2 minutes ago, I Am Gay 4 Diegod said:

I just can't understand how some supporters like yourself seem to believe we are skint ?! We're one of the richest clubs in the world that has won about 15 trophies in the last 12 years and we are the reigning champions of the richest league in the world and you are bewildered by fans that think we should have a full and strong said to deal with the next season ? Supporters expect what we need 

 

we have lost terry ivanovic zouma and chalobah matic Costa Mikel oscar from this time last year.

Terry is about a year away from retirement, Ivanovic had a rapid decline in form, Chalobah is young and was probably never going to realistically break into our first team, Zouma is only out on loan and I think that will do him wonders, Mikel had run his race and Oscar didn't really suit our game plan.  Matic also had a dip in form, though I would rather he stay for the extra depth and Costa is obviously world class, but we replaced him with Morata.  Only Costa and, to a certain extent, Matic are major losses to the squad.

We do need more players, nobody is denying that fact, but we can't realistically expect to spend 300m on players, because with prices are these days and the players you all want to see come in, that's what it's going to cost us.  We've already spent 130m on three players, and getting in another 3 top class players is going to cost at least that again.

In the ideal world, we'd sign 6-7 'world class' players to replace half of the team. In reality, it won't happen. There are at least half a dozen clubs in Europe has an open cheque book to sign players, and retain star players. Those 'world class' players won't just turn up at Chelsea just because we could afford the transfer fee, there are sh1t loads other factors, playing the agent game the most obvious one. I think we will get 2-3 players for the depth, but don't hold your breath about the 4-5 'world class' players.

 

 

It isn't about buying 6 players that would be better than those we have.

It's about adressing the glaring issue that is our midfield depth and wingback competition if their form dips.

I just can't understand how some of you expect a Man U or Real type buying spree...were just simply not going to build the kind of depth that Bayern or real have in one summer we don't spend that kind of money 

Even Conte, our manager, thinks we should. We are not competing with these clubs yet probably because our revenue-levels are not there and we are strict with ffp.

I think the cover we need is LWB and cover for central midfield. I think with CBs and forwards we have enough.

Re the money we cannot always expect RA to keep on bankrolling us though the mgt team will know Conte won't stay unless he gets most of his needs met. There is always a balance and I will be surprised if we do not strengthen before the transfer window closes.

Does anybody feel the starting XI is good enough right now to retain the league this season ? 

 

Courtois 

luiz 

cahill 

azpi

moses 

alonso

kante

bakayoko

hazard 

pedro

morata 

 

 

I really can't see it I feel like city are going to walk it this year now they've got world class Wb's .. 

 

if we added a Sandro or an Alexis I think you could say confidently we're going to be  better this year but at the min I can't help feel pessimistic:( 

 

At full strength our best (current) 11 is a very strong side, and if we can add Sandro then it's more than capable of retaining the title.  The issue is we won't be able to play our full strength team every week, and as it stands we are lacking a lot of depth.  That is the major concern for most.

I don`t get some people here, it`s like they give the money. What exactly you want, Chelsea to be like Arsenal ?

Of course the board promise Conte big signing, otherwise he would not become Chelsea manager at first time.
We was sacking everyone, and finished 10, without CL football, who exactly would want to lead us and become our manager?

Conte grab huge risk there, and he make us Champions, Tell me 1 other name, that would want to come here in the situation we was ? Probably someone who doesn`t care about reputation, he will come, take big money compensation, from the sack he will get, and that is.

Marina Emanalo fu**** 2 windows in a row 2015 and last year, they should be in Conte debt till life.

He save their a***.

Conte said many times our squad is thin. And from the winter till now the board sell exactly 12 with Solanke(tho he not played for us).

And that in a season, when we didn`t play in the CL.

And what the f*** Conte will think about our squad now ?

Morata is not f*** upgrade on Costa, he may never will be. And no way he won us so many points, like Costa did. I don`t see other real upgrade, cause Bakayoko is injured, as well as Hazard. So till mid september, our squad will be with less qualities for sure.

