Imagine believing a club offered 70 mil for willian and we said no 

32 minutes ago, Davey Baby said:

 

I suspect if Klopp wanted him, he was confident he could turn him into a fearsome attacking threat. Have you seen much of Malcolm? Young, can shoot from outside the box, pace, and crucially, left-footed. I'm surprised we weren't in for him.

Klopp has a good me hit rate with attackers, I think they might have spent that fekir money on Allison aswell, so we could get a free run at him.

I've seen bits and pieces of malcom. He started the season well and faded, but he looks a player. I don't think barca was the best move for him though. He would've been better at roma.

 

Maybe the club have got wind from United that a deal for Martial is possible and would rather a swap deal than cash. Would make sense given how little and difficult the transfer window is. 

Maybe..just maybe. 

Hmm...

I like Willian as a player. But at 30 years of age it seems strange that we would turn down bids of such size for him, to the point where Barcelona would sign someone else. The only thing I'm thinking is that we haven't been able to secure a replacment for him. Rumours around Bailey, Martial etc. have gone very quiet. 

Of course we only know 10 percent of what is going on (if that), so it is hard to criticise. That said one can't help but feel if we had taken a different approach and paid Sarri's clause then we would have had a clearer plan in place.

4 hours ago, Chelsbear said:

Maybe he want's to go though, seems to have a good relationship with Jose. United are still the biggest club in England so I could see him wanting to move if indeed there is something in that.

He hates the weather here, always looks a bit fragile in the cold months, if he had the choice he would be in Barcelona before you could say Manche...

23 minutes ago, Spiller86 said:

Hmm...

I like Willian as a player. But at 30 years of age it seems strange that we would turn down bids of such size for him, to the point where Barcelona would sign someone else. The only thing I'm thinking is that we haven't been able to secure a replacment for him. Rumours around Bailey, Martial etc. have gone very quiet. 

Of course we only know 10 percent of what is going on (if that), so it is hard to criticise. That said one can't help but feel if we had taken a different approach and paid Sarri's clause then we would have had a clearer plan in place.

Roma are rumoured to be turning their attention to Bailey instead, so maybe we will find out whether we have a concrete interest in the coming days.

It would appear the club wanted to keep him, and he can't be kicking up too much of a fuss probably after speaking the the new manager.

4 minutes ago, chelseablueboy said:

It would appear the club wanted to keep him, and he can't be kicking up too much of a fuss probably after speaking the the new manager.

You're right, but it does seem an odd decision from the club really (if the facts are what people say they are). If we're trying to reduce net spends and someone offers you 60m for a 30 year old, you'd think that's a no brainer.

He would certainly fit Sarri's system well but it doesn't assist our issue with a lack of end product from attacking midfield. Willian isn't exactly prolific.

Plus with 2 years left on his contract and with turning 30, are we really going to offer him a contract at 32?

let's hope this is our original plan to keep him, we all knew Barca would find another player in the price is out of their range. He still has plenty to offer, but I reckon we just missed out an opportunity to get a younger and potentially better player without much net spending.

4 hours ago, JM7 said:

Plus with 2 years left on his contract and with turning 30, are we really going to offer him a contract at 32?

Best we give him a new 4 year contract soon  so we don't break our contract policy to 30 plus players.

10 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

It could be that the timing was all wrong. The money on offer is good (if true) but if we don't have a guaranteed replacement lined up, then it's a risk we can't afford to take.

In all honesty mate, I’d find that even more annoying. If you look at Willians output for the last 3/4 years. In my opinion it’s not good enough. It’s been clear as day we needed an upgrade in that poisition. Clearly he has a squad role to play but as a starting RW he’s too inconsistent. He can look on a level with hazard when he’s on it (Barca games) but then for the next 4 weeks you can wonder why we ever signed him.

 

all of that’s combined with the fact he’s approaching 30, if we were offered £65m-ish, I’d be baffled as to why we wouldn’t accept that.

The best season of his Chelsea career was when he was limited to being an impact sub in Conte's first season. An upgrade at RW is needed and keep Willian at what he is best at doing, running at tired legs. 

Willian has always been best at getting past people and short fast passing. I reckon Sarri could bring out the absolute best in him. I'd still swap him for Martial in a heartbeat, but if we start the season with him still at the club, I'm certainly not going to be unhappy.

Don't understand how we passed on Barca's offer. We could have done so much with that money.

2 minutes ago, chokosc said:

Don't understand how we passed on Barca's offer. We could have done so much with that money.

Yeah.

Another Bakayoko or Drinkwater no doubt

Just now, Chelsbear said:

Yeah.

Another Bakayoko or Drinkwater no doubt

Bakayoko was a bet. We got it wrong and we will pay for that... 

Letting go a 30 y/o for 60+ million is great business. If we used that money to bring a younger player we could barely go wrong. As much as I like Willian, he just isn't really THAT good.

On 24/07/2018 at 09:12, Giordano_Bruno said:

Barcelona found their player... so Wilian's going to stick around for awhile. Let's hope we'll see the best version of him.

If we do keep him, it will be interesting to see how Willian and Hazard link up under Sarri. Hopefully we do, in fact, get the best version of him.

As we all saw last season, Willian at his best is such a wonderful player. 

Imagine if Sarri can make his form last for the whole year.

Is everyone 100% sure that Barca even made a bid?  It's a funny thing how some believe everything in the papers when it suits.  I've also seen on twitter someone claim that there was never any interest in Willian from Barca.

15 hours ago, mad_mac said:

Is everyone 100% sure that Barca even made a bid?  It's a funny thing how some believe everything in the papers when it suits.  I've also seen on twitter someone claim that there was never any interest in Willian from Barca.

Are you DJT in disguise? Next you will be spouting about Fake News 

16 hours ago, dansubrosa said:

As we all saw last season, Willian at his best is such a wonderful player. 

Imagine if Sarri can make his form last for the whole year.

No other coach has managed to do it yet so i'm not confident of it happening now.

16 hours ago, dansubrosa said:

As we all saw last season, Willian at his best is such a wonderful player. 

Imagine if Sarri can make his form last for the whole year.

He is not a consistently wonderful player and has never been one in his career. He is now near 30 so why would you think he is suddenly going to change?

He is a hard working player who at times looks brilliant but more often than not he lacks end product.

On 25/07/2018 at 03:17, axman2526 said:

Best we give him a new 4 year contract soon  so we don't break our contract policy to 30 plus players.

Justvas we did with Gary Cahill

If we go with a front 3 of Hazard Willian & Morata I guess the aim is going to be 50 goals in the Premier League between the 3 (I think the average goals scored between the front 3 of City, Liverpool & Spurs is 59), in order to realistically challenge the top 4. Hazard is likely to give you 15-20 goals but I struggle to see Willian & Morata getting 35 between them, in the past we didnt heavily rely on the front 3 to provide us consistent goals as we usually shared that burden across the team.

With Lampard, Terry & possibly Cahill (this season) no longer around to chip in and with a midfield involving Kante, Jorginho & Fabregas who have 10 goals between them in the last 2 years we may struggle for goals from midfield. 

I think something has to give whether its benching/Selling Morata or Willian and bringing in players who will offer a greater goal threat.