2 hours ago, sonic90 said:

How can Lukaku genuinely love this club when he's been here a combined 5 minutes? I think it's natural that he feels most affinity towards Inter where he was loved the most and acutally won something there.

Because he’s literally been on a PR campaign that contradicts this. 🙃 

If he wasn’t the “Chelsea fan as a kid” and “I support Chelsea” and “I’m back home guy” kiss the badge, this entire thread would be relatively chill. We’d all just be like those ‘copy & paste’ posters saying the usual boring stuff like “i don’t care all footballer are mercenaries” or “x, y, z player said this, so this situation must be EXacTly The SaMe”

5 hours ago, bluedave said:

Whatever he said is completely irrelevant to me, I'm not even interested enough to read further than the headlines. Football fans tend to be such ridiculously oversensitive cry-babies. If he trains well, gives 100% effort on match day, and hopefully scores goals, then he's doing all that I require from a Chelsea player. 

Imagine the player power at a club if its stakeholders shared the same view as the organisation, it would become a right circus when players feel comfortable sh*tting on the manager to the world press. City have had a fairly easy life since the Sheikhs came in, they must all get proper media training. We enjoy the circus, maybe the Marketing people here like the ‘engagement’ it brings or something, doubt it helps Tuchel though or helped the other victims. 

38 minutes ago, coco said:

That would be crazy, Tuchel will likely start Lukaku with several rockets tied to his arse.

Apparently Tuchel has a history of dropping players, they don’t like it, fine you’re out of the team. We’ll see tomorrow but looking at Tommy’s history, I think he’ll be dropped completely and I agree with that.

25 minutes ago, dansubrosa said:

Apparently Tuchel has a history of dropping players, they don’t like it, fine you’re out of the team. We’ll see tomorrow but looking at Tommy’s history, I think he’ll be dropped completely and I agree with that.

And then he’s sacked ‘due to bigger issues this creates in the wider scope of things’ and then the same fans seeing ‘no problem’ with what Lukaku said.. wonder why we’re such a mess. 

Edited January 2, 20224 yr by Term_X

4 hours ago, Argo said:

"hopefully scores goals"

He's our record signing not a 17 year old academy player. Scoring goals (including big one's) is minimum requirement for such an investment.

Well, that’s not how it works. It doesn’t matter how old he is or how much he cost, if a player is doing everything possible to make the most of his ability but the result (i.e. scoring goals, in this case) is not satisfactory, then he will have have fulfilled the requirements of this employment contract and the mistake is ours. He is scoring goals though, and this is a bit of a diversion from the topic at hand,.

9 minutes ago, Term_X said:

And then he’s sacked and then the same fans seeing ‘no problem’ with what Lukaku said.. wonder why we’re such a mess. 

Don’t be daft, he’s not going to be sacked for dropping a player who did what he did.

Maybe it’s abit off topic but I think Tuchel is the first manager we are going to stick with, looking at Klopp and Guardiola, it’s clear Tuchel is the only manager out there who can compete with them and I think the board are aware of that.

Edited January 2, 20224 yr by dansubrosa

12 minutes ago, dansubrosa said:

Don’t be daft, he’s not going to be sacked for dropping a player who did what he did.

Maybe it’s abit off topic but I think Tuchel is the first manager we are going to stick with, looking at Klopp and Guardiola, it’s clear Tuchel is the only manager out there who can compete with them and I think the board are aware of that.

More so the eventual consequences of players pushing their weight around and creating negative noises in the press infiltrating the dressing room. And I wouldn’t give this board too much credit if history is anything to go by. 

this is not about results and the Liverpool game. This is about respect. He requested that interview himself, he went out of his way to say these things. I rather finish 4th without him than 2nd with him. 

2 hours ago, Munkworth said:

Maybe you should have read a bit more in to it. At one point he says ‘That bluedave from The Shed End is a right w**ker’. 

Well, I do like walking and I do it gladly all the time, so I’d be flattered that a Chelsea player knew my name.

2 hours ago, chiefBlueCFC said:

Matt Law is reporting Lukaku might be dropped completely from the squad for tomorrows match. 

