29 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

You see that @Valerie?! I pay him genuine, heartfelt compliments and look what I get in return...

Edited July 6, 20224 yr by axman2526

2 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

You see that @Valerie?! I pay him genuine, heartfelt compliments and look what I get in return...

Oh @axman2526, @Munkworth is just trying to hide his affection for you. Just like you're trying to hide your excitement for Sterling. I see through both of you!

Just now, Valerie said:

Oh @axman2526, @Munkworth is just trying to hide his affection for you. Just like you're trying to hide your excitement for Sterling. I see through both of you!

If Sterling signs it's only fair we bring @yorkleyblue back. He's only ever had the sweetest things to say about him 😅

@Mod @coco What's it gonna take?

1 minute ago, Amputechture said:

If Sterling signs it's only fair we bring @yorkleyblue back. He's only ever had the sweetest things to say about him 😅

@Mod @coco What's it gonna take?

 

6 minutes ago, coco said:

 

21 minutes ago, Valerie said:

Oh @axman2526, @Munkworth is just trying to hide his affection for you. Just like you're trying to hide your excitement for Sterling. I see through both of you!

Well the first part of your reply made me feel much better.

However seeing the second part brought me back down...

3 minutes ago, Amputechture said:

I think we would have to pay him more than that to get him back on here, the guys got principles as we all know.

The moment I saw this I knew it was over, agent Mount 😎

16 minutes ago, coco said:

I think we would have to pay him more than that to get him back on here, the guys got principles as we all know.

He does? 

 

Oh right, yes, of course 😎 

@coco is right, the good ship Yorkleyblue has sailed, I think.

 

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

You see that @Valerie?! I pay him genuine, heartfelt compliments and look what I get in return...

This is getting done real soon, until another European elite decide to approach his agent in the last hour 😁 He's been playing a possession based teams for years, breaking down bus every weekend. Compares to someone like Werner, the adjustment should be minimal.

Welcome the Chelsea Raheem, glad to have you on board. 

 

Also very glad i wont have to watch Werner attempt to play football every week end now.

26 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

@Valerie now I see why @CaitlinCFC calls him a bully...

3 hours ago, HazardousChoice said:

In what way is he overpriced?

45m for a world class premier league proven player in his prime who's scored over 100 PL goals in our weakest position.

We paid more for Pulisic who couldn't buy a goal or even get a game in a weaker league.

Sterling is the most exciting signing we've made in a long time and a big upgrade for us.

I tried to explain it on page 15 of this thread, why it would be financially stupid to sign Sterling on the reported numbers. I mean if we look at them:

- 45m fee + 10m add ons

- 15-18m wages annual on a 4 or 5 year contract

- maybe a signing and agents fee too?

So that would mean that this transfer package would cost at least 105m, maybe up to 145m (without agents or signing fee), if we sign him on a five year contract.

We could commit up to estimated 150m on a transfer for a player, that has a contract until next year at his present club, where he is not even a main player, that has a high milage for his age, that is not really an elite level player and on low demand, so no other club would make this transfer at this volume.

His main position is LW/LA where we have with Werner, Pulisic and CHO three players already on the books, who are overpaid and on low demand because of the wages they get from us. Pulisic and Werner are profilewise players with similar strenghts to Sterling even if on a lower level, but you have to consider that Sterling played the last 7 years at the club with the most dominant system, which could have inflated his stats, so there is quite the possibility that he fails to replicate that here.

Then there is the fact that we would help ManCity, the team we want to catch in the league, financially.

In addition to that there are more than enough players out there we could try to go for, who we could get on lower transfer packages.

- Memphis Depay for example, Barca want him gone, he has a contract until 2023, Barca even has interest in Azpilicueta and Alonso from us, so we could try to negotiate a player swap and even if not, we could probably get him for 20m+lower wages.

- Nkunku (not this season) but he is rumored to have release clause of 60m 2023. He had an extremely impressive season and if he can repeat that next season, we should try to sign him next summer anyway in my opinion.

