1 minute ago, evissy said:

Chelsea surprised with this deal. I'm so glad we weren't trying to get someone like Butland. We are known to have great keepers. That is something we have had all Roman era. 

Kepa is a young keeper and probably step or two behind Tibo but he will be great keeper I'm sure. 

Club stepped up for Sarri. 

Unpopular view but the club always step up for it's managers when they align with the club's vision.

I'm an advocate of letting a manager buy players he needs but if there's a vision from the club those players should be aligned with that.

My problem with Conte was that the players he wanted were so far off the club's vision and it was obvious it was from a selfish point of view.

48 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Courtois was never my favorite, after Cech I just didn't see him as that special.

City and Liverpool have a great keeper for less money, doesn't matter as long as we have Kepa that already at 23 has more experience because he got to play in bigger games for Bilbao.

Bigger game... Is that a joke? Alisson and Ederson have been CL regulars for years while Kepa has no CL experience.

Full speed ahead.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Orpington_Blue said:

Bigger game... Is that a joke? Alisson and Ederson have been CL regulars for years while Kepa has no CL experience.

Europa will be a good way for him to get European football experience, then hopefully we'll be ready to tackle Champions League the season after. 

2 minutes ago, Charles Ryder said:

Full speed ahead.

 

 

I just posted in the general one about our next keeper, can someone clarify if we’ve paid his release clause or he had a termination clause in his contract that he’s paid himself? 

2 minutes ago, Orpington_Blue said:

Bigger game... Is that a joke? Alisson? and Ederson? h?ave been CL regulars ?for years while Kepa has no CL experience.

Alisson made his CL debut for Roma last season. The season before he was behind Szczesny for the league games and only played Europa League. One Champions League campaign doesn't exactly equal 'CL regular for years.'

Ederson played 3 CL group games in his first season for Benfica and 5 in his second. 

2 minutes ago, EdinburghBlue said:

I just posted in the general one about our next keeper, can someone clarify if we’ve paid his release clause or he had a termination clause in his contract that he’s paid himself? 

Posted from Skysports...

 

"

KEPA SITUATION

Quite a complicated one, this, but let me explain...

Athletic Bilbao have announced that Kepa Arrizabalaga has bought himself out of his contract. 

This is the done thing at Athletic Bilbao; the same happened with Ander Herrera, Javi Martinez and Aymeric Laporte. 

It essentially means Kepa is now a free agent and will join Chelsea. The Blues will have paid the money to Kepa, his agent or the company who owns him in order to buy himself out of the contract.

Make sense? Good. 

7 minutes ago, EdinburghBlue said:

I just posted in the general one about our next keeper, can someone clarify if we’ve paid his release clause or he had a termination clause in his contract that he’s paid himself? 

He essentially paid it himself with money we've given him/his representatives, that's how things work with Spanish clauses.

Edited August 8, 20187 yr by Charles Ryder

1 minute ago, Charles Ryder said:

He essentially paid it himself with money we've given him/his representatives, that's how things work with Spanish clauses.

Ahhh I see! I didn’t release that’s how it worked over there! 

Just now, EdinburghBlue said:

Ahhh I see! I didn’t release that’s how it worked over there! 

No different from what happened with the Neymar transfer last year, when his 'people' (lawyers, agents, etc) rocked up to the Spanish federation with a rather large cheque from PSG in hand.

2 hours ago, Orpington_Blue said:

When you add the Spanish taxes, the total amount of transfer would be close to £100m. Which is absolutely mental. Considering this player was available for £30m (including taxes) just 8 months back.

 

Taxes are no longer required on top of release clauses in Spain. Their tax regulations changed back in October of 2016.

http://sportwitness.co.uk/no-tax-payable-spanish-buyout-clauses-leaving-man-united-free-run-griezmann/

https://www.barcablaugranes.com/2017/7/20/15990020/spanish-buyout-clauses-an-update-could-they-help-paris-saint-germain-sign-neymar-from-barcelona

Edited August 8, 20187 yr by Charles Ryder

On ?18?/?07?/?2018 at 12:30, Osgood is Good said:

Stupid money for Alisson. Especially when we could arguably purchase both Butland and Pope for much less. Butland as No.1 and Pope as back up.

 

On ?18?/?07?/?2018 at 15:48, enigma said:

a lot of money for keeper. I suspect we weren't even looking at him, maybe a new contract for Courtois is already in the works? 

 

On ?18?/?07?/?2018 at 17:59, doctorblue said:

No way this guy is worth £70m...I'd take the keeper from Milan or look at Schmil or Butland...sorry but Cech is now only second keeper standard...

 

On ?19?/?07?/?2018 at 15:16, Scott Harris said:

It's crazy, even more crazy when you see that he has had 1 season at the top level, and it wasn't like he was spectacular. I didn't see him do much for Roma in the Champions League, i remember him pulling the ball out of the net a lot.

 

On ?19?/?07?/?2018 at 15:32, ForeverCarefree said:

For a world record fee you’d think you were talking about a world class player but I’ll be honest I’d never heard of him before.

Nuer, De Gea, Courtois etc. Those are the keepers I thought would attract a huge money bids but the sweeper/keeper fad seems to have elevated other goalkeepers recently. 

Remember when we were linked with Alisson?

 

But Kepas worth it right ?

