Just now, evissy said:

Caicedo fits to our strategy very well in terms of experience, age, profile of player. IF our scouting and trainers have done due diligence and they are actually good at what they do, he fits our strategy very well. Time will tell.

Hopefully you are right. I personally have doubt on what we are doing. 

The squad building is a bit of a mess. But maybe it is the best route to increase Chelsea value which in the end what matter to our owner. 

2 hours ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Its funny because Rice is pretty much the exact same character as Lampard on the pitch who no one would have doubted his leadership qualities. 

Really? Lampard doesn't remotely look like someone who would throw his weight about for the sake of it, Lampard a bit like Reece came across as a leader by performance type character.

1 hour ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Meanwhile Rice has got 2 MOTM awards and a game winning goal against Utd in 4 games in a system more attacking than ours.

Funnily enough his best performance (Palace) was when Arsenal were playing a large chunk of the game playing backs to the wall and defending.

24 minutes ago, Argo said:

Really? Lampard doesn't remotely look like someone who would throw his weight about for the sake of it, Lampard a bit like Reece came across as a leader by performance type character.

Funnily enough his best performance (Palace) was when Arsenal were playing a large chunk of the game playing backs to the wall and defending.

When does Rice throw his weight round for the sake of it? Rice and Reece are very similar too tbf, well noticed.

Palace best performance? Hmm me thinks you don't actually watch much of him. Crazy that a defensive mid would look good while defending though. Good job he can contribute everywhere and give the team a security net to play their game. I don't want to sh*t on Caicedo as i think he has the tools to come good, but for the money Rice would have been a MUCH better fit for the team this season. 

1 hour ago, RIP Mourinho said:

When does Rice throw his weight round for the sake of it? Rice and Reece are very similar too tbf, well noticed.

Palace best performance? Hmm me thinks you don't actually watch much of him. Crazy that a defensive mid would look good while defending though. Good job he can contribute everywhere and give the team a security net to play their game. I don't want to sh*t on Caicedo as i think he has the tools to come good, but for the money Rice would have been a MUCH better fit for the team this season. 

If anyone genuinely believes we couldn't have got a similar or better player to Caicedo for cheaper, then that's just coping. I get it, we spent big bucks so you have to justify it somehow. 

It's not even sh*tting on Caicedo, I'm sure he will become a solid prem player over the years. It's just acknowledging reality. 

 

 

5 minutes ago, Remodez said:

If anyone genuinely believes we couldn't have got a similar or better player to Caicedo for cheaper, then that's just coping. I get it, we spent big bucks so you have to justify it somehow. 

It's not even sh*tting on Caicedo, I'm sure he will become a solid prem player over the years. It's just acknowledging reality. 

 

 

Who?

4 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Who?

Rice. 

Just now, Sconnie Blue said:

Who?

If you look back through the rumours post, maybe even earlier in this thread actually, I've always said Ugarte. Then when talks of us bidding almost 100m for Caicedo started I said we should just spend that on Rice instead. 

Problem being that Rice clearly said no to Chelsea even before we bid. And PSG outbid us for Ugarte. Other than that, who? We really needed to address the midfield and there weren’t many options available. Caicedo, for what I’ve seen, may not be a £100m player, but he’s the best that we could get. I have high hopes for Santos and Casadei from the preseason, but if we’d gone with them into the season the outrage in here would have been monumental.

3 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Rice. 

Same base fee as Caicedo, £100m. 

2 minutes ago, Remodez said:

If you look back through the rumours post, maybe even earlier in this thread actually, I've always said Ugarte. Then when talks of us bidding almost 100m for Caicedo started I said we should just spend that on Rice instead. 

Record Portugal said PSG were offering Ugarte £2.6m [€3million] more in salary per year than Chelsea. 

If you feel that Rice at £100m was a safer option then fairs. I always felt Caicedo has a higher ceiling than Rice and I'm not letting these recent performances skew my perception as it is easy to be so reactionary. 

2 minutes ago, RMH said:

Problem being that Rice clearly said no to Chelsea even before we bid. And PSG outbid us for Ugarte. Other than that, who? We really needed to address the midfield and there weren’t many options available. Caicedo, for what I’ve seen, may not be a £100m player, but he’s the best that we could get. I have high hopes for Santos and Casadei from the preseason, but if we’d gone with them into the season the outrage in here would have been monumental.

I don't remember Rice outright rejecting us but in regards to this, PSG did not outbid us. He had a release clause, that wasn't possible. Our offer was accepted, he was practically begging to join us but I believe we had a disagreement in wages so the deal collapsed then we ended up spending like twice as much on Caicedo in the end. 

3 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Same base fee as Caicedo, £100m. 

Record Portugal said PSG were offering Ugarte £2.6m [€3million] more in salary per year than Chelsea. 

