3 minutes ago, JPH said:

Some facts: This squad won the PL. Even we won't have any new signings we have a squad that can fight for the PL tittle. On the other hand we will have CL matches on top of PL, some depth is definetily needed. Diego Costa is leaving; the need for a first class striker is obvious. We have been linked with a top class defender (Rudiger), a defensive middfielder (Bakayoko), LWB (Alex Sandro), a couple of strikers (Belotti, Morata) and even an attacking middfielder/attacker (James) just to mention a few. A striker is a must. If we can get two or three of the other above  mentioned players (or players on the same level) on top of the striker I think we are well off for the coming  Season.

On the other hand we have failed to sign anyone so far. So what is my message? We still have plenty of time, we don't necessary need that much new signings.

 

But as you all I really hope for big fishes to join the team.

It's not as simple as that. We won the league, but I think most people would agree we had a number of players playing above their actual levels, and with our rivals all looking to strengthen, we cannot afford to faff around like we did after Jose's title win a few years ago, and like after Carlo's and like after Jose's 2nd in his first spell. But it has all the hallmarks of the Chelsea faff.

It has shown time and again that a title winner needs to improve to at least maintain the standard. SAF's last Utd team, Chelsea 14/15 even Leicester dropped out of the top 4 after winning the season. Not improving allows complacency and burnout to seep in leads to various factors that normally leads to a firing of a manager

1 minute ago, Zeta said:

It's not as simple as that. We won the league, but I think most people would agree we had a number of players playing above their actual levels, and with our rivals all looking to strengthen, we cannot afford to faff around like we did after Jose's title win a few years ago, and like after Carlo's and like after Jose's 2nd in his first spell. But it has all the hallmarks of the Chelsea faff.

I agree; at least both Manchester teams have already strenghtened their squad and so should we. But as much as I liked to we don't necessarily need to renew half the squad.

I would rather spend 60m on a winger/attacking midfielder than a LB. After a forward this is the most important position IMO as Hazard is out for the start of the season and there is no guarantees over Fabregas. I don't have faith in Willian and Pedro to create the chances.

18 minutes ago, Ernie_blue said:

I would rather spend 60m on a winger/attacking midfielder than a LB. After a forward this is the most important position IMO as Hazard is out for the start of the season and there is no guarantees over Fabregas. I don't have faith in Willian and Pedro to create the chances.

I'd have to disagree with the comment about Willian and Pedro, yes we will miss hazard at the start of the season but those two create plenty of chances.. we may need another quality attacking midfielder but those two are top class

23 minutes ago, Ernie_blue said:

I would rather spend 60m on a winger/attacking midfielder than a LB. After a forward this is the most important position IMO as Hazard is out for the start of the season and there is no guarantees over Fabregas. I don't have faith in Willian and Pedro to create the chances.

They will create chances, they're not that bad. If those two can't hack it then only a handful can? They are good players to cover for a month with the right striker joining 

Maybe Pedro but no way Willian. Willian is a squad player at best. If Chelsea play Bakayoko, Kante with Willian and Pedro the team will be lacking creativity.

20 minutes ago, Ernie_blue said:

Maybe Pedro but no way Willian. Willian is a squad player at best. If Chelsea play Bakayoko, Kante with Willian and Pedro the team will be lacking creativity.

True. No denying that and I agree we need more creativity but this all depends on which striker will we play and which system we'll employ. Conte can make workhorses be effective.

But at the moment, there are not a lot of players that would be a significant improvement on Pedro and Willian that won't cost us upwards of 50m. 

12 minutes ago, Deino said:

True. No denying that and I agree we need more creativity but this all depends on which striker will we play and which system we'll employ. Conte can make workhorses be effective.

But at the moment, there are not a lot of players that would be a significant improvement on Pedro and Willian that won't cost us upwards of 50m. 

I know being in the champions league Chelsea need a bigger squad but I personally feel they don't need a 60m LB with Alonso who must be worth about 30m as backup, i actually think Alonso still deserves to be number 1 and is very good attacking wise.

Thats why I would rather spend the money on an attacking player, I would love Rodriguez if it could work. I really like Pedro but I think his play more suits playing with someone like Fabregas with the quick passing.

After what seemed to be a really promising start, it's turning out to be a terrible transfer window. The worst thing about it is it's beginning to become normal for us.

At least we'll be prepared for another crap transfer window next year.

59 minutes ago, dansubrosa said:

After what seemed to be a really promising start, it's turning out to be a terrible transfer window. The worst thing about it is it's beginning to become normal for us.

At least we'll be prepared for another crap transfer window next year.

People haven't even got back from there holidays yet. Chill.

If we were to get Rudiger, Bakayoko and a Striker (one of Morata, Belloti and Aubamayang) would you consider that a good or bad window?

Hopefully, the next weeks will be better. 