And you got to buy how much you need. When you sell 11 players, then you have to be ready to buy atleast 11 new.

You can`t sell 11 players and bring 4 and said we can`t buy 5 or 6 more.

Then why the f*** sell all the player, that could be used?

And stop with this b.c. money talks, cause untill now, we are not give anything. This is the money from the players we sold.

We sold players for almost 150m. pounds, And we are about to sell Matic and Costa for probably 80m. pounds or even more.

We are Champions of England, and we get high profit as well, and even higher cause we will be back in CL.

So i don`t see why not give Conte what he want. No one is saying we will spend every season so much money.

But when you will get more then 230m. only from sold players, and the board could give 100m. more, so Conte to build superb squad to defend the PL title and be a factor in Europe.

When you build once a good team with players in age 22-26 years old, there won`t be need to spend big in every summer. You will only correct minor things.

We should have beat City for Walker and Mendy, cause they are players, that are high class and young 23 and 27y., and can work for you atleast for 5 years, while Mendy for 8 or 9.

 

54 minutes ago, I Am Gay 4 Diegod said:

Does anybody feel the starting XI is good enough right now to retain the league this season ? 

 

Courtois 

luiz 

cahill 

azpi

moses 

alonso

kante

bakayoko

hazard 

pedro

morata 

 

 

I really can't see it I feel like city are going to walk it this year now they've got world class Wb's .. 

 

if we added a Sandro or an Alexis I think you could say confidently we're going to be  better this year but at the min I can't help feel pessimistic:( 

 

Agree with your post, however i'm not sold on City's wingbacks, both Mendy and Walker aren't great defensively. 

Like most I think that with Kante and Bakayoko in midfield who lack natural creativity, I think our wingbacks are going to be key to any success we have. Alonso has never convinced me defensively however going forward he has a good cross and does score occasionally, but Moses lacks defensively and going forward he always seems to fail to put a good cross in or he picks the wrong pass. I think Conte's immediate concern - aside from strengthening in midfield - should be to bring in better wing-backs especially as in both positions there isn't a natural replacement for either. I haven't seen much of Alex Sandro but judging from Juventus' defensive record he must be decent 

Edited July 30, 20178 yr by KentPaul

32 minutes ago, brakeit said:

I don`t get some people here, it`s like they give the money. What exactly you want, Chelsea to be like Arsenal ?

Of course the board promise Conte big signing, otherwise he would not become Chelsea manager at first time.
We was sacking everyone, and finished 10, without CL football, who exactly would want to lead us and become our manager?

Conte grab huge risk there, and he make us Champions, Tell me 1 other name, that would want to come here in the situation we was ? Probably someone who doesn`t care about reputation, he will come, take big money compensation, from the sack he will get, and that is.

Marina Emanalo fu**** 2 windows in a row 2015 and last year, they should be in Conte debt till life.

He save their a***.

Conte said many times our squad is thin. And from the winter till now the board sell exactly 12 with Solanke(tho he not played for us).

And that in a season, when we didn`t play in the CL.

And what the f*** Conte will think about our squad now ?

Morata is not f*** upgrade on Costa, he may never will be. And no way he won us so many points, like Costa did. I don`t see other real upgrade, cause Bakayoko is injured, as well as Hazard. So till mid september, our squad will be with less qualities for sure.

And you got to buy how much you need. When you sell 11 players, then you have to be ready to buy atleast 11 new.

You can`t sell 11 players and bring 4 and said we can`t buy 5 or 6 more.

Then why the f*** sell all the player, that could be used?

And stop with this b.c. money talks, cause untill now, we are not give anything. This is the money from the players we sold.

We sold players for almost 150m. pounds, And we are about to sell Matic and Costa for probably 80m. pounds or even more.

We are Champions of England, and we get high profit as well, and even higher cause we will be back in CL.

So i don`t see why not give Conte what he want. No one is saying we will spend every season so much money.

