6 hours ago, gazza said:

Complete bonkers,Roman really doesn't want to help Conte out 

He knows Conte is going, so won't by a Conte player, welcome to the next 10 years mediocrity. The Manchester clubs will be long gone over the horizon, and we just won't be able to catch them for a generation

49 minutes ago, chi blue said:

He knows Conte is going, so won't by a Conte player, welcome to the next 10 years mediocrity. The Manchester clubs will be long gone over the horizon, and we just won't be able to catch them for a generation

Even if they're convinced Conte's leaving (and I think he is) so we aren't buying "his" targets, it still doesn't explain why we're aiming for average players.  

This window is expensive and difficult. The way I see it I take Carroll for Bats any day. 

Edited January 17, 20188 yr by Nikos

15 minutes ago, abramovich said:

Even if they're convinced Conte's leaving (and I think he is) so we aren't buying "his" targets, it still doesn't explain why we're aiming for average players.  

because we'll be an 'average' team then, fighting it out with the Everton's and Bournemouth's of this world.  To think the dream / plan several years ago was to be one of the elite clubs in world.......and now we are 'scraping the barrel to buy Carroll' 

Edited January 17, 20188 yr by CFCCAN

It is not easy to bring in the best players. It is not like the best are up for grabs. The world gone mad. The salery to Sanzhes. Who can justify that.  Maybe we see some big clubs bankrupt in the future. To me Carroll in this window makes scence and that is probably what we got until next season. 

Edited January 17, 20188 yr by Nikos

Pato
Falcao
Nathan
Michy
Morata
Carroll - Probably

The last six strikers the club have bought. It's quite sh*t frankly.



 

2 minutes ago, Nikos said:

This window is expensive and difficult. The way I see it I take Carroll for Bats any day. PL is out of reach. Wait for next season. 

If that was really the case and the thought of simply saving everything for next year is in the minds of the Board why even bother spending 20-30 million?  You just as well recall one of the youngsters out on loan and or play a false 9 now and then against weaker teams and limp home in 4th place.  Realistically the league is gone, the fight is for 2-3-4 is the best we can hope for; even if we do manage to beat a weak Arsenal team next week I doubt we will beat City in the Final because we haven't got a team like Liverpool that can press for 90 minutes; the FA Cup might be a bit of silverware but it depends who we meet beyond Newcastle if we get that far, and as for playing Barcelona they are hardly shaking in their boots....so if the idea of waiting is in the Boards mind wasting 20-30 million on an injured player just does not make any sense whatsoever.

2 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Pato
Falcao
Nathan
Michy
Morata
Carroll - Probably

The last six strikers the club have bought. It's quite sh*t frankly.



 

Well Morata isn't actually that bad, apart from one horror show against Arsenal he's been decent for his first season in the league.

1 minute ago, CFCCAN said:

Well Morata isn't actually that bad, apart from one horror show against Arsenal he's been decent for his first season in the league.

Yeah Morata is the one saving grace out of six but even he isn't good enough at this time to fully replace to top-class striker we lost in Costa.

I'm pretty sure it is to try to secure the top 4 possition. It is actually worth some money and If Bats go out I guess the salary might be similar so it is £20 out. A sure gamble but as said I would take Carroll for Bats any day.

2 hours ago, evissy said:

To be fair if Conte thinks Carroll is better than Bats it tells a lot about how wrong we went with Bats.

Or how wrong Conte is 

3 minutes ago, Nikos said:

I'm pretty sure it is to try to secure the top 4 possition. It is actually worth some money and If Bats go out I guess the salary might be similar so it is £20 out. A sure gamble but as said I would take Carroll for Bats any day.

Carroll scored 31 goals in 80+ appearances for Newcastle during a 5 year period, albeit he went on loan a couple of times, he's been at WH for about the same period  and  he's scored about the same amount of goals, no doubt due to injury , but for a supposedly international striker his return rate is pretty horrendous.  Bats has a far better return rate, albeit he just looks lost, as do many of the players at the moment.  Buying Carroll is a knee jerk reaction, I mean if it is simply to get us to the CL next year what are you going to do with him once the season is over?  He will not sit on the bench as a 3rd striker, because I hope by then this club would have bought a real striker during the summer.  I doubt AC will be signing a 6 month contract......but who knows, stranger things have happened I suppose.

30 minutes ago, CFCCAN said:

If that was really the case and the thought of simply saving everything for next year is in the minds of the Board why even bother spending 20-30 million?  You just as well recall one of the youngsters out on loan and or play a false 9 now and then against weaker teams and limp home in 4th place.  Realistically the league is gone, the fight is for 2-3-4 is the best we can hope for; even if we do manage to beat a weak Arsenal team next week I doubt we will beat City in the Final because we haven't got a team like Liverpool that can press for 90 minutes; the FA Cup might be a bit of silverware but it depends who we meet beyond Newcastle if we get that far, and as for playing Barcelona they are hardly shaking in their boots....so if the idea of waiting is in the Boards mind wasting 20-30 million on an injured player just does not make any sense whatsoever.

I feel we have set ourselves up for at least 3 seasons of mediocrity with our signings this season. I don’t think anyone imagined we will sign 6 new players, but we have and we might end up at 8 signings in one season. The big problem is we haven’t improved the squad, just bulked up our numbers. 

