6 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

With no recognised CB's to partner Silva, then yeah i can easily see us having a cr@p season. I think that we were flattered last season with how poor the league was, but i think it will be much tougher this year

Even doing nothing, we still have Silva, Chalobah, Ampadu, Colwill and Sarr, and I reckon TT could get a good tune out of those 5 as the CB pool ... relatively inexperienced Silva aside, but I reckon they would step up (well maybe not Sarr LOL)

23 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Even doing nothing, we still have Silva, Chalobah, Ampadu, Colwill and Sarr, and I reckon TT could get a good tune out of those 5 as the CB pool ... relatively inexperienced Silva aside, but I reckon they would step up (well maybe not Sarr LOL)

At this point in time there is no guarantee the Ampadu or Colwill will even be in the squad for the coming season and Sarr is a shockingly poor footballer that we are saddled with because he is on 120k p/w

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

Plenty of opportunities for Broja, Gallagher, Colwill and Chalobah.

If we must make signings let's sign ones with hunger who won't mortgage us I wages, players like:

 

Mohammed Salisu and Jan Bendarek for CB

James Ward-Prowse and Moussa Djenepo for midfield

Tino Livramento and Kyle Walker-Peters for full back

What you think @Valerie ? Ambitious enough? 😉

That's warming my and @Munkworth 's heart. Do you think we can fit Mark Noble in there too? Not the same solid background I know, but still...

 

Who else we have been linked with is left and may end up elsewhere? I lost track.

 

1 hour ago, Sconnie Blue said:

@axman2526 really wants us to secure midtable for the seeable future. 😄

 

52 minutes ago, STATS said:

I was literally thinking the same thing 😄

7 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

At this point in time there is no guarantee the Ampadu or Colwill will even be in the squad for the coming season and Sarr is a shockingly poor footballer that we are saddled with because he is on 120k p/w

Agreed on Sarr.

If we don't sign any centre backs then they will all definitively be in the squad, unless TT suddenly decides he likes Matt Miazga LOL.

Still 39 players at the club as it stands (22 from last year's first team squad, plus 17 returnees from the loan army), but Miazga is the only other centre back.

53 minutes ago, STATS said:

Fair enough about the wages but tbh, his goal return each season warrants a high salary.

Also one of our problems last season was finishing teams off so for that reason I would say getting in a clinical winger is a necessity.

Thing is it is funny because people would advocate Mane ahead of signing yet in less appearances Sterling has outscored and made more assists than him over their respective careers at each club but I guarantee if we went after Mane, you probably would me more content with giving him £300k p/w right.

JWP is a good player but he doesn’t improve us. I wouldn’t necessarily say he creative also. Decent all round player and a free kick specialist but he doesn’t make any better.

Bowen had a brilliant season but I would be against signing him until I seen another season as playing for Chelsea is different to West Ham. 
 

Neto? Come on. Good potential but no way near the finished article and to say you would rather him than Sterling mindblows me honestly. He doesn’t score enough, had a serious injury and since returning he did not nail a consistent starting spot at Wolves.

Again I am not looking at the title now, and my priority would be rebuilding our core not wide forwards. Neto has good potential, so did Jota. Come to think of it so does Daniel Prodance, another good option.

18 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Again I am not looking at the title now, 

I'm with our old mate Yorkleyblue here: it's a good season when we're not relegated 

5 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Not happy with reports that he will earn more here than his 300k a week at City. That is asking for trouble with a player who relies on pace to be effective and started his top flight career at 17.

If we really offer him a contract with an wage increase on his current 300k a week City deal, that would make us seem like complete idiots without any financial sense or market awareness once again and that without Roman who was our financial muscle gone. Is there even any other club out there that would match his current wages?

Or does City offer him an extension on his current wages at all? To me it seems like he is a player City would be happy to let go, because like Pep said he just wants commited players and Sterling said in an interview that he thinks about a transfer if I remember right. Plus even with his good scoring stats, he is not a main man at City, nor is he based on his player profile a player with such an unique skillset, that City could not replace his output. I would even claim that it's probable that they replace him with a player who is a better stylistic fit for their system, if they even need to.

If Sterling wants to leave City, does he have any better option than come to us, based on the sporting metric? No other european top club really has the need for him, so it's highly unlikely that somebody would swoop in and offer him a 300k+ a week contract. The way I see it we would have the complete advantage over him in wage negotiations if we want to sign him, so there is no reason why we should panic on this transfer and offer him exorbitant wages.