If you feel that Rice at £100m was a safer option then fairs. I always felt Caicedo has a higher ceiling than Rice and I'm not letting these recent performances skew my perception as it is easy to be so reactionary. 

I read that too but it turned out to be false. Most sources report he is on around €3m to €3.5m, which when you think about it makes much more sense and given the lack of top DMs on the market is a wage we should have accepted. 

4 minutes ago, Remodez said:

I read that too but it turned out to be false. Most sources report he is on around €3m to €3.5m, which when you think about it makes much more sense and given the lack of top DMs on the market is a wage we should have accepted. 

If that is the case then we can only assume there was some truth to PSG exposing us to UEFA about using buying a stake in Sporting as leverage (considering the latest reports suggesting we still want to do this). 

Still, think if we got Ugarte we would still get Caicedo as it was always Caicedo + Ugarte/Lavia based on Romano's reports. 

Edited September 6, 20232 yr by Sconnie Blue

16 hours ago, abister1 said:

Oh well, not said anything like that. Just clarifying the point that was made in post to which I commented well said.

Except I missed the point myself, I think that's what was being said. 

Any number of people could have,the person said prime example and used him. That's a loaded example because of what he is supposed to signify to the club and what the club supposedly means to him. 

Anyway not an argument or reason to go back and forth, I thought I was being clear but maybe not.

No worries mate , thanks for your reply 

59 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Same base fee as Caicedo, £100m. 

Record Portugal said PSG were offering Ugarte £2.6m [€3million] more in salary per year than Chelsea. 

If you feel that Rice at £100m was a safer option then fairs. I always felt Caicedo has a higher ceiling than Rice and I'm not letting these recent performances skew my perception as it is easy to be so reactionary. 

We're apparently paying Caicedo double what Ugarte is earning.

38 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

We're apparently paying Caicedo double what Ugarte is earning.

Cacieado may turn out to be great. who knows and its a big IF! The record price we paid for him will forever be a burden of his shoulders and will put him under a lot of pressure to justify this amount to the world. I cant believe our scouts couldnt find any players who were just as good or better than what we had last year for much cheaper! Chelsea's fetish for all things Brighton could be its undoing.

14 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Paul merson has been going on about how much better a player Declan Rice is compared to Caicedo.

He's on drugs 

3 hours ago, Edjmendy said:

Cacieado may turn out to be great. who knows and its a big IF! The record price we paid for him will forever be a burden of his shoulders and will put him under a lot of pressure to justify this amount to the world. I cant believe our scouts couldnt find any players who were just as good or better than what we had last year for much cheaper! Chelsea's fetish for all things Brighton could be its undoing.

Nah, our scouts are just lazy and inept. Absolutely useless bunch, the lot of them.

 

Takes a strong minded player to be carry the 120M price tag. He knows everyone is watching, and probably need to do some special to prove his worth. He will get better . It also helps if he's playing in a settled team and system, we have neither this early in the season.

12 hours ago, The Rising Sun said:

He's on drugs 

As a youngster Merse was a big Chelsea fan. So was Mark Hughes.

At the moment I don't think there is much doubt that Rice has looked a far better player than Caicedo, and also much more of an on-pitch leader. Very much early days though.

If Caicedo doesn't work out we also have Lavia when he recovers from injury.

Give me Rice over Caicedo any day of the week. Should have just gone for him from the start.

I don't think it matters who's better or worse.

If I had a choice I would pick Rice over Caicedo because we have a young squad and Rice has been playing in this league for 4/5 seasons. You need some players to just come in and hit the ground running. It wouldn't surprise me if most clubs would sign Rice over Caicedo if the fees were the same, as the risk is far less with Rice even if Caicedo turns out to be a better player.

6 hours ago, just said:

As a youngster Merse was a big Chelsea fan. So was Mark Hughes.

At the moment I don't think there is much doubt that Rice has looked a far better player than Caicedo, and also much more of an on-pitch leader. Very much early days though.

If Caicedo doesn't work out we also have Lavia when he recovers from injury.

Merse is probably the only away player to get a standing ovation from Millwall fans when he was substituted in a 5-0 win at the Den when he played for Portsmouth 

No away fans allowed that day , but it must have been some performance to get that ovation.

 

Caceido has come from a team that plays in a completely different way to us..

It's going to take time surely 

8 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

Caceido has come from a team that plays in a completely different way to us..

It's going to take time surely 

That he has played less than two and a half games should enter into the equation. But, for some people, won't.

3 hours ago, The Rising Sun said:

Merse is probably the only away player to get a standing ovation from Millwall fans when he was substituted in a 5-0 win at the Den when he played for Portsmouth 

No away fans allowed that day , but it must have been some performance to get that ovation.