The board & Conte are equally responsible in my opinion. You have a manager using every press conference to moan about a lack of signings, and matching City’s spending in the transfer window. Guess what? We have made loads of signings now and on course to outspend City but look miles away from them. Our transfer strategy and approach has been all wrong, and you can’t help but wonder if we would have been better off retaining and actually giving more game time to  Chalobah/Ake/RLC/Musonda, and making only 4 top signings. 

Conte has a big part to play in the whole disarray. He had 4/5 youth players in the squad last season, and either gave them little or no game time. Take RLC for example, he kept on playing him as a second forward which made no sense whatsoever. He recalled Ake from his loan spell and then gave him very limited game time. 

Jesus wept.

Might as well sign up Charlie Adam and Paul Konchesky while we're at it.

Tammy Abraham, anyone?

Maybe we can get Shaun Derry out of retirement, think he could really link up well with Carroll.

Tammy is nowhere near  ready, but id take him over caroll. 

14 minutes ago, ducavis said:

I feel we have set ourselves up for at least 3 seasons of mediocrity with our signings this season. I don’t think anyone imagined we will sign 6 new players, but we have and we might end up at 8 signings in one season. The big problem is we haven’t improved the squad, just bulked up our numbers. 

The board & Conte are equally responsible in my opinion. You have a manager using every press conference to moan about a lack of signings, and matching City’s spending in the transfer window. Guess what? We have made loads of signings now and on course to outspend City but look miles away from them. Our transfer strategy and approach has been all wrong, and you can’t help but wonder if we would have been better off retaining and actually giving more game time to  Chalobah/Ake/RLC/Musonda, and making only 4 top signings. 

Conte has a big part to play in the whole disarray. He had 4/5 youth players in the squad last season, and either gave them little or no game time. Take RLC for example, he kept on playing him as a second forward which made no sense whatsoever. He recalled Ake from his loan spell and then gave him very limited game time. 

Not wishing to stray too far off topic; Unfortunately none of us on this forum are privy to even begin to understand the mindset of this Board. What we do know is that they are consistently inconsistent in their approach to transfers and where they want this club to be on the world stage.  In one season they can capture WC footballers in  the next they are dredging up retirees and has beens.  Everyone who had half a brain would see that both Manchester clubs were going to spend massively this season after being slapped down by Chelsea.  Our Board however decided the opposite; alright Conte had a falling out with Costa, two hot blooded individuals neither of which was going to kiss and make up so he had to be replaced.  By all reports Lukaku was the target but we f**ked around as usual and lost him to Utd, so we ended up with Morata. IMO not a bad 2nd choice, given his age, yes he's going through a bad spell but all players do.  But beyond Morata the selection of players have simply been squad players, while once again we send 30+ kids on loan....but hey this is Chelsea, we can afford to do that as this appears to be the youth strategy....buy / sell cause the manager needs to keep us in with a shout of a trophy and you ain't going to do it with kids...not in this league. 

City have had a history making extraordinary first half, but even so, take our stupid losses to Burnley, Palace, WH and we are sat with 56 points...6 points behind City with half a season to play.  If we were in that position would an ambitious Board be sounding out Andy Carroll, would Conte be moaning? personally I doubt it.   If we buy Andy Carroll its a band aid solution to stop the bleeding in the hope of not sliding out of a CL spot for next season, not in the hopes of even winning any sort of trophy.  Conte can shout and scream all he wants.....he's gone at the end of the season, everyone knows it.   

But despite this..............Arsenal are in worse shape

Absolutely isn't an upgrade over Bats. Neither will be able to play a full 90 in Morata's absence and are only of use when chucked on for the last 10 minutes of a game. 

 

Please just sign someone that can link up with Hazard. 

Big Andy Carroll. 

Strong as an ox and built like a brick sh*thouse. 

Raised on a diet of Yorkshire puddings and Newcastle Brown Ale. 

Finally we can play long balls from deep, pumping it up to the big man. 

That Spanish fairy Morata doesn't have the strength to play in the greatest league in the world. Move aide Alvaro, there's a real man coming. Proper English lad who doesn't mind getting down and dirty. 

Those Johnny Foreigners don't like it up 'em. Just you wait till we rock up to the Camp Nou with our British Beef Battering-ram, they won't know what's hit 'em.

Brexit! Blue Passports! Warm Ale! Fighting on the Terraces! Andy Carroll!

I feel like I've got my Chelsea back!  

I'd rather self immolate than see Carroll replace Michy. Michy doesn't suit a lone striker role, but if we played a two striker formation I think he'd be decent. Carroll is like a £20m game of Operation with a poor strike rate and no history of success. There HAS to be better options

Put all the madness aside, we already got one of the best header striker in the league, and we couldn't provide sufficient cross for him to score.  Now we are going to limited player who's best attribute is his heading, without addressing the lack of quality crosses. Maybe we should do a double deal and get Creswell too..

 

Could do worse imho 

Must be a top league that he's playing in....the crowd size is overwhelming.....about the same as a Sunday pub league run out...and then there's this 

 

 

Edited January 17, 20188 yr by CFCCAN

1 hour ago, RMCM said:

I'd rather self immolate than see Carroll replace Michy. Michy doesn't suit a lone striker role, but if we played a two striker formation I think he'd be decent. Carroll is like a £20m game of Operation with a poor strike rate and no history of success. There HAS to be better options

But we don't.