4 minutes ago, timetowaste said:

Won't happen but I'd love it if Barca lowball them to the point Monchi just keeps him for another season.

Its just another form of cheating tbh

They want their cake and want to eat it

joke city

Good that we have moved on, Its not just barca tbf, Everything from the player to his club to his people

FC Farcelona pfft

€40m is proper lowball. Sevilla deserve what they get. 

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

Some out there are saying we officially told Sevilla we are no longer interested after the delays and are moving on to other targets.

That’s more like it. We need to be in control at all times, if it’s taking too long, get f*cked.

I still think we have waited too long though. Need to be more bullish and nasty.

Which other options are out there for CB? 

Kounde, Raphinha De Ligt; it’s almost as if we aren’t owned by a multi billionaire any more.

Just now, enigma said:

Which other options are out there for CB? 

Where’s Papy Djilobidji these days?

So, to re-cap.  Sevilla accepted the bid from Chelsea and Chelsea were waiting for?  The paperwork, agreement with the player, clearance, work permit…

And then, the media, led by Barca PR began a campaign.  To achieve what?  Someone at Barcelona put Kounde's name on their available shirt options on their megastore before taking it down quickly. lol. Seriously. wtf. Mind boggling. 

Has Barcelona actually made a bid for Kounde? Has a journalist even asked them that?

16 minutes ago, Snedger said:

Kounde, Raphinha De Ligt; it’s almost as if we aren’t owned by a multi billionaire any more.

Boehly is a pauper.

His Daddy at clearlake needs to give him the purse strings in the last few weeks of the window.

Chelsea no longer trying to sign Jules Kounde.

- @relevo

#Sevilla will not lower its claims for Kounde, which are high, but not as much as has been published. Sevilla has never had an offer of more than €55m, neither from #Chelsea nor from any other club, either now or before. That is why it remains firm. (via @muchodeportecom) #FCB

 

I wonder if it’s tactics to apply pressure. 

1 hour ago, Snedger said:

Where’s Papy Djilobidji these days?

Matt Miazga, Michael Hector... come on down

6 minutes ago, Backbiter said:

Matt Miazga, Michael Hector... come on down

So at the end of the day, Sevilla wanted more money and we refused to pay, Barca may pay more but so far they haven't made a bid. They want see an acceptable bid and match it, and win the player over with their usual charm offence. Good luck to them, we just need to move on quickly and keep it on the low side. The new Owner is mindful of expenses, don't mind that, the club is a business, no longer a hobby for Roman.

2 hours ago, enigma said:

Which other options are out there for CB? 

Quite a few who should have on our initial consideration, doubt we are looking them though. Fully expect us to get our pants pulled down chasing after Ake, Pavard or Kimpembe.

off my head; Bastoni, Pau Torres, Badiashile, Boubacar Kamara, Tapsoba, Andersen, Guehi, Lacroix, Loic Bade, Gvardiol. Quite a few under the radar there, but stats do stack up.

45 minutes ago, ducavis said:

Quite a few who should have on our initial consideration, doubt we are looking them though. Fully expect us to get our pants pulled down chasing after Ake, Pavard or Kimpembe.

off my head; Bastoni, Pau Torres, Badiashile, Boubacar Kamara, Tapsoba, Andersen, Guehi, Lacroix, Loic Bade, Gvardiol. Quite a few under the radar there, but stats do stack up.

I mean I'm sure Tuchel has targets in mind, but we haven't heard of any apart from Kounde and Kimpembe, oh and Koulibaly who we got. 

5 hours ago, Chelsbear said:

What a shambles of a window this has been. Slapped about by a club heavily in debt and can't move any of the deadwood on.

CL football next season will be a pipe dream.

As frustrating as this has been we have still got two absolute bonafide upgrades to our starting Xl plus a PL proven midfielder back from loan (who would have cost upwards of £60m if Palace owned him).

If we end up outside top 4 Tuchel will be sacked and rightly so.

50 minutes ago, Argo said:

As frustrating as this has been we have still got two absolute bonafide upgrades to our starting Xl plus a PL proven midfielder back from loan (who would have cost upwards of £60m if Palace owned him).

If we end up outside top 4 Tuchel will be sacked and rightly so.

I think we have made some great signings this summer and we can expect 3 or 4 more. I think the timing is a little off, in that we should have secured more of our signings before pre-season, but we were unable to do so, because,  Roman is a naughty Russian and we had to sell the club and so the timing is a little off but that is not the fault of our new folks in charge nor is it the fault of Tuchel.  I hope we finish top four - it is going to be tougher than last year as Spurs, Arsenal and Man U have really upped their game. There are going to be 6 good teams after 4 spots.  That is why this league is the best.  And players who don't want to play in the best league, are not the best players.  Bayern Munich will win the league in Germany.  Yawn.  PSG will be French Champions.  Snooze. The league in Spain will be won by Real Madrid, maybe Barca. And so forth. . .and so on.  I think Tuchel might be my fave Chelsea manager. I hope we keep him a little longer than most.

Something very shady going on at Barcelona

12 minutes ago, TomCFC85 said:

Something very shady going on at Barcelona

Do you think?  1.5 billion in debt and failing to pay wages amounting to 150 million. Taking out loans against future prosperity. And Spending 400-600 million on new players.  Calling all this bullsh*t "pulling a lever" to get more cash.  Totally NOT in line with Financial Fair Play and totally corrupt and really they have been doing this for the last 40 years.  You think, you think they might be shady. . .

