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Our return to the market

Whatever we do, I hope we spend big on a couple of world class starters rather than spreading the money around on 6 guys who are no better than what we have now.

I don't view depth as our biggest problem.  If we assume Dave returns to something resembling past form, we've already got 13-15 quality, Premier League starter-quality players (setting GK aside).  We have probably 6 across the back line, 5 in the midfield and 4 at forward.   At the moment, the problem is that none of them are among the best in the league at their positions, except for Kante.  As I look at what we have in-house, money spent in the midfield would be wasted -  unless Kante leaves.   Kante is the best there is, RLC and Mount may well grow into studs and Jorginho, Kovacic and even Barkley excellent depth players.  That leaves forward and the back 4. 

I'll be interested to see what James can bring after he's healthy.  If it's positive, center back looks to be the biggest place for a major upgrade (and we could even recoup some of that money by sending 1 or 2 of the existing, capable CBs out).  If James does not look like an immediate replacement for Dave, maybe that spot is where you spend the money.   One place we likely will need a depth player is behind Emerson.  Can't see Alonso sticking around for no play.

Up front, it all depends on Tammy.  If he's a 15+ goal guy, we can spend the money on a winger.  A world class wing to go with CP and CHO and a 15+ goal striker makes for an excellent offense (and set for the future as the three young forwards continue to develop).  If Tammy isn't that guy, the money needs to go a world class, sure thing 20 goal striker.  In that case, Mount and RLC and formations can be used to supplement CHO and Pulisic.

Small dollar amounts on depth at left back and maybe wing.  Contend for titles.

 
Samuel Chukwueze. Already better than Nicolas Pepe imo. If Willian and Pedro are starting to wind down we should be putting him top of our shopping list. 

 
TrueBlueSeaFC87 said:
Romagnoli, Koulibaly,  Umtiti, Varane.
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I assume you mean 1 of them? 

Koulibaly would be perfect but dealing with that nutter in charge of Napoli isn't easy. 

Umtiti would be the most gettable of the other 3 but I'd prefer Thiago Silva. He'll be free and IMO is still a top player despite being 33. 

 
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TheChelseaBlues said:
I assume you mean 1 of them? 

Koulibaly would be perfect but dealing with that nutter in charge of Napoli isn't easy. 

Umtiti would be the most gettable of the other 3 but I'd prefer Thiago Silva. He'll be free and IMO is still a top player despite being 33. 
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I watch PSG every week.

Thiago Silva has dead ended his career. He's a big fish in a small pond and he always gets shown up in the big CL games.

And at his age I'd avoid him like the plague. Might as well have kept Cahill if Silva is a possible. 

 
RIP Mourinho said:
Samuel Chukwueze. Already better than Nicolas Pepe imo. If Willian and Pedro are starting to wind down we should be putting him top of our shopping list. 
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Tell me more about this guy.  I know nothing about him.  He plays in La Liga?

 
Koulibaly would be fantastic but there no way Di Laurentiis lets him go unless we give him the lease to Stamford Bridge in the deal. I´d love Insigne or Mertens aswell, the latter the more probable as Insigne is a local in Naples and might stay there for the long run.

 
Jose Giménez/Daniele Rugani/Nikola Milenkovic/Alessio Romagnoli

 
mwblue10 said:
Tell me more about this guy.  I know nothing about him.  He plays in La Liga?
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Turned 20 in May so still a lot of growth but absolutely tore apart Real's and Barca's backline last year. Plays on the right primarily but has a left foot, can see him complimenting CHO on the opposite wing. Could work on his finishing but for his age he's good. I'll leave a link below to some clips if he has any on youtube. Can certainly see him going to a big team soon.




 
We should just go all out for Jadon Sancho. 