- Luis Sinisterra had a great scoring season at Feyenoord 23 goals and 14 assists in 49 matches, yes it was just the dutch league and UEL, but profilewise in my opinion he kinda looks like a younger version of Luis Diaz and is just 23. He would probably cost half of Sterlings fee and not even a fourth of his wages(oh I see that Leeds is about to sign him for 25m€).

I could name other players who could be worth a gamble, but I don't think it is necessary to further the point.

 

I accept that the Sterling transfer will happen, but I find it underwhelming. If he improves us that much that we can challenge for the league or contributes significantly to us winning titles, I would be happy about it and give him his credit, but honestly I am more excited to find out who of our youth is given the chance to be in the squad next season and if they can establish themselves. With the lack of pull we seem to have on the market presently, it is in my opinion really important to try to strenghten from within as much as we can, because this overspending on almost every transfer sometimes completely unnecessary most likely won't improve us at all.

 

 

17 minutes ago, Blue2 said:

His main position is LW/LA where we have with Werner, Pulisic and CHO three players already on the books,

Werner is good vs high lines but not so much against packed defenses, CHO is better on the right (due to his natural chemistry with James) and Pulisic has been an Iwobi tribute act for the past two years.

Edited July 6, 20224 yr by Argo

7 minutes ago, Blue2 said:

I tried to explain it on page 15 of this thread, why it would be financially stupid to sign Sterling on the reported numbers. I mean if we look at them:

- 45m fee + 10m add ons

- 15-18m wages annual on a 4 or 5 year contract

- maybe a signing and agents fee too?

So that would mean that this transfer package would cost at least 105m, maybe up to 145m (without agents or signing fee), if we sign him on a five year contract.

We could commit up to estimated 150m on a transfer for a player, that has a contract until next year at his present club, where he is not even a main player, that has a high milage for his age, that is not really an elite level player and on low demand, so no other club would make this transfer at this volume.

His main position is LW/LA where we have with Werner, Pulisic and CHO three players already on the books, who are overpaid and on low demand because of the wages they get from us. Pulisic and Werner are profilewise players with similar strenghts to Sterling even if on a lower level, but you have to consider that Sterling played the last 7 years at the club with the most dominant system, which could have inflated his stats, so there is quite the possibility that he fails to replicate that here.

Then there is the fact that we would help ManCity, the team we want to catch in the league, financially.

In addition to that there are more than enough players out there we could try to go for, who we could get on lower transfer packages.

- Memphis Depay for example, Barca want him gone, he has a contract until 2023, Barca even has interest in Azpilicueta and Alonso from us, so we could try to negotiate a player swap and even if not, we could probably get him for 20m+lower wages.

- Nkunku (not this season) but he is rumored to have release clause of 60m 2023. He had an extremely impressive season and if he can repeat that next season, we should try to sign him next summer anyway in my opinion.

- Luis Sinisterra had a great scoring season at Feyenoord 23 goals and 14 assists in 49 matches, yes it was just the dutch league and UEL, but profilewise in my opinion he kinda looks like a younger version of Luis Diaz and is just 23. He would probably cost half of Sterlings fee and not even a fourth of his wages(oh I see that Leeds is about to sign him for 25m€).

I could name other players who could be worth a gamble, but I don't think it is necessary to further the point.

 

I accept that the Sterling transfer will happen, but I find it underwhelming. If he improves us that much that we can challenge for the league or contributes significantly to us winning titles, I would be happy about it and give him his credit, but honestly I am more excited to find out who of our youth is given the chance to be in the squad next season and if they can establish themselves. With the lack of pull we seem to have on the market presently, it is in my opinion really important to try to strenghten from within as much as we can, because this overspending on almost every transfer sometimes completely unnecessary most likely won't improve us at all.

I'll try my best mate to ease some of your concerns. Firstly the money being talked about in terms of wage is irrelevant since firstly it's not out money. Secondly he's already on that or around that at City which means they believe he's worth that wage (even if we're giving him a slight bumper on that if that's even true). 

