5 minutes ago, Argo said:

I said it largely in jest but the main point is the lesser players are always easier to get.

We could have shopped in the same market Arsenal and Spurs have been and had our business done by mid June.

They have done, and are doing, some good business to be fair. Gabriel J would have been a big upgrade on our number 9 options in my opinion, and both Spence and Zinchenko would have be good additions to the squad as well.

5 minutes ago, Argo said:

I said it largely in jest but the main point is the lesser players are always easier to get.

We could have shopped in the same market Arsenal and Spurs have been and had our business done by mid June.

Well said.. Spurs getting Djed Spence for a few that could add up to £19m is brilliant business. Bremer just signed for Juve for €40m also who was named Serie A defender of the season ahead of De Ligt & Koulibaly. Why are we not after these smart deals?

1 minute ago, axman2526 said:

They have done, and are doing, some good business to be fair. Gabriel J would have been a big upgrade on our number 9 options in my opinion, and both Spence and Zinchenko would have be good additions to the squad as well.

Yes to Gabriel Jesus but Zinchenko wants to play predominantly in midfield. If we bought Zinchenko, he'd be backup in both DM and LB/LWB. I don't think he'd want that

2 minutes ago, ducavis said:

Well said.. Spurs getting Djed Spence for a few that could add up to £19m is brilliant business. Bremer just signed for Juve for €40m also who was named Serie A defender of the season ahead of De Ligt & Koulibaly. Why are we not after these smart deals?

Aw man, I would have loved it if we signed Bremer. 

4 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

They have done, and are doing, some good business to be fair. Gabriel J would have been a big upgrade on our number 9 options in my opinion, and both Spence and Zinchenko would have be good additions to the squad as well.

All three are signed up to be first choice. For a team that wants to win the title they're squad players at best (as two have demonstrated for years now).

And for our style, Havertz is much more suitable than Jesus.

4 minutes ago, ducavis said:

Well said.. Spurs getting Djed Spence for a few that could add up to £19m is brilliant business.

He could have maybe worked if he was willing to be a back up to James. I mean we keep hearing how us going after Ake is/was proof we don't stand a chance of gazumping City but Spurs/Arsenal signing players that wouldn't get in our team and we're supposedly looking over our shoulders.

1 minute ago, Argo said:

All three are signed up to be first choice. For a team that wants to win the title they're squad players at best (as two have demonstrated for years now).

And for our style, Havertz is much more suitable than Jesus.

If Zinchenko can play well as a DM he has no competition to thar spot here, Spencer yes a back up.

Havertz is overrated based on his CL final winner imo. He is a lot like Hazard in attitude, but far less in quality. He is too laid back to make it as a top player and Gabriel J is such a better worker than Havertz.

Imo Havertz will go the way of Werner and be off back to Germany with Bayern or sunny Spain  at some point.

Game of poker going on here.

On sevilla side they don't care who gets him and hope Barca and ourselves get each other to bid the 65mill price.

On Barcas side they want to convince Kounde to do what Raphinha did, tell us his priority is Barca and allow them to negotiate a cheaper price, as they did with Raph.

From ours we are hoping Kounde retains his long standing interest to join us and will turn Barca down. Though given the difference between our offer of 55mill plus add ons I would not be surprised if we soon return with 60mill and add ons as reports say we started at 30mill plus add ons for Koulibaly and in the space of a day agreed on 32mill plus add ons.

3 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Sevilla have been a wretched club for us to deal with. Am not sure why they make it so easy for others like Spurs for Gil and Villa for the other CB they sold this window.

I kind of disagree here.

Last season Sevilla knew we were desperate, and they sought to maximise their fee, as any sane and well run club would.

This season, we have only now just returned to them with an opening offer, of less than what they have been asking from the start!

Absolute madness from us. By all reports, they have told us the price - 65m Euro.

We could have signed him for that last season.

We could have signed him for the 3 weeks ago. 