If the rumored numbers are realistic, it would mean that we would make a transfer with an overall volume of 100m+(at least 40m fee possibly with add ons + 15m+ annual wages on a 4 or 5 year deal) for a low demand player. It would be like nobody in the club learned anything from the Lukaku debacle at all and we just repeat it without any damn sense.

3 minutes ago, Blue2 said:

If we really offer him a contract with an wage increase on his current 300k a week City deal, that would make us seem like complete idiots without any financial sense or market awareness once again and that without Roman who was our financial muscle gone. Is there even any other club out there that would match his current wages?

Or does City offer him an extension on his current wages at all? To me it seems like he is a player City would be happy to let go, because like Pep said he just wants commited players and Sterling said in an interview that he thinks about a transfer if I remember right. Plus even with his good scoring stats, he is not a main man at City, nor is he based on his player profile a player with such an unique skillset, that City could not replace his output. I would even claim that it's probable that they replace him with a player who is a better stylistic fit for their system, if they even need to.

If Sterling wants to leave City, does he have any better option than come to us, based on the sporting metric? No other european top club really has the need for him, so it's highly unlikely that somebody would swoop in and offer him a 300k+ a week contract. The way I see it we would have the complete advantage over him in wage negotiations if we want to sign him, so there is no reason why we should panic on this transfer and offer him exorbitant wages.

If the rumored numbers are realistic, it would mean that we would make a transfer with an overall volume of 100m+(at least 40m fee possibly with add ons + 15m+ annual wages on a 4 or 5 year deal) for a low demand player. It would be like nobody in the club learned anything from the Lukaku debacle at all and we just repeat it without any damn sense.

Exactly right. He is not worth that sort of money, neither was Lukaku. Only elite level players should be in that bracket.

Sterling should be a 35mill signing on 150k a week 4 year deal max, in case his pace goes sooner than expected. We plonk him on 350k on five years and his pace goes in 2 we are stuck with another player none else wants.

Edited July 4, 20224 yr by axman2526

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

Even doing nothing, we still have Silva, Chalobah, Ampadu, Colwill and Sarr, and I reckon TT could get a good tune out of those 5 as the CB pool ... relatively inexperienced Silva aside, but I reckon they would step up (well maybe not Sarr LOL)

This is desperation. Ampadu and Sarr are sh*t, Colwill is not ready from what I have seen of him at Forest and Chalobah is decent, but not good enough to be regular in a top 4 defence. 

Let's be realistic, we would be lucky to finish in the top 4 with that set of CB's. 

7 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

This is desperation. Ampadu and Sarr are sh*t, Colwill is not ready from what I have seen of him at Forest and Chalobah is decent, but not good enough to be regular in a top 4 defence. 

Let's be realistic, we would be lucky to finish in the top 4 with that set of CB's. 

Agree totally and the thing that seems to be overlooked is that TT is a winner. Mount is a winner. James is a winner. Winners aren't interested in developing over time. They develop whilst continuing to be successful. If you fill up the team with untried, developing youngsters, at the expense of seasoned quality pros, not only will we not challenge, but the real winners will go to clubs with ambition and the poor sods that do have talent and need to grow in an environemnt of seasoned quality players get totally burned by being exposed alongside players that aren't good enough.

Example. Colwill has talent and potential, but has done absolutely nothing yet at a premier league level let alone europe. Put Colwill alongside a cr@p player like Sarr and it could well be a harrowing and scarring experience for the lad.

14 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Exactly right. He is not worth that sort of money, neither was Lukaku. Only elite level players should be in that bracket.

Sterling should be a 35mill signing on 150k a week 4 year deal max, in case his pace goes sooner than expected. We plonk him on 350k on five years and his pace goes in 2 we are stuck with another player none else wants.

I really hope based on the experience Boehly has with running a sports team that he quickly develops an understanding of the football business, so that the times of us getting mugged on the transfer market are over. It would be absolutely baffling to see if the new owners make the same mistakes that we did with Marina in charge of our transfers.

I agree 35m with wages of 150k a week it could be worth a try eventhough I admit I don't want to see a player with such antics play for us at all. I mean his flopping is really embarassing and unsportsmanlike, he is probably one of the most shameless in that aspect too, so I would prefer to not see him denigrate the club with such behavior, but I could understand the transfer. But the rumored numbers are clearly to high for a player of his profile and he would have to massively overperform to be worth 350k a week for us.

5 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Exactly right. He is not worth that sort of money, neither was Lukaku. Only elite level players should be in that bracket.