1 minute ago, zolazolazola said:

 

 

 

 

Remember when we were linked with Alisson?

 

But Kepas worth it right ?

Obvious troll is obvious...

You must be brilliant at parties.

55 minutes ago, Valerie said:

Pleeeeaaaase let him have his last name on his shirt 

You're in luck, if his Athletic shirt is anything to by.

(full last name on his Spain shirt as well, so don't expect to just see 'Kepa.' He's Basque, not Brazilian!)

 

Edited August 8, 20187 yr by Charles Ryder

11 minutes ago, Charles Ryder said:

Taxes are no longer required on top of release clauses in Spain. Their tax regulations changed back in October of 2016.

http://sportwitness.co.uk/no-tax-payable-spanish-buyout-clauses-leaving-man-united-free-run-griezmann/

https://www.barcablaugranes.com/2017/7/20/15990020/spanish-buyout-clauses-an-update-could-they-help-paris-saint-germain-sign-neymar-from-barcelona

Thanks a lot. Hadn't come across this.

70m is a lot better than 100 but still a daft move by the club.

4 minutes ago, Orpington_Blue said:

Thanks a lot. Hadn't come across this.

70m is a lot better than 100 but still a daft move by the club.

I think it's a daft situation that we've let drag on too long, and we've been painted into a corner somewhat by Thibo's apparent refusal to see out the last year of his contract. But we'd be in a worse position if we'd have gone for Butland, imo. All very well saying we should have gone for goalkeeper x, y or z however many months ago but the club were evidently reluctant to let Courtois go/wrongly convinced that they could extend his contract, so so a new #1 was never on the agenda back then. 

 

24 minutes ago, zolazolazola said:

 

 

 

 

Remember when we were linked with Alisson?

 

But Kepas worth it right ?

Well, no, because it still is a lot of money for a Keeper. Just like it was a lot of money for Alisson. What do we do though? We had our hands tied with Tibo, he wanted to leave and only had one year left where he could have gone for a free. I thought there was a possibility he would sign a new contract and leave next summer, but that wasn't the case. 

24 minutes ago, Charles Ryder said:

Obvious troll is obvious...

You must be brilliant at parties.

Trolling or not, it's a fair point he made.

I did seem like Alisson was our first choice, but people will say the board knew about Tibo and should have sorted the keeper situation out sooner. However, remember when Courtois was speaking to the media before and during the World Cup, he wasn't categorically saying he would leave. I actually remember him saying something like "I don't know about my future, we will have to speak after the World Cup. I am happy in London." and then did speak about difficulty being away from his kids.

However, there were no clear cut signs he was definitely going to leave. Maybe the board wanted a clear answer from him before going for Alisson? It just so happened that Liverpool were quicker to the draw. Liverpool didn't have the issue of having an already top keeper at the club with an uncertain future surrounding him. If Courtois had said he wants to leave and was definitive before the World Cup, things would have moved faster and we likely would have secured Alisson. 

27 minutes ago, zolazolazola said:

Remember when we were linked with Alisson?

But Kepas worth it right ?

Not sure why you're quoting me, I suspect you're a bin dipper on half term doing a poor attempt at trolling but all I've said about the fee is the below. 

Not exactly hyping him up is it and saying he's worth it is it?

2 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Crazy money but I'm glad we haven't gone out and signed Butland because that would have felt such a massive downgrade and given off a huge sign of settling for second best. 

This is a statement of intent as much as anything else. Huge risk signing any player for such a huge sum

 

1 minute ago, Charles Ryder said:

I think it's a daft situation that we've let drag on too long, and we've been painted into a corner somewhat by Thibo's apparent refusal to see out the last year of his contract. But we'd be in a worse position if we'd have gone for Butland, imo. All very well saying we should have gone for goalkeeper x, y or z however many months ago but the club were evidently reluctant to let Courtois go/wrongly convinced that they could extend his contract, so so a new #1 was never on the agenda back then.  ?

 

Yeah the board put themselves in a bad position trusting Courtois and I think heads should roll for such a colossal mistake.

That said, Lafont just went to Fiorentina for 10m and I don't think he is that much worse than Kepa.

I just cant seem to ignore the fact that we could have bought Leon Baily + Lafont for the same money we just spent on Kepa.

2 minutes ago, Snedger said:

Trolling or not, it's a fair point he made.

Only if the posters he quoted are actually changing their tune else he is refuting a strawman. He didn't provide the evidence, and I'm too lazy to go look it up.

 

9 minutes ago, Snedger said:

Trolling or not, it's a fair point he made.

I mean many fans contradict themselves on forums and twitter etc, we see it all the time. I don't deny that I've likely contradicted myself and said stuff I wouldn't agree with now if I was to go back in my post history. He is right, but at the same time, we are selling our no.1 keeper in return for another no.1. It isn't like Liverpool who straight out bought Alisson without selling their no.1 keeper first. People can look at it how they want, but I look at it as we're selling Tibo for £35m or thereabouts and bringing in Kepa for £71m, which means if you look at it like that we're paying £35/36m for Kepa as opposed to £71m. Again, it depends how you want to look at it though. 

Edited August 8, 20187 yr by enigma

36 minutes ago, zolazolazola said:

 

 

 

 

Remember when we were linked with Alisson?

 

But Kepas worth it right ?

Where did I say that ?. Please show me.