Okay. A big media outlet finally reported it.

 

 

Edited July 9, 20179 yr by Tibbers

Heres my 2 Cents.

I agree the comparative lack of transfers is troubling, the rest of the league are clearly making moves to try and catch up and we need to improve to maintain our position. HOWEVER...

• We have no idea who the board are actually trying to buy. Newspapers live to make money and any news sells papers. They are 99.9% of the time wrong. To say we missed out on a player is to be certain we were after that player. Does anyone think we are actually after James Rodriguez or do we think his agent is trying to get him off Real's books? 
• Names. At the moment we are linked with big name players from top level clubs for big money. When has this EVER worked out well for us? Our mid budget signings from middling teams have always proved our most successful Ivanovic, Azpi, Cahill, Didier, Essien, Hazard,  Lamps... compare that to Sheva, Torres, Veron.
• We have a very good squad and improvement will cost a fortune (or a good amount of cash at a big risk) AND hinder chance of the youth players been given games.  I for one would prefer to see Conte making upgrades where available, cost effective and a clear upgrade and keeping the squad players from the academy (U23 year old with potential). Bakayoko for Matic with Matic sold to allow Chalobah to remain in the squad. Mourinho's Rule of  "2 first team starters for every position" kills progression and always has.
• We all want the best players but we do not have a competitive advantage anymore When Everton can spend £100mil not to mention the other 5 teams in this league as well, we need to box clever and use our resources properly. Signing a central midfielder to play in the pivot for the cost of Cristiano Ronaldo like many wanted us to do last year for Pogba is folly and as im sure we saw, Kante for a third of the cost proved a much better signing.

3 minutes ago, Shotgun883 said:

• We have no idea who the board are actually trying to buy.

This is what annoys me. Emanalo is the Director of Football. It's his job to set out the vision for the club, which includes:

• The style of football the club want to play
  • Which should then be filtered down through the youth levels as well
• The kind of players to recruit
• Youth recruitment
• The vision for integrating those youth purchases and academy prospects into the first team

 

He's been in his role for years now and no-one is really any the wiser just what the hell the club are trying to do. To start with it looked like we were trying to focus on young, promising players, like Lukaku, De Bruyne, etc... then they all got sold. We seem to be focusing on bringing in lots of youth players, but with no real plan to do anything with them, other than loan them out for years and then sell. His role is supposed to be consistent, as managers come and go, so the vision the club want continues. But what vision is that really?

Some actual communication from the board would be good at some point...

3 minutes ago, Zeta said:

This is what annoys me. Emanalo is the Director of Football. It's his job to set out the vision for the club, which includes:

• The style of football the club want to play
  • Which should then be filtered down through the youth levels as well
• The kind of players to recruit
• Youth recruitment
• The vision for integrating those youth purchases and academy prospects into the first team

 

He's been in his role for years now and no-one is really any the wiser just what the hell the club are trying to do. To start with it looked like we were trying to focus on young, promising players, like Lukaku, De Bruyne, etc... then they all got sold. We seem to be focusing on bringing in lots of youth players, but with no real plan to do anything with them, other than loan them out for years and then sell. His role is supposed to be consistent, as managers come and go, so the vision the club want continues. But what vision is that really?

Some actual communication from the board would be good at some point...

Completely agree.

 

The integration problem seems to be one of our major flaws. There was a story a few days ago saying Baker was set to sign a new contract and then head out on 2 year loan deal in Prem/Champ - why? by the time he comes back he will be 23-24 when he returns and deemed to old if not good enough to be used. Either sell him or use him if he is good enough.

another point and something to think about with the Lukaku deal, although he's a very good player and is a top striker, he does only have 16 goals in 57 games against top 6... he is known for bullying small teams so I still think £75m plus add ons is too much for him.

I wouldn't mind not being linked with anyone in the papers but what irritates me is that we are 'apparently' so close to players such as Baka but yet it isn't finalised... why the hold up? wouldn't mind the club giving fans a little more insight into the workings of how transfers are going (unlikely but we can live the dream).

 

Also saw that Kenedy, Musonda, RLC, Chalobah are listed as first team players but Christensen and Baker are not... any clues on that or am I being paranoid?

The integration problem seems to be one of our major flaws. There was a story a few days ago saying Baker was set to sign a new contract and then head out on 2 year loan deal in Prem/Champ - why? by the time he comes back he will be 23-24 when he returns and deemed to old if not good enough to be used. Either sell him or use him if he is good enough.
another point and something to think about with the Lukaku deal, although he's a very good player and is a top striker, he does only have 16 goals in 57 games against top 6... he is known for bullying small teams so I still think £75m plus add ons is too much for him.
I wouldn't mind not being linked with anyone in the papers but what irritates me is that we are 'apparently' so close to players such as Baka but yet it isn't finalised... why the hold up? wouldn't mind the club giving fans a little more insight into the workings of how transfers are going (unlikely but we can live the dream).

