1 minute ago, abister1 said:

If that's the business model the club is deciding to take by tightening it's belt and not spending as much including ridiculous sums I'm very happy as a fan. There was once a time I never dreamt of winning the league title talk less of competing constantly at the top. Was just happy to see the boys play week in week out. The only thing is they should at least show a clear plan if that's youth development for first team duties or if that's the youth development for side income. Or if its a case of signing 2nd tier players and staying competitive by running a tight management ship I'm happy as well. Just want clarity instead of hearing we may be after star A or star B.....and nothing comes to fruition. And we hear nothing of such from the club itself just media outlets,traditional cum social.

Yeah I have the same thoughts as you, but we know how good Diego Costa is. Without a replacement we'll be significantly weakened, hasn't he earned us something like 15 points last season? I'd rather see us sign an established striker to take Costa's place, while Tammy is getting prem experience at Swansea.

Conte doesn't seem to have much faith in Bats either.

On ‎17‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 07:46, CarefreeSimmo_ said:

Heavily linked to Carrasco of Atletico fame in this morning rags... decent enough.

Fits the 'type' of player I'd like here.

That would be good for us in Genk.

18 hours ago, the special one said:

I see Carrasco more as a replacement for Hazard if i'm honest - I do agree Carrasco can interchange on the wing, but we already have Willian (who I rate higher than some on here) and Pedro (who is criminally underrated if last season's Opta stats are anything to go by) for right wing/inside forward. For me if Hazard is going to leave eventually anyway I'd prefer if we get Carrasco/Morata in return.

That's not possible, Special One. Yannick can not replace Eden.

 

Or you need a different football system.

18 hours ago, TomCFC85 said:

If only we had a young Belgium home grown player with amazing potential.

You have, mate!

2 hours ago, abister1 said:

If that's the business model the club is deciding to take by tightening it's belt and not spending as much including ridiculous sums I'm very happy as a fan. There was once a time I never dreamt of winning the league title talk less of competing constantly at the top. Was just happy to see the boys play week in week out. The only thing is they should at least show a clear plan if that's youth development for first team duties or if that's the youth development for side income. Or if its a case of signing 2nd tier players and staying competitive by running a tight management ship I'm happy as well. Just want clarity instead of hearing we may be after star A or star B.....and nothing comes to fruition. And we hear nothing of such from the club itself just media outlets,traditional cum social.

I agree. The club needs to come clean about this. If they say they want to remain competitive without spending x on y players then that's fine but don't stay silent. The silence will only leave a vacuum for anyone outside to come in and start creating rumours and stories.

Good to see that they've taken a few youth players on the Asia tour though...Kyle Scott is an interesting development...I hope that Mason Mount gets a chance too after his excellent U19 displays...

If we get the likes of Danilo and Morata for 90m. We'd have spent around 160m. If we actually have a 200-250m budget, we can still get someone decent for 40m

 

I hope the club monitors Dembele and Guerreiro from Dortmund this season. 

Edited July 18, 20179 yr by Deino

3 hours ago, doctorblue said:

Good to see that they've taken a few youth players on the Asia tour though...Kyle Scott is an interesting development...I hope that Mason Mount gets a chance too after his excellent U19 displays...

I don't think we currently have much choice :)

9 hours ago, Deino said:

I agree. The club needs to come clean about this. If they say they want to remain competitive without spending x on y players then that's fine but don't stay silent. The silence will only leave a vacuum for anyone outside to come in and start creating rumours and stories.

 

The expectations of the Board has never changed for many years i.e. the club must challenge for the title, cups and go far in the CL.  Anything lesser and the manager gets the sack.  This demand coupled with the massive reduction in net transfer spending positions the club to be a less than desirable destination for any top class manager (I fully expect Conte to leave if he isn't backed by the board) which eventually results in the club being less competitive despite the board's lofty goals.