Do we not think that it would have made financial sense to just pay the 65m last season and have had him in our squad already...already settled and integrated?

No - Instead we piss around with penny pinching offers to try and save a couple of mill here and there. Madness!

Villa signed Carlos because they met Sevillas asking price. Fair play to them.

6 minutes ago, nonotnowjim said:

I kind of disagree here.

Last season Sevilla knew we were desperate, and they sought to maximise their fee, as any sane and well run club would.

This season, we have only now just returned to them with an opening offer, of less than what they have been asking from the start!

Absolute madness from us. By all reports, they have told us the price - 65m Euro.

We could have signed him for that last season.

We could have signed him for the 3 weeks ago. 

Do we not think that it would have made financial sense to just pay the 65m last season and have had him in our squad already...already settled and integrated?

No - Instead we piss around with penny pinching offers to try and save a couple of mill here and there. Madness!

Villa signed Carlos because they met Sevillas asking price. Fair play to them.

One of those things, just like Ake. If we met Cities price we sign him but they wanted over 50mill and so the deal stopped.

Now we are trying for Kounde, if the price is too high we will walk away. Cannot compared last season to this one, different owner and negotiation.

Kounde has 2 years left on his deal, if they don't sell now his value plummets. As Koulibaly did from 70mill last year United got quoted to 34mill signing for us.

Edited July 19, 20223 yr by axman2526

IMPORTANT: Sevilla and Chelsea are one step away from reaching an agreement for the transfer of Koundé. The figures are getting closer to what the SFC wants. 60+5. sport, a newspaper related to Barça, recognizes the agreement. The truth is that Barça never offered anything for Koundé.

1 hour ago, ducavis said:

Well said.. Spurs getting Djed Spence for a few that could add up to £19m is brilliant business. Bremer just signed for Juve for €40m also who was named Serie A defender of the season ahead of De Ligt & Koulibaly. Why are we not after these smart deals?

I suspect because we are bu88erign around for too long. We have been linked to this Nunes fella for about a month now. Nothing. Absolutely no movement whilst we pander to players who have no intention of coming here but are trying to use us as leverage. That Nunes will go somewhere else, I bet. If we went in with the fee wanted and got the deal done before anyone else had a chance then we wouldn't have anywhere nesar all of this angst and cr@p media coverage. The scousers let Mane give it the big un about wanting to go to Bayern, they then let him go and bang, signed up that Darwin fella immediately. Business done without any fuss. Us its got to be a bl00dy soap oopera.

13 minutes ago, JM7 said:

IMPORTANT: Sevilla and Chelsea are one step away from reaching an agreement for the transfer of Koundé. The figures are getting closer to what the SFC wants. 60+5. sport, a newspaper related to Barça, recognizes the agreement. The truth is that Barça never offered anything for Koundé.

Seeing how these fckers operate they will probably offer him an internship and he'll take it rather than come here

4 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

Seeing how these fckers operate they will probably offer him an internship and he'll take it rather than come here

That's fantastic!  I bet he has to pay for his own internship as well. 

33 minutes ago, nonotnowjim said:

I kind of disagree here.

Last season Sevilla knew we were desperate, and they sought to maximise their fee, as any sane and well run club would.

This season, we have only now just returned to them with an opening offer, of less than what they have been asking from the start!

Absolute madness from us. By all reports, they have told us the price - 65m Euro.

We could have signed him for that last season.

We could have signed him for the 3 weeks ago. 

Do we not think that it would have made financial sense to just pay the 65m last season and have had him in our squad already...already settled and integrated?

No - Instead we piss around with penny pinching offers to try and save a couple of mill here and there. Madness!

Villa signed Carlos because they met Sevillas asking price. Fair play to them.

Bang on. I have said elsewhere, find your target, go in hard and don't look back. We might bag the occasional turkey but fck me don't tell me the last operating model worked. We have only just binned off Drinkwater, can't get rid of Bakayoko, and still have numerous other elements of dross hanging around the place now. We should be trusting the manager and TB and get the deals done. By making a statement it generates respect in others dealing with us. By fannying around and incing our way alongit just seems to set the trend for anyone dealign with us.

