Charles Ryder

You can love David Luiz and everything he did for us over the years, and you can also be really annoyed at him over the manner of his departure. They're not mutually exclusive. I'm not overly bothered about seeing him in an Arsenal shirt because I watch them (as in full 90 mins) about twice a season, funnily enough, depending on cup draws. The bit that stings is him trashing his own legacy, which nessecarily is forever cast in a different light due to the manner and destination of his exit. It doesn't cancel out Munich or Baku, that much is obvious. But it's just different now, and that's a bit sad. For me it's not about loyalty or any similar silly notions, we're all adults here and at the end of the day it's a business. David Luiz has to look out for himself, if he did a cruciate in April Marina wouldn't have given him a contract in May for example. It absolutely cuts both ways, we've had plenty of examples of the club not doing right by various players and their best interests over the years (turning Drinkwater into an utter non-entity being one random recent example). It's just the nature of the business. But in saying that, we all get drawn in by certain players who seem to 'get' the club to a greater extent than the norm. It's a very visceral thing. Sideshow Bob absolutely had been one of those players over the years. His character just meshed really well, how many other players could you imagine sodding off to PSG and then being welcomed back with open arms. In the fullness of time we'll learn the real reasons for his departure, not the bullsh*t Arsenal generic PR lines or our own 5th Stand app Pravda stuff. Time and age dictate that he'll never be retrospectively remembered as an Arsenal player, his career will always be most defined by his time with us. Eventually in a few years with water under the bridge and the sting taken out, I honestly don't think we're going to be sitting here coating him off as some sort of Judas. He won't be persona non grata or anything silly like that. It will just be a bit different. A bit tarnished. Not quite the easy, comfortable story with a happy ending that we'd have all liked it to be. David Luiz wasn't quite as Chelsea as we thought he was. Not quite the carefree, affable geezer persona. Couldn't quite depart gracefully and conveniently in a manner which suited our own selfish wishes as fans. But that's fine. Few players can live up to all of those things, and it's rarely that simple. (Fear I've typed a load of twaddle here, but sod it, started and suddenly got a bit stream of consciousness, ended up with a longer post than I had intended)

Never heard of him. Guess we have to move the thread to ex-players now. Sigh.

If it's true that Lamps planning to roll with Kurt and Andreas for the United game is what kicked this all off, I don't think it will affect things too much. Unless we pick up an injury and Tomori is thrown into the fray on short notice...

On a scale of Eden Hazard (aka bothered/10) to Bakayoko (aka 'am I bothered though'/0), where does everybody sit on this? Subject to the final confirmation of the fee, which I'm convinced will top 10m at the very least if Marina has anything to do with it, I think I'm about a 4 at the moment.

Machismo. When the variation between the initially rumoured price tag and the one leaked a few hours later is 120% (or thereabouts) you instinctively feel like we're being mugged off. Granted, he's and old and rapidly depreciating asset, but given his contract length and the fact that Arsenal are desperate for a centre half it's a very underwhelming figure. But when you start to factor in the amount we'll save on wages (assuming he's one of the top 5 or 6 paid players at the club in the rung below Kante?) it does start to make a modicum of sense. Really, though, it's not as if we actually need the money and we're not ditching him for financial reasons. But still. Why not take Arsenal for every penny we can get, not as if they have any other obvious targets on the go. Make em beg, I say.

Yep. Hence 'or bust,' entirely possible he has another year slumming it around Cobham and getting up to extra curricular mischief.

I think a man of David Luiz' means would find a way of managing Babbo long-distance if he was based in, say, Liverpool. He probably already pays someone to do so on his behalf. So send him to Everton, I say. In all seriousness though, bit miffed about the manner of his departure but will get over the sight of him in an Arsenal shirt quickly enough. Unless they beat us into top four... but frankly that's a possibility even if we weren't giving them Luiz.

Good luck shifting Drinkwater to a European club. Think it's England or bust for him, likely on loan as we're hardly in a position to get a big fee marketing him on the basis of his production over the last 12-18 months. Zappa and Baka look likely though. Makes sense to keep Zappa around right up to the close of the Euro window as James is still recovering from injury.

Going by the Fifield/Terreur reporting, Real value him at €100m while we're asking for something more like €115m. Hardly a major difference that can't be ironed out, this is Real Madrid we're talking about here. A big fee for them is almost a point of pride.

Strictly speaking we can sign players, we just can't register them. Think it was Barca who signed Arda Turan and he just hung out training for half a season before being registered. They even had the cheek to make a formal request to FIFA to allow them to register him early when Rafinha got injured, despite their ban still being in place.

If we get the stay of execution via a CAS appeal then he has the chance to go and not leave us in the lurch, so to speak. As for Vinicius, he's hardly going to be a stumbling block. This is Real we're talking about, they'll happily park him behind Eden for a few years (he's only a teenager, after all) for the sake of adding a new star.

Will be difficult seeing him in a Real shirt, but he's entitled to live out his dream and play there under Zidane. As long as he leaves out the front door, rather than the back one a la Tibo.

The commercial aspect, whilst relevant, is in danger of being overhyped a tad here. Millions of football fans in the US doesn't necessarily translate into millions of new Chelsea fans. It's not like existing fans of other Premier League clubs are going to jump ship just because their countryman has gone to a rival. He's here on the merit of his talent, anything else is a bonus. We're already locked in to the Nike deal until 2032, so Pulisic won't be having much of an impact on that particular revenue plank unless he's still plodding along in the first team aged 33. All that said, though, I am envisioning a big Delta Airlines jetliner with a Pulisic graphic plastered over the fuselage. I'm sure our commercial dept. will be exploring new opportunities in the US.

That's the thing, though, CHO isn't Sancho. For all the homegrown, one-of-our-own sentimental cooing, he's not actually demonstrated an ability to be a regular starter in England based on his performances. Yet. If Sancho was at City and not BVB he'd be getting similar minutes under Pep to what CHO has been getting under Sarri. Perhaps less, given City's glut of senior options in the wide forward positions. For all of the fretting about him being held back and wasting away, he actually has broken through to a far greater degree than any other 18 y/o academy product of ours. You could name any number of players at a similar age with the same levels of hype that have been farmed out on loan, but he was specifically fast-tracked to the first team. The path is there for him to develop and break through if he wants it, but he clearly doesn't and that's his decision. Lower standard of league, bigger paycheck, more minutes, bigger club, new language. There are a myriad of reasons which make it an appealing move, beyond the panic about the supposed roadblock in his way here.

Well, at least have the comfort of being resigned to his departure for about a month now. Should be telling Bayern to cough up 50m at the very least, though. It's not like they're short of money. (also lol @ people seriously trying to pin this on Sarri, no manager in their right mind is playing a teenager week in and week out at any top club in Europe, and as for people suggesting the board should be dictating team selection, that's even more laughable)