34 minutes ago, lchk said:

 

The expectations of the Board has never changed for many years i.e. the club must challenge for the title, cups and go far in the CL.  Anything lesser and the manager gets the sack.  This demand coupled with the massive reduction in net transfer spending positions the club to be a less than desirable destination for any top class manager (I fully expect Conte to leave if he isn't backed by the board) which eventually results in the club being less competitive despite the board's lofty goals.

Actually you can argue the Chelsea job is a no lose situation for manager's. Due to the narrative of us having a trigger happy owner riddled with player power (both wildly exaggerated but that arguments for another time) manager's will always get a free pass in terms of new job's. AVB got a job at Spurs after us despite screwing up so badly he caused us to finish below that very team for the first time in almost two decades and Jose got one of the biggest job's in football after almost ruining us.

Conte would get another top job after Chelsea even if he leaves us in as bad or worse a position than Jose did.

1 hour ago, lchk said:

 

The expectations of the Board has never changed for many years i.e. the club must challenge for the title, cups and go far in the CL.  Anything lesser and the manager gets the sack.  This demand coupled with the massive reduction in net transfer spending positions the club to be a less than desirable destination for any top class manager (I fully expect Conte to leave if he isn't backed by the board) which eventually results in the club being less competitive despite the board's lofty goals.

Yeah, I agree. It's hard enough with money but in the current climate of inflated fees, this notion of spending less but achieving more is very difficult. We can go the route of buying unproven players all we want but so does the rest of the top clubs eg. Cengiz Under was someone we reported to be monitoring and now he's gone to Roma or the Mbappe story. There're too many factors involved for a player to elevate themselves to a higher level

1 hour ago, Deino said:

Yeah, I agree. It's hard enough with money but in the current climate of inflated fees, this notion of spending less but achieving more is very difficult. We can go the route of buying unproven players all we want but so does the rest of the top clubs eg. Cengiz Under was someone we reported to be monitoring and now he's gone to Roma or the Mbappe story. There're too many factors involved for a player to elevate themselves to a higher level

What I would like to see is for the Board and Roman to temper expectations with spending conservatively.  The board cannot expect to have its cake and eat it too.  If the transfer spending is cut to Arsenal or Tottenham levels, that's disappointing but acceptable as long as expectations are pared down.  Fans don't expect the club to win top prizes every season and yet they remain fans.   

I'm a little thrown off by the idea we aren't spending enough because we have a relatively low or equal net spend. We've spent 75m so far and isn't it a good thing we've matched that with 75m coming in?

We have more leeway to buy Danilo and Morata for 100m than we would have if we weren't also making a profit on some players. I like Ake as much as the next guy but for 22m how do you turn that down unless he's going to start every week? 

It's one thing to sell players without bringing more in to replace them one way or another. I don't think we're doing that. There's still plenty of time to get a few deals wrapped up before the season starts and if anything that's my biggest beef, we haven't acted quickly on what Conte needs. 

13 hours ago, doctorblue said:

Good to see that they've taken a few youth players on the Asia tour though...Kyle Scott is an interesting development...I hope that Mason Mount gets a chance too after his excellent U19 displays...

Mason Mount has already signed for Vitesse. 

3 hours ago, TheChelseaBlues said:

we haven't acted quickly on what Conte needs. 

I've read that sentence way too much over the few weeks. How in Jose's name do we know who or what Conte needs ? I highly doubt anyone of us on here know the man personally or is in direct contact with the board. There is still a difference between what Conte needs, and what Conte needs according to the papers. This transfer window Conte already 'needed' Lukaku, Belotti, Morata, Sandro etc. If that would have been true, the man would be no more than a schizophrenic megalomaniac.   

26 minutes ago, charierre said:

Mason Mount has already signed for Vitesse. 

Has that been officially announced...I know there was talk about it? 

11 minutes ago, Geert The Flyer said:

I've read that sentence way too much over the few weeks. How in Jose's name do we know who or what Conte needs ? I highly doubt anyone of us on here know the man personally or is in direct contact with the board. There is still a difference between what Conte needs, and what Conte needs according to the papers. This transfer window Conte already 'needed' Lukaku, Belotti, Morata, Sandro etc. If that would have been true, the man would be no more than a schizophrenic megalomaniac.   