But when you will get more then 230m. only from sold players, and the board could give 100m. more, so Conte to build superb squad to defend the PL title and be a factor in Europe.

When you build once a good team with players in age 22-26 years old, there won`t be need to spend big in every summer. You will only correct minor things.

We should have beat City for Walker and Mendy, cause they are players, that are high class and young 23 and 27y., and can work for you atleast for 5 years, while Mendy for 8 or 9.

 

We also have other sources of revenue to fund for the stadium as well, namely the prize money from the PL, FA Cups, the new Nike Sponsorship. 

Tbh, for me I'd rather we spend the money rather than keep it in a vault

1 hour ago, Strider6003 said:

I think the cover we need is LWB and cover for central midfield. I think with CBs and forwards we have enough.

Re the money we cannot always expect RA to keep on bankrolling us though the mgt team will know Conte won't stay unless he gets most of his needs met. There is always a balance and I will be surprised if we do not strengthen before the transfer window closes.

Roman doesn't bankroll us anymore. It has been years since then. 

@brakeit I think you need to understand the perspective of some of the older Chelsea fans that saw us climb up from the second tier of English to get into the Champions league before RA came on-board with his dubiously earned wealth.

Since RA has funded us to achieve several major trophies though, note is under no obligation to do this and stay. He has yet is trying to turn us into a successful self-supporting business.

Currently we are looking for private investors for the £500m stadium rebuild, not many takers so far yet to build revenue we need a bigger stadium.

In getting players not all clubs will deal with us, it's just a fact in business terms perhaps classed as 'no goodwill', we have had this with Atletico Madrid and I would not be surprised to see Greizeman heading for SB come January.

I think the club deserve credit in going for Sandro of Juve, the old lady now one of our likely competitors in the CL.

Conte himself said he would be tough in making decisions with players so it is no surprise a number have left and I am expecting some more strengthening before the transfer window closes.

The human factor in football is you can buy top players and top prices and they don't perform - Torres, Shevchenko. Kezman others get injured Van Ginkel, Paul Elliott, Pierluigi Casiraghi - some also don't get on with the manager like Costa.

@Deino I believe the club now has loans from RA, so we are still living on his earlier investments.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 30, 20178 yr by strider6004

I thought you meant Roman pays for our transfers at this moment in time. My bad

Lets also not forget RA letting Czech arguably better than Coutois for at least one season go to Arsenal, that was not a business decision it was human decision out of kindness.

16 hours ago, Argo said:

11/12 was the weakest Roman era squad despite the Munich miracle.

 

I think big blue was referring to our depth, and in that sense there's no contest between our squad right now and that of 11/12.

 

For the CL final we had 4 key players out (Ivanovic, Ramires, Terry and Meireles) yet our bench consisted of Turnbull, Ferreira, Torres, Sturridge, Malouda, Essien and Romeu.

 

Yesterday we had only 3 key players out (Hazard, Pedro and Bakayoko) yet our bench reflected the fact we were down to our bare bones, with only 2 established players (Rudiger and Christensen).

8 hours ago, big blue said:

Personally i dont think it was. We had at least 18 international players not even including the goalkeepers, and we had also had Lukaku, sturridge, and bertrand. 

It was an aging squad, but it had depth. 

 

It may have had depth, but we had not a single prime player in that side. The old guard were past there best, the best player's we had were Mata, Danny and Luiz and both had flaws which stopped them from hitting the world class bracket and the rest weren't good enough for where we want to be.

1 hour ago, Davey Baby said:

Yesterday we had only 3 key players out (Hazard, Pedro and Bakayoko) yet our bench reflected the fact we were down to our bare bones, with only 2 established players (Rudiger and Christensen).

I think our biggest problem this transfer window was that we're selling much faster than buying. Regarding our midfield, we sold Oscar and released Mikel in January, in the summer window sold Chalobah and Ake, loaned out RLC and now selling Matic. The only midfielder we've bought in that period of time is Bakayoko and he isn't even fit to play yet. And the season starts in less than two weeks.

