3 hours ago, bisright1 said:

We've just lost two players who didn't sign the contract we offered. I'm fairly certain trying to restructure the deals to make them less appealing to players is not in our power.

Sadly today's Mbappe news only makes you more right. Soon more and more players will run down their deals, sign only 3 year contracts so they can receive such ridiculous sums.

Where does that leave us? Paying Mase and James 700k a week? Kante 500k a week? Mendy and Chiwell 400k a week etc?

Will ruin the game as only City, PSG and Newcastle can afford such absurd sums.

Edited May 21, 20224 yr by axman2526

3 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Sadly today's Mbappe news only makes you more right. Soon more and more players will run down their deals, sign only 3 year contracts so they can receive such ridiculous sums.

Where does that leave us? Paying Mase and James 700k a week? Kante 500k a week? Mendy and Chiwell 400k a week etc?

Will ruin the game as only City, PSG and Newcastle can afford such absurd sums.

Honestly Man City and PSG have already spent a lot of money and technically only they can afford to do whatever they want. Obviously the late stage capitalism will do its thing but even when Spain had a bit of an economic crisis Real Madrid was spending so in a sense they have been too big to fail for a long time and now they will complain to UEFA/FIFA about Mbappe signing a new deal which I consider to be a bit... arrogant?

The one thing that could change everything is if the culture changes and new generations don't consider tradition and club identity as something important, meaning if new kids don't think that it's a big deal to play for our club or Man United or Real Madrid... If that happens then the status quo of the big clubs will change forever and then it's only a matter of time when we see Man City vs PSG CL final. The one thing that football has been is the sport of the people, casual people, anything can happen a small team can win against a big one and so on but that can change too, it has been changing already since you don't see any smaller teams in the later stages of the CL anymore. Before a smaller club could end up with an amazing generation, now it's not possible anymore.

3 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Sadly today's Mbappe news only makes you more right. Soon more and more players will run down their deals, sign only 3 year contracts so they can receive such ridiculous sums.

Where does that leave us? Paying Mase and James 700k a week? Kante 500k a week? Mendy and Chiwell 400k a week etc?

Will ruin the game as only City, PSG and Newcastle can afford such absurd sums.

I am not too worried about mbappe salary. Messi earned about 1m/week with Barca for years and it did not break our wage structure. 

However, player running down their contract is dangerous. 

3 hours ago, Bob stark said:

I am not too worried about mbappe salary. Messi earned about 1m/week with Barca for years and it did not break our wage structure. 

However, player running down their contract is dangerous. 

And it’s happening everywhere even pool may end up losing salah and mane.. 

In the past the risk of getting a long term injury didn’t justify the reward of running down your contract.. now with better medical sciences more spending power the rewards greatly outweigh the risk. Having said that it’s only the top 10% of the players who can do this ..

because at the other end of the spectrum we are saddled with players who no one will take even on free on the same wages here.

I think just like the world at large - inequality in football is rising too.

The reason we are currently at the top table in football is because a Russian oligarch took us over and spent big. So I'm not going to worry too much about PSG.

Football is always evolving. Eventually PSGs owners will retreat from spending out of control and it's likely the same will happen with Newcastle, as happened with us and Roman in the last 5 years.

4 hours ago, Jangz said:

And it’s happening everywhere even pool may end up losing salah and mane.. 

In the past the risk of getting a long term injury didn’t justify the reward of running down your contract.. now with better medical sciences more spending power the rewards greatly outweigh the risk. Having said that it’s only the top 10% of the players who can do this ..

because at the other end of the spectrum we are saddled with players who no one will take even on free on the same wages here.

I think just like the world at large - inequality in football is rising too.

I mean there is always going to be inequality. For the like of mbappe n messi aka the top 0.01% it is what it is. You mentioned salah, I think he want 400 k. We pay rom 300k forget that he has been awful for us, salah is clearly the better player, him asking 300k make sense. 

I personally always in favor of player making as much money as possible but this trend of player running down their contract is dangerous. 

 

11 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Sadly today's Mbappe news only makes you more right. Soon more and more players will run down their deals, sign only 3 year contracts so they can receive such ridiculous sums.

Where does that leave us? Paying Mase and James 700k a week? Kante 500k a week? Mendy and Chiwell 400k a week etc?

Will ruin the game as only City, PSG and Newcastle can afford such absurd sums.

The salary is not that worrying. The real problem is Mbappe's signing on fee

Hilarious seeing state sponsored, Francos club Real Madrid getting in a hissy fit because someone is doing to them what they've done to others for a century.

 

 

Ngolo extension is on the cards

Tuchel made clear NG isn't going anywhere and he is an integral part to our team. 

Jorginho is worth an extension as well. 