I reported that first lol.

what a mess.. i hope we dont drop lukaku - he is the only one apart from mount occasionally who knows where the net is.. this really puts TT in a cache 22. If he doesnt get dropped he comes out as weak if he does drop and we lose - thats another can of worms.

I think best situation would be to fine him a couple of week of wages with an apology to the squad and move on.

14 minutes ago, Jangz said:

what a mess.. i hope we dont drop lukaku - he is the only one apart from mount occasionally who knows where the net is.. this really puts TT in a cache 22. If he doesnt get dropped he comes out as weak if he does drop and we lose - thats another can of worms.

I think best situation would be to fine him a couple of week of wages with an apology to the squad and move on.

Like I have said TT is damned if he does, damned if he does not. Only way it works out is of we win. If we don't whichever choice he makes is wrong.

It wouldn't be strange if this is a power move from Lukaku to solidify his starting 11 place.

He arranged this interview himself, totally blindsiding his own and Chelsea representatives, on the back of a 2-goal run suddenly this interview came out. As much as journalists like to sensationalize, pretty sure 1-on-1 interviews like this needs the consent of the interviewee to be released. 

if this is a power move, than he sure didn't execute it in the right way. He could have easily have said something along the lines of "i'm very frustrated, i need to play every game because i want to contribute to the succes i know i can bring, and because i love the club so much it's really hard to sit on the sidelines" it would be more effective because you keep the fans on your side 

2 hours ago, bluehaze said:

Huge game tomorrow and you want us to boo our main striker yes that will help. Give him the silent treatment don't sing his name no matter how many goals he scores used to happen to Kevin Wilson all the time 😆. Why anyone is surprised a footballer who's had previous for shouting his mouth off is beyond me none of us are happy about what he said but booing one of our own is counter productive.

'Our main striker' has to learn to respect this club and its fans. I'd rather watch literally anyone who is willing to leave their heart on the pitch and fight for the badge, no matter how bad they are. We don't need that sort of mentality.

2 hours ago, coco said:

That would be crazy, Tuchel will likely start Lukaku with several rockets tied to his arse.

We know that Matt Law tends to be among the first to get a call from our media guys for a strategic leak which gives it some weight.

OK there seems to be a fair few moving pieces here so bare with me. 

From various readings, some of these sources probably as reliable as the earlier quoted Pulisic mocked by Lukaku piece, it appears Lukaku's agent, Frederico Pastorello, was taken completely by surprise as to what Lukaku said in this interview and he has taken heat from both Chelsea and TT about it happening. 

While he was aware and even spoke about "Chelsea fans enjoy Rom for now as he will go back to Italy" before he had no idea Rom would do this so soon.

Pastorello is said to have spoke to Rom both before and after he (Rom) had spoke to TT and is now apparently working on "solutions". Both Roms team mates and TT are very unimpressed by what he said and members of our board are said to be both "furious and embaressed".

The clubs name dropped by Rom are not possibilities for him. 

Inter don't have the cash, dont want him back and are happy with Dzeko and Correa.

Real are focusing on Mbappe.

Barca dream of Haaland.

Bayern are not interested at all.

City are not either.

That has left Pastorello with 3 clubs that are and could make deals work.

The first would offer Rom a return to Italy and that is Juventus. While they could not pay us back in cash what we paid for Rom they do have 2 players the club have long standing interest in:

Federico Chiesa, valued at 90mill euros

And Matthijs De Ligt, valued at 95mill euros.

Rom cost us 115mill euros in the summer. Whether Juve would agree with that Value, and we agree with them on their two players, remains to be seen.

Speculation is we would be more likely to take one with some cash, 10-15mill euros, in exchange should a deal happen as both seems a hard but no impossible deal to work out. 

While this would allow Rom an immediate return to Italy it also seems problematic based on Roms Inter comments.

However Juve are considering selling Morata to Barca, which would leave a space up front so it is possible and would leave them cash over to buy a cheaper replacement from within Seria A for whoever leaves.

The second club could afford to buy Rom out right, but also have players we could exchange, and that is PSG.

We are said to have a long standing interest in Presnal Kimpembe, who they Value at 40mill euros.