Edited July 30, 20178 yr by abramovich

20 minutes ago, abramovich said:

I think our biggest problem this transfer window was that we're selling much faster than buying. Regarding our midfield, we sold Oscar and released Mikel in January, in the summer window sold Chalobah and Ake, loaned out RLC and now selling Matic. The only midfielder we've bought in that period of time is Bakayoko and he isn't even fit to play yet. And the season starts in less than two weeks.

Worst part is that Kante, Fabregas and our defence seems to be struggling in pre season.

2 hours ago, Argo said:

It may have had depth, but we had not a single prime player in that side. The old guard were past there best, the best player's we had were Mata, Danny and Luiz and both had flaws which stopped them from hitting the world class bracket and the rest weren't good enough for where we want to be.

Davey pretty much covered it. I was talking about depth, however I would also argue conte would've won the league with that squad aswell. AVB and di matteo aren't in the same league as conte. 

Whichever way you look at it though, this squad at present isn't strong enough. 

1 hour ago, abramovich said:

I think our biggest problem this transfer window was that we're selling much faster than buying. Regarding our midfield, we sold Oscar and released Mikel in January, in the summer window sold Chalobah and Ake, loaned out RLC and now selling Matic. The only midfielder we've bought in that period of time is Bakayoko and he isn't even fit to play yet. And the season starts in less than two weeks.

 

We haggled over Lukaku, then were guzumped by Utd. We haggled over Danilo then were guzumped by City. Van Dijk was seemingly on our radar but we baulked at the fee. Some will be glad we're not paying over the odds, others less so.

 

We've made a lot of money through sales since Jose joined us for the second time, maybe someone knows the figures? It's a lot of money. We've won two titles since then. I'm wondering about our net spend, since the summer of 14/15, what is it? Let's also remember we're probably going to sell Diego this summer, so more money.

 

Other clubs are quite clearly happy to splash the cash but not Chelsea unless we recoup it in sales, strange seeing as we must be raking it in with television money and the winnings from our two championship-winning seasons. Even Liverpool and Arsenal are splashing the cash and looking to buy more, Liverpool are bidding big on Keita and VVD. Arsenal are reluctant to cash in on Sanchez despite him being in his last year, and similarly Ozil who looks like staying for 300k a week.

 

I was expecting a big window this summer because there were obvious areas of weakness in the first-team and the squad. So far the only player we can confidently say has been upgraded is Matic, whom we're selling for the same price we bought Bakayoko. When you look at the way City and Utd particularly have strengthened it's pretty alarming. Ake, Zouma, Terry, Chalobah and RLC may only have been fringe players last term but in letting them go we've lost depth and we already had a shallow squad last season, what with letting Oscar, Mikel and Ivanovic go last winter. So, including Matic, Aina and Begovic, we've let go of 11 players since Jan and brought in 5, including Caballero and Christensen. Excluding kids, we only have 3 CMs, 2 WBs, 3 AMs and 2 CFs, with the season less than two weeks away. It's pretty startling. Our squad needs depth, badly, and ideally we'd improve the first team a bit. Isn't that what we should be doing? it's a strange approach we're taking, particularly with letting Utd buy Matic but maybe there's a method to the madness. Maybe there's no need to panic, just yet. Right now, the way things stand, it's difficult to see us being highly competitive with our squad but there's still time, time for a few nice surprises. Hopefully everyone at Chelsea feels everything under control, otherwise I can't imagine they'd be selling Matic right now. We have no right to expect a glut of world class players but so far I think the window has been undeniably disappointing. 

 

Maybe the most disappointing aspect is the contract situations. Conte didn't extend as I hoped he would and neither Courtois or Hazard have extended, which is very worrying. If they don't extend you can almost be sure this is their last season, as there's no way the club will let them enter their final years, not the way Chelsea is run these days, with their eyes firmly on the balance books.

