5 hours ago, Jezz said:

Being reported that the club is unwilling to pay 80m that Palace are demanding.

https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/1225178/Chelsea-transfer-news-Wilfried-Zaha-Crystal-Palace-news-Frank-Lampard-Premier-League

I’ve just read another article saying our interest has cooled and Spurs are in the front seat, fingers crossed!

I know it's a common tactic by the agent, but when I look like a player actively looking to sign up with several clubs, looks like he's more into the pay rise than winning football games. He was willing to to go Arsenal, definitely wants to come to us or Spurs, if Everton matches the fee he'd likely to go to, so he's desperately to leave, anything else is an known..

I am not entirely against it if we can get him for less and throw in Batshuayi. We really could use a left footed wide attacking player though. Look at City and Liverpool, both have left footed attackers on the RW and it gives teams trouble. 

 

2 hours ago, enigma said:

I am not entirely against it if we can get him for less and throw in Batshuayi. We really could use a left footed wide attacking player though. Look at City and Liverpool, both have left footed attackers on the RW and it gives teams trouble. 

Crystal Palace will squeeze the most they can out of the deal as Utd still retain a 20% sell on clause. Personally I don’t want him at anything over £50m even as an homegrown player. If we can bundle in Barkley & Batshuayi + £30m, I might soften a bit.

Reasons I don’t like Zaha: At £80m he will be our record signing, an additional £20m+ will notch you a potentially world class player, and if he is already on a reported £120k at Palace he will want close to £200k/w. No way do those numbers add up for Zaha.

7 minutes ago, ducavis said:

Crystal Palace will squeeze the most they can out of the deal as Utd still retain a 20% sell on clause. Personally I don’t want him at anything over £50m even as an homegrown player. If we can bundle in Barkley & Batshuayi + £30m, I might soften a bit.

Reasons I don’t like Zaha: At £80m he will be our record signing, an additional £20m+ will notch you a potentially world class player, and if he is already on a reported £120k at Palace he will want close to £200k/w. No way do those numbers add up for Zaha.

Zaha is probably a £50m player, but due to him being Palace's best player and being January it will always cost more for players not normally worth that. Zaha made a mistake signing a new contract. 

Steer clear and wait until the summer for this position

37 minutes ago, rtwelch said:

Steer clear and wait until the summer for this position

Think this is Pini Zahavi shaking the trees to see what falls. He has already had him linked to Bayern & Spurs in under a week, either some club falls for the trick (pray its not us) or Crystal Palace offer him an improved contract.
Still think his options next summer will be limited as better players like Sancho, Sane & whoever else has a breakthrough 2nd half of the season come on the market.

Zaha at 80m is a no no.   40 plus a player? yes

These signings for this window, Zaha, Ake, etc  need to be accepted. We were never signing Sancho this window, or Werner, or Isco.  They just dont happen in January.  

Really grates me on twitter fans moaning because we are bidding for player X from France  instead of going for world class players.   

Neither Zaha nor Ake are any sort of improvement on our current squad and we shouldn't be considering either one, even on a free transfer.

 

Zaha is a big fish in a small pond who bottles under the pressure of big games, couldn't make it up  the theatre of sh*te and has done very, very little since then.  £80 million,  my arse.

 

Ake wasn't good enough when he was here, hasn't really improved in the interim and would be a short-sighted buy that would either be an expensive bench-warmer, 4th in line at least, would block Tomori's progress or would be some sort of stop-gap utility defender/midfielder who can play OK-ish in several positions, but isn't actually that good in any of them.

 

Let's just hope the club have a bit more sense than a lot of you.

4 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

Neither Zaha nor Ake are any sort of improvement on our current squad and we shouldn't be considering either one, even on a free transfer.

 

Zaha is a big fish in a small pond who bottles under the pressure of big games, couldn't make it up  the theatre of sh*te and has done very, very little since then.  £80 million,  my arse.

 

Ake wasn't good enough when he was here, hasn't really improved in the interim and would be a short-sighted buy that would either be an expensive bench-warmer, 4th in line at least, would block Tomori's progress or would be some sort of stop-gap utility defender/midfielder who can play OK-ish in several positions, but isn't actually that good in any of them.

 

Let's just hope the club have a bit more sense than a lot of you.