And with our midifled issues, and his unhappiness at lack of play time, we are also said to have enquired about Georginio Wijnaldum, who they Value at 30mill.

Paris are said to be resigned to Mbappe moving to Real, something they did not believe would happen even in the summer, and are considering Lukaku to take the lead forward role flanked by Messi and Neymar. If they decide to go for him they would be willing to part with a significant sum or some cash plus either or both of those players.

Option 3 is the one banded about for every player, Newcastle, straight cash.

 

Either way lots of speculation will be about and a January move is not off the table, would just require Marina to be putting in a lot of work as we also need her to be looking at other recruitment as well.

Interestingly enough before all this Rom stuff blew up it had so been said Newcastle were involved in negotiations with us over both Timo Werner and Hakim Ziyech, and they were looking to use them in a new look attack with Allan SM and Callum Wilson.

How this relates back to all this is we were said to be looking to use that money to pursue one Federico Chiesa of Juventus to offer Rom the "workhorse" forward Martinez was for him at Inter. Would be ironic if we swap Rom for him now.

4 hours ago, Term_X said:

Because he’s literally been on a PR campaign that contradicts this. 🙃 

If he wasn’t the “Chelsea fan as a kid” and “I support Chelsea” and “I’m back home guy” kiss the badge, this entire thread would be relatively chill. We’d all just be like those ‘copy & paste’ posters saying the usual boring stuff like “i don’t care all footballer are mercenaries” or “x, y, z player said this, so this situation must be EXacTly The SaMe”

That's fair enough but I stopped buying that when he celebrated against us when he scored for Everton and United. He also left us citing the likes of Eto'o and Torres being roadblocks for him.

I guess I've been disappointed by him enough that this doesn't bother me at all. Although I would say that the fact that our record signing is saying this at all should be irking me somewhat.

10 hours ago, bluedave said:

Whatever he said is completely irrelevant to me, I'm not even interested enough to read further than the headlines. Football fans tend to be such ridiculously oversensitive cry-babies. If he trains well, gives 100% effort on match day, and hopefully scores goals, then he's doing all that I require from a Chelsea player. 

I couldn't disagree more. 

I couldn't care less whether Lukaku truly cares about Chelsea, Tuchel, our fans or city of London, It wouldn't matter to me if privately he'd rather live in Milan, play for Inter and masturbate to the sound of Inter fans singing his name.  That's his personal choice. What I do care about is what he does publicly because then it becomes an issue for a whole lot of people, not just Lukaku and has a possible snowball effect on morale in the dressing room and performances on the pitch, not to mention a PR disaster and a public humiliation to the club that only few months earlier broke their transfer record acquring said player.

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

OK there seems to be a fair few moving pieces here so bare with me. 

From various readings, some of these sources probably as reliable as the earlier quoted Pulisic mocked by Lukaku piece, it appears Lukaku's agent, Frederico Pastorello, was taken completely by surprise as to what Lukaku said in this interview and he has taken heat from both Chelsea and TT about it happening. 

While he was aware and even spoke about "Chelsea fans enjoy Rom for now as he will go back to Italy" before he had no idea Rom would do this so soon.

Pastorello is said to have spoke to Rom both before and after he (Rom) had spoke to TT and is now apparently working on "solutions". Both Roms team mates and TT are very unimpressed by what he said and members of our board are said to be both "furious and embaressed".

The clubs name dropped by Rom are not possibilities for him. 

Inter don't have the cash, dont want him back and are happy with Dzeko and Correa.

Real are focusing on Mbappe.

Barca dream of Haaland.

Bayern are not interested at all.

City are not either.

That has left Pastorello with 3 clubs that are and could make deals work.

The first would offer Rom a return to Italy and that is Juventus. While they could not pay us back in cash what we paid for Rom they do have 2 players the club have long standing interest in:

Federico Chiesa, valued at 90mill euros

And Matthijs De Ligt, valued at 95mill euros.

Rom cost us 115mill euros in the summer. Whether Juve would agree with that Value, and we agree with them on their two players, remains to be seen.

Speculation is we would be more likely to take one with some cash, 10-15mill euros, in exchange should a deal happen as both seems a hard but no impossible deal to work out. 