Emerson has impressed at LB so it wouldn't make sense spending big on someone like Chilwell

I feel Tomori and Christensen will continue to grow and progress so I'd want to hold off spending big on another CB and there isn't anyone really worth going for

We're absolutely stacked in midfield and attacking midfield so no need to spend big there

And I've been impressed with Tammy so far, I had reservations but he's looking very good at times and will only get better

With Pedro and Willian both past their best and in their 30s, we're left with Hudson-Odoi and Pulisic as our only true wingers/wide forwards

For me Sancho is one of the next big things in football and plays in a position we could use reinforcements. He would be worth spending over 100 million on IMO

 
Sparkz said:
We should just go all out for Jadon Sancho. 

Emerson has impressed at LB so it wouldn't make sense spending big on someone like Chilwell

I feel Tomori and Christensen will continue to grow and progress so I'd want to hold off spending big on another CB and there isn't anyone really worth going for

We're absolutely stacked in midfield and attacking midfield so no need to spend big there

And I've been impressed with Tammy so far, I had reservations but he's looking very good at times and will only get better

With Pedro and Willian both past their best and in their 30s, we're left with Hudson-Odoi and Pulisic as our only true wingers/wide forwards

For me Sancho is one of the next big things in football and plays in a position we could use reinforcements. He would be worth spending over 100 million on IMO
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Agree. Sancho and CHO on opposite wings? My god they would tear up the league! Pulisic as a backup winger, and maybe signing a couple good backup players and getting rid of our past it players and we'll have one hell of a team

 
Sparkz said:
We should just go all out for Jadon Sancho. 

Emerson has impressed at LB so it wouldn't make sense spending big on someone like Chilwell

I feel Tomori and Christensen will continue to grow and progress so I'd want to hold off spending big on another CB and there isn't anyone really worth going for

We're absolutely stacked in midfield and attacking midfield so no need to spend big there

And I've been impressed with Tammy so far, I had reservations but he's looking very good at times and will only get better

With Pedro and Willian both past their best and in their 30s, we're left with Hudson-Odoi and Pulisic as our only true wingers/wide forwards

For me Sancho is one of the next big things in football and plays in a position we could use reinforcements. He would be worth spending over 100 million on IMO
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Not that I would be opposed to signing Sancho - I think that would be an excellent signing - but I’d rather we went for someone like Steven Bergwijn or David Neres.  They’ll be quite a bit cheaper, but with just as much potential as Sancho, in my opinion.  Would leave room in the budget for a second world class signing.  It does seem as though Man United have their sights set on Sancho, and I’m sure they would pay more.

And ever since @RIP Mourinho brought him up recently, I’ve been partial to Samuel Chukwueze from Villarreal.  Hadn’t even heard his name before, but he looks like a real player.

One theory I have though, is perhaps we won’t even sign another winger.  The way Frank has been playing Mount on the wing, he might just stick with that.  Would open up more minutes in the midfield with RLC coming back in the fold.

Wingers: CHO, Pulisic, Mount, Pedro (wouldn’t be surprise if we bring him back for one more year)

Midfield: RLC, Kante, Jorginho, Kovacic, Barkley (though I would sell Barkley and play James as our 5th CM)

 
Before I saw how good Tomori can be I was very convinced that our first buy should be a centre back.

Now I really need to re-think this whole topic...We have top young talents that need time to develop into big stars, crazy enough their positions are from a left back, winger all the way to the striker position.

So really the question is what do we buy as luxury, or which player do we sell in order to buy a higher quality player?

Luxury to me would be;
buying another midfielder.
buying another winger.

Why, well because we are scoring goals, our young guns need playtime and trust so no need to disturb this great development. The only position where the squad has very little depth is that central attacking midfielder, so a luxury would be to sell Barkley and buy an upgrade. But is that really needed? RLC will be back anyway. 

But...what if we sell a decent player and then buy a higher quality player?
E.g. we sell Christensen and get a really good centre back that will play with Rudiger,Tomori,Zouma. Giménez from Atletico Madrid is just a crazy good talent, Milenkovic from Fiorentina also. We have all seen how Christensen is and I believe he can be better but he's not going to be a world class centre back. This would be upgrading our defense which is what we need.