Sterling should be a 35mill signing on 150k a week 4 year deal max, in case his pace goes sooner than expected. We plonk him on 350k on five years and his pace goes in 2 we are stuck with another player none else wants.

Well he isn’t taking a pay cut to move here, and probably shows how naive Boehly is if he expects a deal to be done at a lower wage. He’d rather see out the last year of his contract like Pogba did, deny City a transfer fee, and move on a free next season. That might mean signing somewhere on lower wages but he will make up the difference with a massive sign on fee.

As things stand pick a number between £310k/w-£400k/w. 

23 minutes ago, ducavis said:

Well he isn’t taking a pay cut to move here, and probably shows how naive Boehly is if he expects a deal to be done at a lower wage. He’d rather see out the last year of his contract like Pogba did, deny City a transfer fee, and move on a free next season. That might mean signing somewhere on lower wages but he will make up the difference with a massive sign on fee.

As things stand pick a number between £310k/w-£400k/w. 

Then we should walk away. In all Roman's years the only wages in that Brackett was the stupid Lukaku deal.

13 hours ago, Valerie said:

I'm with our old mate Yorkleyblue here: it's a good season when we're not relegated 

Where is Yorkleyblue - Not seen him around for a long time! He was always a voice of reason....except that time he disagreed with me! 😉

21 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

Even doing nothing, we still have Silva, Chalobah, Ampadu, Colwill and Sarr, and I reckon TT could get a good tune out of those 5 as the CB pool ... relatively inexperienced Silva aside, but I reckon they would step up (well maybe not Sarr LOL)

We might manage top 10. Siva apart, Chalobah is inconsistent, Ampadu not good enough, Sarr totally out of his depth. As for Colwill we could ruin is career if it all went Pete Tong, he's a prospect but will need very careful nurturing.

 

Edited July 5, 20224 yr by charierre

12 hours ago, charierre said:

We might manage top 10. Siva apart, Chalobah is inconsistent, Ampadu not good enough, Sarr totally out of his depth. As for Colwill we could ruin is career if it all went Pete Tong, he's a prospect but will need very careful nurturing.

 

People might joke about this but it's 100% true.

All this talk of gloom and doom if we don't sign anybody ... who have we lost ? As it stands, Christensen, Rudiger and Lukaku. Defensively, Christensen who was hardly playing, and Rudiger who was a regular. And up front Lukaku, who most agree is no loss whatsoever and whose absence will probably improve the performances of every other player in the squad by 5% on morale alone.

So we are one significant player down, think of it as Rudiger unavailable through injury if you like, and in that scenario I would back TT to bring someone else in (Ampadu, Colwill, Sarr,, whoever) and find a way to remain defensively resilient and difficult to beat.

Honestly don't understand why there is so much negativity. Our best XI still has 10 of the players from last year, a season in which we had an unprecedented level of injuries. illness and off-field distraction, and still finished 3rd, and were lady luck away from winning two domestic trophies and reaching at least the SF of the Champions League.

 

 

 

On 04/07/2022 at 21:48, Scott Harris said:

This is desperation. Ampadu and Sarr are sh*t, Colwill is not ready from what I have seen of him at Forest and Chalobah is decent, but not good enough to be regular in a top 4 defence. 

Let's be realistic, we would be lucky to finish in the top 4 with that set of CB's. 

Sarr is sh*t i agree.

Ampadu is a good player, who has been at plenty of sh*t teams. Having said that i think he suits the role in front of the defence where Jorginho plays more.

Colwill was at Huddersfield, not Forest. Unless you're talking about the play off final against Forest? Over the course of the season he had a similar season to Reece when he was at Wigan. Certainly think he needs to be chucked in at the deep end to see if the cream rises to the top as many are predicting it will. 

Chalobah is good enough, would be more than happy him starting next to De Ligt when Silva is unavailable. 

One signing for defence and we're sound.

4 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

All this talk of gloom and doom if we don't sign anybody ... who have we lost ? As it stands, Christensen, Rudiger and Lukaku. Defensively, Christensen who was hardly playing, and Rudiger who was a regular. And up front Lukaku, who most agree is no loss whatsoever and whose absence will probably improve the performances of every other player in the squad by 5% on morale alone.

So we are one significant player down, think of it as Rudiger unavailable through injury if you like, and in that scenario I would back TT to bring someone else in (Ampadu, Colwill, Sarr,, whoever) and find a way to remain defensively resilient and difficult to beat.