My bigger issue about Emenalo is that the club have never seemed to be able to trust themselves to choose a path and stick to it. As soon as there seems to be a drop in form they sack the manager, revert to type and stymie progression. How can you go from Scolari to AvB to Ancelotti to Mourinho and expect the players to match each of their very different expectations. How many players have we bought for a system we do not play?? Torres, Batman... when have we ever had a striker who plays on the shoulder? Cuadrado, Salah, we haven't had wingers for 10 years!

The Lukaku flat track bully argument is one that can be legitimately throw at every striker outside the top two. Just how many times has Messi scored against us eh? Of course he has scored less against the top 6. They conceded less goals than those below them. It's a given. My misgiving is that I don't think Lukaku plays in a way that Conte wants his striker to play. I don't care how many goals he scored in Everton's system, if we can't play to his strengths then he'll flop. This is Emenalo's job. Coordination of player and manager recruitment as well as development of the youth. So far he's doing a great job of selling the youth. I just wish he could sell them to our current manager.

3 hours ago, Zeta said:

This is what annoys me. Emanalo is the Director of Football. It's his job to set out the vision for the club, which includes:

• The style of football the club want to play
  • Which should then be filtered down through the youth levels as well
• The kind of players to recruit
• Youth recruitment
• The vision for integrating those youth purchases and academy prospects into the first team

 

He's been in his role for years now and no-one is really any the wiser just what the hell the club are trying to do. To start with it looked like we were trying to focus on young, promising players, like Lukaku, De Bruyne, etc... then they all got sold. We seem to be focusing on bringing in lots of youth players, but with no real plan to do anything with them, other than loan them out for years and then sell. His role is supposed to be consistent, as managers come and go, so the vision the club want continues. But what vision is that really?

Some actual communication from the board would be good at some point...

I agree with this very much. I think it's long overdue that the club is more open about what they're doing. I don't expect them to say anything about specific transfer targets for obvious reasons, but they should be a lot more up front and open about pretty much everything else. MI6 is less secretive than most premier league football clubs. And the way I see it is that most of the money that they have is in effect courtesy of their supporters expenditure on match tickets, replica shirts, TV subscriptions and even perhaps preference for Yokohama tyres. Why on Earth shouldn't Emanelo's full job description be public knowledge? It's a football club, not a defence contractor.

I'm not panicking about the transfer business as as far as I can see, nobody has done anything groundbreaking yet and there's plenty of time. But I do wish they'd let their adoring and deep pocketed fans around the world have a reasonable idea of what it is they're planning - unless of course it is simply that they don't have one and it's all make it up as they go along. But then tell us that.

7 hours ago, Fruity66 said:

Also saw that Kenedy, Musonda, RLC, Chalobah are listed as first team players but Christensen and Baker are not... any clues on that or am I being paranoid?

They won't have updated the list yet, Kenedy, Musonda, RLC and Chalobah were all in the first team squad last season Baker and Christensen were out on loan so weren't

On 7/9/2017 at 03:04, Deino said:

It has shown time and again that a title winner needs to improve to at least maintain the standard. SAF's last Utd team, Chelsea 14/15 even Leicester dropped out of the top 4 after winning the season. Not improving allows complacency and burnout to seep in leads to various factors that normally leads to a firing of a manager

Spot on. Top team should always get the top talent. With UCL matches, we should make are bench deeper.

I just dont know how we manage to cock up every transfer window after a title winning season. Sanchez or Aubumeyang are the only options left now that will seriously strenghten us, I guess Bakayoko will be confirmed later this week as well.

But its all rubles out for a world class striker now, dont care how much it costs.

Morata for 70-80m would be madness.

Edited July 11, 20179 yr by Andreas

1 hour ago, Andreas said:

I just dont know how we manage to cock up every transfer window after a title winning season. Sanchez or Aubumeyang are the only options left now that will seriously strenghten us, I guess Bakayoko will be confirmed later this week as well.

But its all rubles out for a world class striker now, dont care how much it costs.

Morata for 70-80m would be madness.

Look what happened to Sanchez, I doubt any of us had thought he'd be as good as he is now. It's amazing how average playing for a team like Barcelona or Real Madrid could make you look.

Fabregas didn't look anything special while he was at Barcelona, but now he's the messiah here. Sanchez looked like he'd be a decent squad player, not one of the world's best players.

I'm hoping Morata will have a similar effect.

Thought this thread would fall super quiet after Bakayoko and Morata signed along with Rüdiger. [emoji57]

However I do have one question... why are their still rumours we are going to bid for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlin?!? He is super underwhelming and I just don't see what he would bring to the team or where he'd play...

Personally I think we still need at least two more signings. 

 

Especially if we let Matic go..