Its only my opinion and you can never really tell with the out and out lies in the media but at the outset Dembele, Raphinha and De Ligt were all big on movign to us than as it inched its way along we then get a different story.

 

1 hour ago, JM7 said:

IMPORTANT: Sevilla and Chelsea are one step away from reaching an agreement for the transfer of Koundé. The figures are getting closer to what the SFC wants. 60+5. sport, a newspaper related to Barça, recognizes the agreement. The truth is that Barça never offered anything for Koundé.

We will pay what they want because we are in desperation mode. If we miss out on Kounde then we'll either pay 60 mill for Ake or go into the season with Silva, Koulibaly, Chalobah, Colwill and Ampadu as our defensive options. Won't be surprised if sevilla would want an extra 10-15 mill now. 

It's a self-inflicted mess as has become the norm with us.

Edited July 19, 20223 yr by Nick05

Just now, Nick05 said:

 Won't be surprised if sevilla would want an extra 10-15 mill now. 

That would be incredibly ironic given the whole reason we missed out on him last year is that we missed Sevilla's deadline to buy him because we wanted an extra 2 million for Zouma

I don't fancy De Ligt at all and I am thankful he has gone to Bayern. However the issue of Kounde has dragged on for so long and it does not  help the coach prepare his team for the season. I think it's better to make up our minds quickly whether we want the guy or not before other viable options disappear of the market. I don't know whethe4 the Claus's guy is any good but he would cost about 7 million around the same amount we paid for Dave. Why are we not looking at that option. Someone mentioned the Nunes guy we were reportedly linked to sometimes ago... We will wait until Man City show interest before we start running helter skelter. I still maintained ant Jesus and Sterling would have been very good for our team. But we twiddled our thumbs until Arsenal got him.  Pavard is reportedly available for 30m... I seems to remember he can play on both wings as a WB. Why not consider that option and save money to buy a Nunes or any good bloody attacking midfielder that can move the ball quicker to our attackers than the apologies we currently parade?

I believe we have a price we are prepared to pay for Kounde. If Sevilla wants more than that, cancel the transaction. Kounde is not the only RB in the world. They can sell him to Barca after or if forced to sell him for peanuts next year. Their loss.. 

The sun reporting done deal 55m

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/19252991/chelsea-agree-jules-kounde-transfer/?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=sunfootballtwitter&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1658252150

2 hours ago, axman2526 said:

 I would not be surprised if we soon return with 60mill and add ons as reports say we started at 30mill plus add ons for Koulibaly and in the space of a day agreed on 32mill plus add ons.

 

2 hours ago, JM7 said:

IMPORTANT: Sevilla and Chelsea are one step away from reaching an agreement for the transfer of Koundé. The figures are getting closer to what the SFC wants. 60+5. sport, a newspaper related to Barça, recognizes the agreement. The truth is that Barça never offered anything for Koundé.

They are saucing from my previous post then lol

Chelsea agree a £55million fee to sign Jules Kounde from Sevilla!

- @andydillon70

5 minutes ago, charierre said:

The sun reporting done deal 55m

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/19252991/chelsea-agree-jules-kounde-transfer/?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=sunfootballtwitter&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1658252150

Except I read it from @LongtimerLurker I shall not believe...

Just now, JM7 said:

Chelsea agree a £55million fee to sign Jules Kounde from Sevilla!

- @andydillon70

If it is pounds then it is what Sevilla wanted all along. If Euros they compromised.

3 minutes ago, JM7 said:

Chelsea agree a £55million fee to sign Jules Kounde from Sevilla!

- @andydillon70

Should have kept it silent. I hear Barcelona are on the way with their Monopoly money.

Apparently both Kounde and his agent have been on at Sevilla insisting the make a deal with us ASAP. Kounde very determined to have the opportunity to learn from Koulibaly and Silva.