Whilst this is true, a quick look at the squad available for the pre season tour suggests to most that we are woefully short of depth to compete on all fronts. The window still has six weeks to run so much can change,the season though starts in three. As the old saying goes 'you can't win a title in September but you can lose one'

47 minutes ago, Geert The Flyer said:

I've read that sentence way too much over the few weeks. How in Jose's name do we know who or what Conte needs ? I highly doubt anyone of us on here know the man personally or is in direct contact with the board. There is still a difference between what Conte needs, and what Conte needs according to the papers. This transfer window Conte already 'needed' Lukaku, Belotti, Morata, Sandro etc. If that would have been true, the man would be no more than a schizophrenic megalomaniac.   

I'm referring to what rather than specifically whom he's after. IMO the transfers should already be wrapped up for the most part so unless we aren't signing anyone else they've failed to meet his needs so far. For example if he does need a ST we haven't done very well on that front regardless of which player is on his wishlist

Courtois, Caballero, Eduardo

Cahill, Luiz, Rudiger, Christensen, Azpilicueta, Tomori, Clarke Salter

Alonso, Moses, Rahman, Kenedy

Fabregas, Bakayoko, Kante, Baker

Hazard, Willian, Pedro, Musonda

Batshuayi

I haven't bothered including the players that are probably leaving or going on loan. I'm not sure about Rahman? Either way the squad are looking really thin and nowhere near ready to attack on all fronts. 

2 hours ago, charierre said:

Whilst this is true, a quick look at the squad available for the pre season tour suggests to most that we are woefully short of depth to compete on all fronts. 

This is something that needs an explanation. How many non Spanish teams have competed well on all fronts during a season ? All fronts being the league, national cup and european cup. The last English club to win the treble was united in 1999, I'll be glad if we reach the CL quarter final and don't finish under the fifth place in the league. But thinking we will have a shot to actually compete on all fronts is a whole new level of daydreaming.

3 hours ago, charierre said:

Mason Mount has already signed for Vitesse. 

I don't think he has yet, though that's probably because he's been away with England. Certainly it's so strongly rumoured that we can probably expect it.

 

56 minutes ago, Geert The Flyer said:

This is something that needs an explanation. How many non Spanish teams have competed well on all fronts during a season ? All fronts being the league, national cup and european cup. The last English club to win the treble was united in 1999, I'll be glad if we reach the CL quarter final and don't finish under the fifth place in the league. But thinking we will have a shot to actually compete on all fronts is a whole new level of daydreaming.

I think you might be confusing the word competing with conquering 

2 hours ago, Geert The Flyer said:

This is something that needs an explanation. How many non Spanish teams have competed well on all fronts during a season ? All fronts being the league, national cup and european cup. The last English club to win the treble was united in 1999, I'll be glad if we reach the CL quarter final and don't finish under the fifth place in the league. But thinking we will have a shot to actually compete on all fronts is a whole new level of daydreaming.

Competing on all fronts isn't the same winning all. A club with our wage bill and investment should be looking at a tilt at the title, good cup runs and minimum CL quarter final. At present our squad looks to lack depth,as stated by @TheChelseaBlues we know striker is required so on that front we have been tardy.

Edited July 19, 20179 yr by charierre

2 hours ago, Geert The Flyer said:

This is something that needs an explanation. How many non Spanish teams have competed well on all fronts during a season ? All fronts being the league, national cup and european cup. The last English club to win the treble was united in 1999, I'll be glad if we reach the CL quarter final and don't finish under the fifth place in the league. But thinking we will have a shot to actually compete on all fronts is a whole new level of daydreaming.

Plenty of clubs have done that. Atleti, Juve, Bayern, United and us in the past. Arsenal have done it too once, Inter, Porto, Dortmund among others

Not even any decent random rumors today, it felt like 2015 pre-season again.