This is a full international at the age of 27 who is one goal from breaking into the top 25 goalscorers in prem history and he's not even a striker. I'll put up some stats in an attachment, but despite his goalscoring exploits he's also a very good playmaker and dribbler. 

The same argument some would use against him to undermine his goalscoring record I see as a pro not a con. The fact that he scores lots of goals for Liverpool and City. Somehow meaning his goals aren't worth as much or that it should be regarded as easier to do that misses the point. Lukaku scored loads of goals for WBA and Everton, but couldn't consistently do it at Man U or for us. I'd rather have a player who scores for the big clubs in the big games. 

I wouldn't compare him to Werner or Pulisic, him and Timo are different players even if they can occupy similar positions. Compared to Pulisic he is everything we want Pulisic to become, a wonder kid who took that step up in consistency. You would also like to think, he can be good role model for Puli and CHO specifically since they play in that type of position.

Helping City fund their transfer business is irrelevant since as Arsenal proved teams will buy of City anyway. Why? Because they have elite players, clubs should always try and buy from clubs better than them. Especially if the players they're trying to sign will instantly improve their team and squad. 

Finally to avoid making this post too long winded, regarding other potential transfer targets in similar positions you mentioned instead of Raheem. The main reason he has been targeted and Raphina also, is familiarity to the league. Recently we've signed many attackers from foreign leagues that have struggled to adapt to this league.

It was reported CFC wanted to change their recruitment approach under Boehly and TT this summer. Specifically in terms of targeting more players in the same league who will presumably take less time to adapt because they know the league, in theory we already can expect a similar output in terms of performance. This is something we have seen other big teams do successfully, City, Liverpool, Bayern, Juve to name some.

Good signing and he is going to do well here.  Quote me on that.

I predict that he could well be closely followed by Ake.   dont see de Ligt happening, tbh

@LongtimerLurker it was not the Barca fans money either, yet I bet their fans are worried where they are now.

18 minutes ago, Argo said:

Werner is good vs high lines but not so much against packed defenses, CHO is better on the right (due to his natural chemistry with James) and Pulisic has been an Iwobi tribute act for the past two years.

We still have all three on our books and if Sterling comes in on his exorbitant wages, we would have wagecosts of 40+m on just one position in our system.

I am not sure if Sterling complements one of the other three on the pitch either, so we probably would have to sell two of them and who will even want to pay them the wages they would earn here? CHO i could see having suitors, but I think he is the one with the best overall potential of the three, if he just could activate that, so I would prefer to keep him or maybe give him a loan, because I think there is still hope for him.

I think CHO's main position in the academy was leftsided winger/attacker and chemistry with James aside, I think he prefers the left side too.

@LongtimerLurker could you post his "fell over without being touched" stats? I am trying to work out the increased number of penalty shouts we won't get next year.

The upside to this, (as already mentioned by others), is it should keep Werner off the Stamford Bridge grass, but also another plus is Liverpool will hate us even more. The mental image of our next cup final once more going to spot kicks against them and Raheem slotting home the winning penno is slightly arousing.

one thing i learned from lukaku is that stats are only part of the story, and probably the second part. Sterling, leaving aside future injuries is relatively low risk it seems to me. He has played for two of the top sides in the PL all his career and succeeded at both and starts regularly for England. He has been relatively injury free and fitted into without too much trouble to the clubs he has played for.

We know what we are getting and he will likely perform at a similar level for at least a couple of seasons.

When we buy some fancy fancy from europe it may be brilliant or like what his name at arsenal a big flop. 

this is a boring professional  signing and likely to produce a professional outcome helping chelsea achieve the success we all crave but not doing much for the shock of the new factor

Since he is coming can we please get shot of Werner and one or both of Ziyech and Pulisic please.

Not sure if taking Man City's cast-off is the route to becoming better than Man City.  

That said his goal contributions speak for themselves and his consistency should bring us closer.