If no more signings are made then it's been a poor window yet we bring in 3 top players it looks a very impressive one. It all hinges on these last few weeks, we can either go all out and make a statement or we can do a Jose second season and totally ruin what we done last season by standing still.

i hope we have something planned,

35 minutes ago, Davey Baby said:

 

We haggled over Lukaku, then were guzumped by Utd. We haggled over Danilo then were guzumped by City. Van Dijk was seemingly on our radar but we baulked at the fee. Some will be glad we're not paying over the odds, others less so.

 

We've made a lot of money through sales since Jose joined us for the second time, maybe someone knows the figures? It's a lot of money. We've won two titles since then. I'm wondering about our net spend, since the summer of 14/15, what is it? Let's also remember we're probably going to sell Diego this summer, so more money.

 

Other clubs are quite clearly happy to splash the cash but not Chelsea unless we recoup it in sales, strange seeing as we must be raking it in with television money and the winnings from our two championship-winning seasons. Even Liverpool and Arsenal are splashing the cash and looking to buy more, Liverpool are bidding big on Keita and VVD. Arsenal are reluctant to cash in on Sanchez despite him being in his last year, and similarly Ozil who looks like staying for 300k a week.

 

I was expecting a big window this summer because there were obvious areas of weakness in the first-team and the squad. So far the only player we can confidently say has been upgraded is Matic, whom we're selling for the same price we bought Bakayoko. When you look at the way City and Utd particularly have strengthened it's pretty alarming. Ake, Zouma, Terry, Chalobah and RLC may only have been fringe players last term but in letting them go we've lost depth and we already had a shallow squad last season, what with letting Oscar, Mikel and Ivanovic go last winter. So, including Matic, Aina and Begovic, we've let go of 11 players since Jan and brought in 5, including Caballero and Christensen. Excluding kids, we only have 3 CMs, 2 WBs, 3 AMs and 2 CFs, with the season less than two weeks away. It's pretty startling. Our squad needs depth, badly, and ideally we'd improve the first team a bit. Isn't that what we should be doing? it's a strange approach we're taking, particularly with letting Utd buy Matic but maybe there's a method to the madness. Maybe there's no need to panic, just yet. Right now, the way things stand, it's difficult to see us being highly competitive with our squad but there's still time, time for a few nice surprises. Hopefully everyone at Chelsea feels everything under control, otherwise I can't imagine they'd be selling Matic right now. We have no right to expect a glut of world class players but so far I think the window has been undeniably disappointing. 

 

Maybe the most disappointing aspect is the contract situations. Conte didn't extend as I hoped he would and neither Courtois or Hazard have extended, which is very worrying. If they don't extend you can almost be sure this is their last season, as there's no way the club will let them enter their final years, not the way Chelsea is run these days, with their eyes firmly on the balance books.

I think you should forward this post to Chelsea board Davy very well said and summarised....

37 minutes ago, Chelsbear said:

If no more signings are made then it's been a poor window yet we bring in 3 top players it looks a very impressive one. It all hinges on these last few weeks, we can either go all out and make a statement or we can do a Jose second season and totally ruin what we done last season by standing still.

i hope we have something planned,

all well and good but these players will have to be 100% from day 1, even a world class player will need time, im worried 

I don't understand why people are so judgemental of the club during a transfer window.

Firstly we won't know which club has had the best window until the end of the season, not at the start of the season, and certainly not half way through the transfer window.

Leicester had the best window 2 years ago, but you would of never of said that at the start of that season.

We had the best window 3 years ago when we got Costa, and last season when we got Kante and Luiz. 

Imagine the Cadbury's shareholders telling the chocolate manufacturers how to make chocolate, rather than judging them on their annual dividends.

40 minutes ago, Chelsbear said:

If no more signings are made then it's been a poor window yet we bring in 3 top players it looks a very impressive one. It all hinges on these last few weeks, we can either go all out and make a statement or we can do a Jose second season and totally ruin what we done last season by standing still.

i hope we have something planned,

 

Think we're going to make a statement.

 

Candreva, Sergi Roberto, Sandro, Renato Sanches, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Barkley, Alexis Sanchez and Llorente all signed on deadline day.