Edited July 26, 20223 yr by TheCeleryKing

Telegraph states they are banking on the Super League happening in 1-2 years. 
 

If not, they are f**ked. 

14 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Telegraph states they are banking on the Super League happening in 1-2 years. 
 

If not, they are f**ked. 

Don't see how it can. The PL clubs signed saying they would not join. Without us there is no super league. Just Barca, Real and maybe Bayern of they can talk them in to it, and a bunch of other clubs few people care about.

19 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Telegraph states they are banking on the Super League happening in 1-2 years. 
 

If not, they are f**ked. 

100% they will try for it again. They were unhappy when it didn't happen last time and threatened all those who backed out with legal action. They have just sold off 25% of their future TV rights for the next couple of decades. When you factor in inflation etc. that is a huge amount of money to gamble on short term success. The only way they can get away with it is to create a whole new source of money via a closed super league for all the 'big' teams.

Each of our target misses if they were misses that is Raphina, Dembele, Kounde and De Ligt can be explained away individually and pretty easily. Collectively though they look like a stuff up. If these guys were never going to come  why didn't we pick some targets that would be interested?

Tuchel is 100% correct, in my opinion, when he says that part of Chelsea's problem in preseason is a lot of unhappy players, players that aren't motivated for one reason or another. And its no good saying they are professionals and paid a lot of money. That's true but doesn't alter the fact they are unmotivated. And nor will just cracking the whip do it. You have to give them a reason to believe.

And as much as Barcelona are mortgaging their future you can also argue that if they get Kounde they will have put together quite a good, if unbalanced team.

Our job is not to complain about the ref, not to complain about what everyone else is doing good or bad. Our job is to build a team capable of winning the PL.
 

As everyone knows that requires scoring probably 2 goals a game while conceding about 1 goal a game.

We need a minimum of one more class defender preferably right footed, one goal scorer and maybe not this window we also  need to replace Kante and then Jorginho. There are some junior burgers that can maybe do something, the likes of Broja and Gallagher and even Vale at left back and maybe Colwill but put all those names in at once and we'd be lucky to finish mid table.

if we aren't going to buy more attackers then we'd better find some way to get more out of the ones we've got. And that might need a pretty good coach. 

So there is every reason to be nervous right now.

10 hours ago, Gol15 said:

Man City did have that reaction towards Napoli after we got Jorginho. This has nothing to do with the other club which in this case is Barcelona, it’s about Sevilla being super bad towards us and basically playing with our bids while preferring to sell their top rated defender to a La Liga rival.

This transfer with a normal club would have been done already, I have no reason to compare us to Barcelona but how Monchi acted throughout multiple transfer windows is a clear indication that we shouldn’t even be in contact with that club and that wouldn’t be an overreaction at all.

We obviously can't know what's in the minds of Savilla's board but I reckon it's a reasonable guess that they just want the best fee for their 'asset'. One way to achieve that is to play bidders off against each other. There's nothing new under the sun.

12 hours ago, Fatty_Speeding said:

I really hate this defeatism. Was there was not a time in recent history when Tottenham held far greater pull for players than Liverpool?

We should never just accept our place feeding off the scraps under the big boys' table. No pecking order is permanent.

Not defeatism, geography. It's easy to know where you want to get to but you'll struggle to find your way there unless you start by knowing where you are. Where we want to be is ahead of Barcelona. Where we are now is decisively behind them in terms of our status as a destination for top players. We are not going to close that gap by pretending we can win transfer tussles with the Catalans currently.

I made my point to argue against the feeling being expressed around Chelsea fans' forums that the club has been humiliated by losing transfer battles to Barcelona. That's simply not the case because it's perfectly natural for players to prefer Barca over almost any other club.

You are right that clubs do slide up and down the rankings, as I've referred to here and elsewhere, but the mechanisms of football entrench advantages for some clubs. Todd Boehly calls it 'structural advantage'. He said the fact that we hold some structural advantages over other clubs is one of the main reasons his group bought Chelsea. Well Barcelona hold some advantages over us and Liverpool hold some over Spurs. It is definitely possible for Spurs to outrank Pool in the short term, but it's harder for them to sustain it over the long term.

It's all very well saying we don't accept feeding off the scarps under the big boys table but what does that mean in practical terms? Buying a ticket to watch Raphinha's Barca debut and holding up a banner saying 'we don't accept this'? You say don't accept it, but accept is the wrong word. We don't have to like the situation but we do have to recognise the reality of it. At least we have to do that if we are ever going to do something about it instead of just shaking our fists at the world. 

Let's; build a better team made up of players we can actually sign instead of daydreaming about ones we can't, flip our reputation for playing dull often ineffective football, and build a new stadium. That's how we start the journey to where you, and I, want us to be.

Edited July 26, 20223 yr by OhForAGreavsie

I really do hope we get a sporting director soon. Even though I like Boehly, I do think we are missing a bit of Marina's negotiating this summer. I could careless if we got Raphina or not but I feel like if Marina was the one negotiating that transfer, given her cutthroat nature, she probably would have forced his hand to choose between us or barca right after the fee was agreed with Leeds rather than give him the time to make a decision based on whether barca can conjure money or not. We are now making the same mistake with Kounde and allowing Sevilla to hold us hostage.