? well said yorkleyblue

Well thank you @Bluesince66

3 hours ago, yorkleyblue said:

Neither Zaha nor Ake are any sort of improvement on our current squad and we shouldn't be considering either one, even on a free transfer.

 

Zaha is a big fish in a small pond who bottles under the pressure of big games, couldn't make it up  the theatre of sh*te and has done very, very little since then.  £80 million,  my arse.

 

Ake wasn't good enough when he was here, hasn't really improved in the interim and would be a short-sighted buy that would either be an expensive bench-warmer, 4th in line at least, would block Tomori's progress or would be some sort of stop-gap utility defender/midfielder who can play OK-ish in several positions, but isn't actually that good in any of them.

 

Let's just hope the club have a bit more sense than a lot of you.

I agree with all that, neither ake or Zaha improve our first 15/16 at all, they certainly dont get near the first 11. Would be a complete waste of time.

4 hours ago, yorkleyblue said:

Neither Zaha nor Ake are any sort of improvement on our current squad and we shouldn't be considering either one, even on a free transfer.

 

Zaha is a big fish in a small pond who bottles under the pressure of big games, couldn't make it up  the theatre of sh*te and has done very, very little since then.  £80 million,  my arse.

 

Ake wasn't good enough when he was here, hasn't really improved in the interim and would be a short-sighted buy that would either be an expensive bench-warmer, 4th in line at least, would block Tomori's progress or would be some sort of stop-gap utility defender/midfielder who can play OK-ish in several positions, but isn't actually that good in any of them.

 

Let's just hope the club have a bit more sense than a lot of you.

Yorkey you are also the guy that was happy to see de bruyne and salah leave which I don’t forget in a hurry. So I figure if chelsea wait for players that meet your standard we may miss out on many. 80 m may be too much for Zara, probably is, but he would likely be a starter on the current team. Chelsea’s have had many worse players and done well with them. Malouda immediately comes to mind. 

1 hour ago, dkw said:

I agree with all that, neither ake or Zaha improve our first 15/16 at all, they certainly dont get near the first 11. Would be a complete waste of time.

I don’t. Zaha would be very close to starting on the left. Clearly ahead of cho right now and probably ahead of Pulisic he’s older, stronger and more experienced than both. I don’t rate him ahead of pulisic but he isn’t injured as often. 

12 hours ago, ozboy said:

Yorkey you are also the guy that was happy to see de bruyne and salah leave which I don’t forget in a hurry. So I figure if chelsea wait for players that meet your standard we may miss out on many. 80 m may be too much for Zara, probably is, but he would likely be a starter on the current team. Chelsea’s have had many worse players and done well with them. Malouda immediately comes to mind. 

At the time, yes.  I've been through this so many times,   but neither DeBruyne nor Salah of those days would get a starting place in the first team of today, and neither should they.  Salah was just pants,  made Cuadrado look like George Best, KdB wasn't willing to be patient enough to stay and prove why he should dislodge experienced internationals who were consistently performing better than he was.  The fact that both improved with age is no reason at all to have ruined our seasons back then,  and 20/20 hindsight doesn't make sensible  punditry.  Find me anyone at the time who was demanding that either had a guaranteed spot on the team sheet.  Do you think that they should?

And for application and temperament, Zaha isn't fit to be the ball-boy collecting one of Malouda's over-hit crosses from  the back of the North Stand.

Edited January 9, 20206 yr by yorkleyblue

2 hours ago, yorkleyblue said:

At the time, yes.  I've been through this so many times,   but neither DeBruyne nor Salah of those days would get a starting place in the first team of today, and neither should they.  Salah was just pants,  made Cuadrado look like George Best, KdB wasn't willing to be patient enough to stay and prove why he should dislodge experienced internationals who were consistently performing better than he was.  The fact that both improved with age is no reason at all to have ruined our seasons back then,  and 20/20 hindsight doesn't make sensible  punditry.  Find me anyone at the time who was demanding that either had a guaranteed spot on the team sheet.  Do you think that they should?

And for application and temperament, Zaha isn't fit to be the ball-boy collecting one of Malouda's over-hit crosses from  the back of the North Stand.

De Bruyne would have. He had an excellent season at Werder Bremen and was a Belgium international and was class in the pre season he had with us. He was better than Oscar at that time and should of played more, Klopp wanted to buy him for Dortmund at the time. He was a better player for me than Mount is right now.