Honestly don't understand why there is so much negativity. Our best XI still has 10 of the players from last year, a season in which we had an unprecedented level of injuries. illness and off-field distraction, and still finished 3rd, and were lady luck away from winning two domestic trophies and reaching at least the SF of the Champions League.

 

 

 

Honestly, expecting us to bring in Ampadu, Colwill and Sarr to cover the likes of Christensen and Rudiger is naive. Colwill is a good prospect but I feel people are jumping the gun with him a little. There is a big jump from playing in the Championship to the Premiership with Chelsea. Ampadu was on loan at Venezia last season and rarely played CB and either way I would be losing it if we thought he was a good replacement/cover for Rudiger or Christensen. Sarr had decent couple games for us last season but also looked horrific in some too.

Lukaku was an awful signing but we defo need another winger/attacker to help cover the attacking loss there. Hopefully Sterling comes here soon.

The thing is now if we put Colwill in the team and he looks a bit weak or inexperienced at this level, people will turn on him. As of now, Christensen and Rudiger are streets ahead of all those names you named. Although Christensen missed a few games towards the end of season, he was a useful squad member. Remember at start of season he was keeping Silva our of the team and also he was good for when Silva needed rotating and will be the same this upcoming season. Silva cannot play every game and playing in the central part of our defence needs a leader and none of those names you mentioned yet have the effective quality as Silva because there all rookies at this level.

I don't like to get negative about transfers until the window is ended, but I can see why there is panic.

38 minutes ago, STATS said:

Honestly, expecting us to bring in Ampadu, Colwill and Sarr to cover the likes of Christensen and Rudiger is naive.

I'm not expecting us to do that ... what I am saying is that the absolute worst case scenario of all our targets falling through, and not bringing anybody in, is not as bad as some are making out.

I fully expect us to sign one, if not two centre backs, and it wouldn't surprise me either if we sell Gallagher and Broja, and send Colwill out on loan. 

Boehly is not going to do "nothing" after shelling out billions to buy the club. That would be stupid, and he doesn't strike me as a stupid person ... the exact opposite in fact.

5 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

I'm not expecting us to do that ... what I am saying is that the absolute worst case scenario of all our targets falling through, and not bringing anybody in, is not as bad as some are making out.

I fully expect us to sign one, if not two centre backs, and it wouldn't surprise me either if we sell Gallagher and Broja, and send Colwill out on loan. 

Boehly is not going to do "nothing" after shelling out billions to buy the club. That would be stupid, and he doesn't strike me as a stupid person ... the exact opposite in fact.

Yeah I would argue we could still make the top 4, worst scenario top 6 with our current players and a bit of luck.

I don't like how slow we are to wrap up these deals though, when we're linked with a vast number of players in multiple positions.

25 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

I'm not expecting us to do that ... what I am saying is that the absolute worst case scenario of all our targets falling through, and not bringing anybody in, is not as bad as some are making out.

I fully expect us to sign one, if not two centre backs, and it wouldn't surprise me either if we sell Gallagher and Broja, and send Colwill out on loan. 

Boehly is not going to do "nothing" after shelling out billions to buy the club. That would be stupid, and he doesn't strike me as a stupid person ... the exact opposite in fact.

My biggest worry is that. Boehly without much proof admittedly, strikes me as a man who doesn't care about the academy much and if it means selling our academy produced talents to fund other deals, he would. While I am intrigued to see where Gallagher fits in, selling him would send of wrong message. Same with Broja. But I can see why fans are worried as all our targets are rumoured to be interested in other teams and it is always best to have a early signing than a late signing so they can get integrated into the manager's ideas quickly.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/raheem-sterling-chelsea-transfer-man-city-b2116923.html

Out of everyone we've been linked to this is the deal I believe most likely to go through. Very likely it is £45m with £10m in add ons. The plan is to have this deal go through before we go to the US for our pre season tour.

Personally I believe this hasn't been done not because of personal terms, but because we're trying to get the Ake deal pushed through as well. Ideally having both join our pre season tour, it's being reported the Ake deal is further along than MDL. Makes sense since there's no competition for Ake as far as we know. City apparently want to recoup the £40m they paid for him so realistically we're looking at £75-80m for the two of then minimum.

Chelsea are down to the final details of a £45m move for Raheem Sterling, with the attacker expected to go on the pre-season tour to the United States. The deal is understood to be £45m with a potential of £10m in add-ons (via @MiguelDelaney) #CFC #MCFC

— ChelsTransfer (@ChelsTransfer) July 6, 2022