gametimes(Sarri interested in RLC if reports are true) and Trevor will slot in into Zouma's void whilst keeping us reasonable ok on all departments into next summer then we can reassess our options to either retain Saul and Chalobah or replace them. It also knocks off another year from Kounde's contract and a chance to do the deal again with Sevilla all things been equal.

The best thing that can happen to Odoi now is to go on loan to Dortmund. A 2 year deal without an option to buy would suit both parties well. As much as he is talent, Odoi requires constant games in an attacking team like Dortmund to sharpen his goal scoring g and decision making skills. Also he is most dangerous when playing as LF or LW which is a position I will say we are fairly stocked at the moment in Werner and Pulisic

Barkley was not even giving a Jersey number this season so he has zero chance in this Chelsea team again. What I believe we need most urgently is an attacking midfielder that can make defense splitting passes during out counter attacks. For all the industry of Kovavic, the tenaciousness of Kante, and the orchestrating skills of Jorgi boy, our midfield seriously lacks a Fabregas like player who can play a correct final ball during a counter attack or a defense splitting pass. Against Crystal Palace, we kept playing the balls to be wings because we had no one to either take the ball thru the middle or make a pass. Chalobahor Kounde if we get him can take some work load off Kante so i do not think a replacement for Kante is the most important thing right now. I wish we get some one like Pjanic (he is 31 on 115k per week) desperate to leave with no offers, if we can negotiate him down to like 70 - 90k or Eriksen from Inter, if the Italian law prevents him from playing their league again. We need players like this more than defensive minded guys

Hello house, thanks for giving me the opportunity to join as a member after being a guest for long. I started supporting Chelsea when Anelka joined the club because he is my favourite Chelsea player of all times and I continue to get the number 39 on my Chelsea jerseys in his memory