Mind you both Jorginho and Kante shouldn't be in the starting XI and this report stating Chelsea could get new midfielders is taking the piss. We arguably need two. 

With the ownership change and potential upheaval of the board/requirement etc, I just hope the over 30 rule for contracts remains, admittedly we’ve broken it before but nonetheless. Kante will be 32 years old when his contract does expire, we need to tread lightly with him & Jorginho in terms of length and how much we’re gonna stretch to wage-wise all things considered. 

2 minutes ago, Term_X said:

With the ownership change and potential upheaval of the board/requirement etc, I just hope the over 30 rule for contracts remains, admittedly we’ve broken it before but nonetheless. Kante will be 32 years old when his contract does expire, we need to tread lightly with him & Jorginho in terms of length and how much we’re gonna stretch to wage-wise all things considered. 

Agreed, we saw with Azpi how quickly players in their 30's years can become a liability almost overnight (Silva is an anomaly) and given Kante's skillset he's at even bigger risk.

Regardless of what happens with Kante this summer I want to see some sort of contingency plan ready for when the moment comes with him. As much as I hate to say it Liverpool are mastering that aspect at the minute, as soon as Mane becomes a net negative they will have a top class replacement already long in the door and fully settled.

I think its entirely likely Kante agreed to a wage decrease with this extension. No way Boehly and co. are signing off on an additional 1-2 years at the same 300kpw range. 

Thing is, in a midfield three I can't help but see Gallagher offer the same thing, if not better than Kante at this point. 

18 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

I think its entirely likely Kante agreed to a wage decrease with this extension. No way Boehly and co. are signing off on an additional 1-2 years at the same 300kpw range. 

Thing is, in a midfield three I can't help but see Gallagher offer the same thing, if not better than Kante at this point. 

We don't play a midfield 3 though.

Just now, nonotnowjim said:

We don't play a midfield 3 though.

Then Tuchel isn't going to do himself any favors if we are dropping points at home against bottom half clubs whilst playing 5 defenders. 

13 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

I think its entirely likely Kante agreed to a wage decrease with this extension. No way Boehly and co. are signing off on an additional 1-2 years at the same 300kpw range. 

Thing is, in a midfield three I can't help but see Gallagher offer the same thing, if not better than Kante at this point. 

What you want from kante is for him to play the majority of the time behind the ball and what you want from Gallagher is for him to play in front of the ball. 

 

I stumbled across this and thought I would share here especially as Kante is on the downward slope of his career.

4 Goals scored here and Ngolo gets the last in some style.

 

Kante in his absolute prime that season. Could play week in, week out and him & Matic was the best midfield in the league. Still can't quite get over the fact that we sold Matic in his prime to United and replaced him with Danny Drinkwater tbh. Talk about self destruction.

It's actually reported today that United are serious about signing Kante this summer. I don't like helping a direct rival out but it will be interesting to see what Boehly does if a good enough bid comes in. We are in a rebuild phase afterall and Kante's got a year left on his contract.

It’s very hard to see Kante rediscovering his best form so I think it would be wise to sell him if we get a huge offer. But if he rediscovers his form… that would be painful to watch.

If he does indeed sign with Utd, I can only give him praise for his time with us winning everything.

He likely has a year or 2 at best with his playstyle

so... for 50M you guys think that better sell him?

I don't know.... I has my reservations 

Absolutely not, under any circumstances.

We're already short on numbers in midfield, we're already losing years of experience out of the defence, and what a horrible symbolic first move it would be for the Boehly era.

Why on earth would you sell your best player (and probably best person) to a direct rival? Especially when it would strengthen them in a position in which they are hilariously weak. Complete madness.

He’s categorically in a decline now but yes it wouldn’t be a good ‘symbolic’ move for the new era to let him go.

I’m not sure how credible the rumour to United is though as it reeks of an Ed Woodward signing and he’s long gone, in fact they’re shaking up their whole recruitment system. It’s Matic all over again and it would ultimately be a good move after his initial first season.

3 hours ago, Sindre said:

Kante in his absolute prime that season. Could play week in, week out and him & Matic was the best midfield in the league. Still can't quite get over the fact that we sold Matic in his prime to United and replaced him with Danny Drinkwater tbh. Talk about self destruction.

It's actually reported today that United are serious about signing Kante this summer. I don't like helping a direct rival out but it will be interesting to see what Boehly does if a good enough bid comes in. We are in a rebuild phase afterall and Kante's got a year left on his contract.

I never wanted us to sell Matic to United, but I disagree that he was in his prime when we sold him. He was sh*t in his final season with us and I was happy to find a replacement, the problem was that we bought in two players who were much worse, Bakayoko and Drinkwater.