Salah i agree with.

24 minutes ago, jack_super_class said:

De Bruyne would have. He had an excellent season at Werder Bremen and was a Belgium international and was class in the pre season he had with us. He was better than Oscar at that time and should of played more, Klopp wanted to buy him for Dortmund at the time. He was a better player for me than Mount is right now.

Salah i agree with.

OK, Jack. I didn't see that in DeBruyne.  I thought he had one good half and was pants the rest of the time, and I disagree that he was better than Oscar.  He should have had the patience to fight for a place, but didn't.  I can sort of agree about the Mount comparison, but, in all honesty, if we didn't have the transfer ban, Mount wouldn't be a regular first team starter, and would be getting by on late sub appearances and possibly the league cup.

 

Still, we could possibly use DeBruyne as he is now

On 08/01/2020 at 21:44, ozboy said:

I don’t. Zaha would be very close to starting on the left. Clearly ahead of cho right now and probably ahead of Pulisic he’s older, stronger and more experienced than both. I don’t rate him ahead of pulisic but he isn’t injured as often. 

This sounds like a really big statement the more I read it...

Zaha is good for Crystal Palace. But he isn't this good, Pulisic just came to the league and looks more promising than Zaha was at that age and I'm only guessing this since I actually don't remember Zaha around 21-22 being in the bigger talks.

Try to remember the recent years when Hazard had the ball a lot in his feet...Then picture Zaha joining us and having the ball in his feet 50% more than Hazard did per match, or however...And finally, remember that Zaha is nowhere near Hazard.

Zaha would be a very big failure if we signed him. At this point, I can almost imagine that Zaha himself doesn't believe that he should be in our club.

9 hours ago, yorkleyblue said:

OK, Jack. I didn't see that in DeBruyne.  I thought he had one good half and was pants the rest of the time, and I disagree that he was better than Oscar.  He should have had the patience to fight for a place, but didn't.  I can sort of agree about the Mount comparison, but, in all honesty, if we didn't have the transfer ban, Mount wouldn't be a regular first team starter, and would be getting by on late sub appearances and possibly the league cup.

 

Still, we could possibly use DeBruyne as he is now

I think you maybe forgot why DeBruyne didn't care to wait any longer for his place. He knew he didn't need to wait, and he kind of proved it didn't he? 

11 hours ago, Gol15 said:

I think you maybe forgot why DeBruyne didn't care to wait any longer for his place. He knew he didn't need to wait, and he kind of proved it didn't he? 

Didn't forget.   He needed to wait, and should have waited with us.  Then he'd be the player he is now, but playing in proper blue.

We should definitely consider travelling back in time and re-signing De Bruyne before he became a megastar. Or we could concentrate on more realistic current targets, such as.... Zaha? f**k me, are we really that desperate for another winger?

I'm of the opinion that you'd be surprised by how well Zaha does if we did get him.

However £80m and 200k a week is far too much and I'm glad we're walking away if that's what it will take to get him.

On 08/01/2020 at 15:56, yorkleyblue said:

Neither Zaha nor Ake are any sort of improvement on our current squad and we shouldn't be considering either one, even on a free transfer.

 

Zaha is a big fish in a small pond who bottles under the pressure of big games, couldn't make it up  the theatre of sh*te and has done very, very little since then.  £80 million,  my arse.

 

Ake wasn't good enough when he was here, hasn't really improved in the interim and would be a short-sighted buy that would either be an expensive bench-warmer, 4th in line at least, would block Tomori's progress or would be some sort of stop-gap utility defender/midfielder who can play OK-ish in several positions, but isn't actually that good in any of them.

 

Let's just hope the club have a bit more sense than a lot of you.

Agree totally, and i was under the impression that being a huge Arsenal fan he only wanted to play for Arsenal....until they didn't want him, now he's up for anyone.

This is Palace's only asset so they are still trying to cash in for as much as possible. What has this bloke done in, say, five years to warrant a price in excess of £40m in this market (and that is being generous. Another flake.

"I'm of the opinion that you'd be surprised by how well Zaha does if we did get him.

However £80m and 200k a week is far too much and I'm glad we're walking away if that's what it will take to get him."

If he's not worth spending 80/200 for, he's probably not worth being a starting attacker for us.