Just thinking out loud here. I think she's done very well for this club and is rightfully one of Roman's most trusted lieutenants.

Inside sources say Granovskaia takes no prisoners when it comes to negotiations, be it transfer deals or new contracts.

She's also been at the centre of many big signings, and its been said no agent or player will get the better of her. She always works hard to strike the best deals in Chelsea's favour.

Could this be a reason why it's becoming difficult to sign players from other clubs? Maybe they feel like they have to take their pound of flesh as she would do if on the other side of the table. I mean some of our player out deals she has conducted were just unbelievable.

Now I'm not as upset as some are about further strengthening the squad but obviously I can see it's more difficult for us to get deals over the line than it was 3-5 years ago.

I know the market has changed but there are clubs with means (we are too) still getting deals done.

Just wondered if anyone else has this perspective. 

As an aside I read somewhere Costa is one of her favourites in the team. Wonder if this status emboldened his actions? 

 

City and United have no qualms about paying excessive agent fees these days. Before, we used to entertain it but not so much anymore.

Think that's a big reason we fail to get deals over the line.

Its like chelsea do not attract any of the big names any more, so something is not right

What players in particular are you referencing? You cannot blame the club/Marina for not wanting to pay over the odds for players. My problem with the board is the targeting of transfers - how Conte or any manager doesn't have the final say over transfers baffles me. Granted, recently Conte seems to be getting his own way a bit more, but it took a massive kick up the arse after Burnley and Conte seemingly being annoyed at how pre-season had gone for this to happen 

I'm pretty sure everything goes through Roman. He is the one who will be overlooking the finances, for sure. As the owner, people can't be naive enough to think he doesn't have a large input into costs of player fees and wages. 

No player in particular. All our deals seem to be following the same theme. We struggle to reach a price with selling club and if we do the player discussions tend to drag on as well. 

That's true Enigma. But what tends to happen at that level is when an aide is trusted they are given a free hand.

Delegation will be the order of the day when you're an international business magnate. There' s only so much he can get directly involved with.

Sure there will be a point at which input from Roman will be sought but that limit could be set at a high level he's not required to put any input at all through a whole window's negotiations. 

3 minutes ago, enigma said:

I'm pretty sure everything goes through Roman. He is the one who will be overlooking the finances, for sure. As the owner, people can't be naive enough to think he doesn't have a large input into costs of player fees and wages. 

I would hope he's along the lines of smart business people who hires someone smarter than him at a certain task and then leaves said smarter person to handle it.  Just  giving an overall direction to go on and leaving the details to the "expert".

2 minutes ago, Barry Bridges said:

I would hope he's along the lines of smart business people who hires someone smarter than him at a certain task and then leaves said smarter person to handle it.  Just  giving an overall direction to go on and leaving the details to the "expert".

Plus Iron lady has worked for him a lot longer than just Chelsea affiliation and he trusts her very much.

Seems like she has zero football intelligence and is a just a negotatior. Was never going to work well. The sooner the club gets rid of her the better it would be.

 

I believe Granovskaia is focused on getting the best deal out of negotiation regardless of whether it's buying or selling a player.  Obviously, this wouldn't work well with clubs who are in a healthy financial position and have little reason to sell unless the offer is a ridiculously high one.  Stalling on negotiations until transfer deadline day only makes it worse as selling clubs will just jack up prices.  One doesn't have to work as a football agent or negotiator to know this.

Seems to me the approach she takes is put an offer let them sweat it a bit and then come back. Which is likely to work when maybe you're the only interested party. She's actually competing against others and the approach should be once the first offer is made go through sustained intense daily negotiations with the intention of wrapping up in few days or a week. If it doesnt work move on. We seem to be having drawn out negotiation sessions. Transfer window long ones.

She's like our Levy. Except she really doesn't want to pay over the odds and only do so when it's in a panic. At least from what I've seen so far.

This window should be the last straw though, we can't keep doing this year in year out. 

2 minutes ago, Deino said:

She's like our Levy. Except she really doesn't want to pay over the odds and only do so when it's in a panic. At least from what I've seen so far.

This window should be the last straw though, we can't keep doing this year in year out. 

As our resident Leicester fan posted, if a serious bid had come in for Drinkwater earlier in the season, Chelsea might have bought him for a lower fee as it allows Leicester the time to look for a replacement.  With late bids, all it does is have Leicester jack up the price to 35 or 40 million pounds and Chelsea is forced to pay up or have the club empty handed in midfield.  

In a normal corporation, this should definitely not be tolerated in the future as it jeopardise the success of the club and only served to push capable personnel like Conte out of the door but Chelsea is not a normal business.  She will outstay another ten Football managers at the Bridge.

She's certainly great at her job when selling but I guess the flip side is when you try to buy people will stand their ground more to their valuation especially if you come in with an initial piss take offer. 

Unsure if true but read somewhere Spurs got Llorente for somewhere between £11m - £15m. If he has been a target of the manager since last season we could have just offered £15m at the start of window. No? 

I believe even if Marina had signed nobody on deadline day, there would be no professional nor personal repercussions for her and she would carry on her job with nary a worry.  I definitely have an issue with that. 

Well that's a hard fact of life. There are always untouchables. 

I've been saying all this along she wants to live up to her reputation more than she wants to just get the job done, said it a long time ago and it wasn't popular, maybe her staunch defenders will start to realise there is something to that and it impedes us getting out targets. 

On 8/30/2017 at 08:16, luckywerthers said:

Its like chelsea do not attract any of the big names any more, so something is not right

You're falling for the media narrative

I really don't understand what you fans are so apprehensive about?

This is one of the best window we've had in years. We missed out on 1 or 2 targets like Sandro, but scrubs like Oxlade and Barkley would get nowhere near our team. Why should we settle for mediocre talents? Neither of these players can get into their respective teams anyway, that should say a lot really. 

Focus should instead be given to promoting from our academy and getting a bunch of the youngsters into the mix. 

3 hours ago, Theafonis said:

I really don't understand what you fans are so apprehensive about?

This is one of the best window we've had in years. We missed out on 1 or 2 targets like Sandro, but scrubs like Oxlade and Barkley would get nowhere near our team. Why should we settle for mediocre talents? Neither of these players can get into their respective teams anyway, that should say a lot really. 

Focus should instead be given to promoting from our academy and getting a bunch of the youngsters into the mix. 

I agree on the mediocre talent of the names we were linked with.. But as a big club like us shouldn't we be targeting better players in the first place? And would it be easy to get them when we struggled with even mediocre players? Or can we assume our negotiators would do a better job if they realise the player linked is of high talent?

I agreed the focus should be on promoting young players from our academy.. But I think the club hierarchy should give confidence to the manager to do that as there is a reputation to sack the managers when some results dont go well..