It's just still too obvious that we need better defensive players. The midfield is fine, the wingers are fine, the strikers are fine and all of those can be better. But our right back Azpilicueta is now older and once James takes over he will need a backup, a 31 year old Azpilicueta can do the job as a backup for 1 more season. Emerson is a good left back, Alonso isn't. Zouma looks close to his peak already, Christensen as well, Tomori looks great and so does Rudiger but the depth is just too thin for me when I look at the full picture of our defense. 

You can make an argument that our attacking midfield needs depth so a luxury buy would be who, Reus or Milinkovic-Savic for 100-150m?

 
Gol15 said:
Before I saw how good Tomori can be I was very convinced that our first buy should be a centre back.

Now I really need to re-think this whole topic...We have top young talents that need time to develop into big stars, crazy enough their positions are from a left back, winger all the way to the striker position.

So really the question is what do we buy as luxury, or which player do we sell in order to buy a higher quality player?

Luxury to me would be;
buying another midfielder.
buying another winger.

Why, well because we are scoring goals, our young guns need playtime and trust so no need to disturb this great development. The only position where the squad has very little depth is that central attacking midfielder, so a luxury would be to sell Barkley and buy an upgrade. But is that really needed? RLC will be back anyway. 

But...what if we sell a decent player and then buy a higher quality player?
E.g. we sell Christensen and get a really good centre back that will play with Rudiger,Tomori,Zouma. Giménez from Atletico Madrid is just a crazy good talent, Milenkovic from Fiorentina also. We have all seen how Christensen is and I believe he can be better but he's not going to be a world class centre back. This would be upgrading our defense which is what we need.

It's just still too obvious that we need better defensive players. The midfield is fine, the wingers are fine, the strikers are fine and all of those can be better. But our right back Azpilicueta is now older and once James takes over he will need a backup, a 31 year old Azpilicueta can do the job as a backup for 1 more season. Emerson is a good left back, Alonso isn't. Zouma looks close to his peak already, Christensen as well, Tomori looks great and so does Rudiger but the depth is just too thin for me when I look at the full picture of our defense. 

You can make an argument that our attacking midfield needs depth so a luxury buy would be who, Reus or Milinkovic-Savic for 100-150m?
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I was thinking the same, but lets not jump on the bandwagon too early. He has definitely shown some good signs so far, but so have a lot of past players only for them to go play terrible later. 

Remember Kalas? 1 good performance against liverpool, and thats all he managed. Christensen too looked really promising when he first broke through, and then he was pretty awful in the middle for a while. But he is coming back into his old form and playing reasonably well.

I think we need to sell Zouma and sign a CB like Koulibaly or Romagnoli. Maybe sell Christensen as well. Then we'll have a trio or Koulibaly/Romagnoli, Rudiger and Tomori which I think is a fantastic trio. Could even promote another youth CB to be 4th choice

 
PlayDaYouf said:
I was thinking the same, but lets not jump on the bandwagon too early. He has definitely shown some good signs so far, but so have a lot of past players only for them to go play terrible later. 

Remember Kalas? 1 good performance against liverpool, and thats all he managed. Christensen too looked really promising when he first broke through, and then he was pretty awful in the middle for a while. But he is coming back into his old form and playing reasonably well.

I think we need to sell Zouma and sign a CB like Koulibaly or Romagnoli. Maybe sell Christensen as well. Then we'll have a trio or Koulibaly/Romagnoli, Rudiger and Tomori which I think is a fantastic trio. Could even promote another youth CB to be 4th choice
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Bit harsh on Zouma, he's stepped up his game in the past few weeks. For me he's ahead of a fit Rudiger.

 
Backbiter said:
I can't believe you are serious.
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Why? Zouma has been in fine form over the past few weeks - for me Zouma deserves to play at RCB ahead of Rudiger on merit. At LCB it's a different story, I see Rudiger as competition for Tomori. I think we have a good balance in central defence at the mo, Christensen can play at RCB or in the middle of a back 3, Rudiger RCB or LCB, Zouma RCB, and Tomori at LCB. I guess my point is if Zouma keeps up this form he's done nothing to deserve being dropped or sold.

 
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