While this would allow Rom an immediate return to Italy it also seems problematic based on Roms Inter comments.

However Juve are considering selling Morata to Barca, which would leave a space up front so it is possible and would leave them cash over to buy a cheaper replacement from within Seria A for whoever leaves.

The second club could afford to buy Rom out right, but also have players we could exchange, and that is PSG.

We are said to have a long standing interest in Presnal Kimpembe, who they Value at 40mill euros.

And with our midifled issues, and his unhappiness at lack of play time, we are also said to have enquired about Georginio Wijnaldum, who they Value at 30mill.

Paris are said to be resigned to Mbappe moving to Real, something they did not believe would happen even in the summer, and are considering Lukaku to take the lead forward role flanked by Messi and Neymar. If they decide to go for him they would be willing to part with a significant sum or some cash plus either or both of those players.

Option 3 is the one banded about for every player, Newcastle, straight cash.

 

Either way lots of speculation will be about and a January move is not off the table, would just require Marina to be putting in a lot of work as we also need her to be looking at other recruitment as well.

OK so let's get baited with the speculation here.

De Ligt is still valued that high? On transfermarkt he's 65m euros. Given he's only 22, that's max 20m more so I would make a random guess of 85m euros.

That would be a nice transfer for us. Imagine trading Lukaku for De Ligt + getting 10-20m cash in the process as well. Then go for Kounde and say goodbye to Christensen and Rudiger that clearly don't want to extend their contracts.

We would get a world class backline:
                  Mendy
James De Ligt Kounde Chilwell

For the midfield, get Gilmour back for more cover.

Then sell Pulisic and Ziyech for 100m in total and get a proper winger that is built for the PL. Smaller squad but better quality and more resilient to the rainy nights in Stoke and muscle breaks.

Havertz took such a long break I forgot how he looks so I'm guessing he should be ready for the second half of the season to play without any big pause or injury.

7 hours ago, azpi28 said:

this is not about results and the Liverpool game. This is about respect. He requested that interview himself, he went out of his way to say these things. I rather finish 4th without him than 2nd with him. 

 

This doesn't make any sense at all. All the talk about a player not being bigger than the club, the perceived lack of respect, preferring the club to end 4th without Lukaku to 2nd with him: if this were even a choice for a supporter, that is exactly making the player bigger than the club, because you're letting him influence the season's result (and the higher prize money that comes with 2nd place). How is that respectful to the club, that needs the reputation of being successful and to show itself to be continuously in contention for silverware, to attract the sort of players that will help do that. In being so 'principled' about this, you can actually shoot yourself in the foot.

 

I would be up for dropping him today but he’s probably only our useful forward. No-one else wants to score goals. 

Difficult situation.

Some players would apologize and recognize they made a huge mistake and then go on from there.

Lukaku i feel is on the other side of the spectrum and may slap a transfer request on the table now in January if it happens. And it's not doubt we need his quality to finish this season.

13 hours ago, bluedave said:

Whatever he said is completely irrelevant to me, I'm not even interested enough to read further than the headlines. Football fans tend to be such ridiculously oversensitive cry-babies. If he trains well, gives 100% effort on match day, and hopefully scores goals, then he's doing all that I require from a Chelsea player. 

I really do wonder how much of the interview footage has been edited to add to the impact or come to that how or if the context was distorted deliberately what is beyond doubt that this was an interview wasn’t conducted in English nor was he playing due to his rehabilitation and of course going into his absence he had not scored in a while.

I read an interview the other day that was talking about the majority of players who think they are fit to play but the medical data backed up by training data proves that things like  the player is in the red zone or their oxygen levels aren’t quite there .

TT made reference the other day to Kante appeared to be fit but the science and evidence suggested otherwise and that was why TT went on to talk about players welfare.

But irrespective of all those factors let’s look at what, not how, he has supposedly said and for me I don’t quite see it any near as much an issue as  some seem to think it is.

It’s a hornets nest stirred up by Sky who love creating division 

I personally have far more of an issue regarding players who don’t sign new contracts when offered because there is no ambiguity at all in terms of their actions 

Edited January 2, 20224 yr by terraloon