3 hours ago, bisright1 said:

Top 4. Provided we sign a decent centre back, a decent central midfielder and don't lose any quality, Alonso can get this lot comfortably in top 4. Our best attacking players have had the summer off. Our best centre back is fully fit.

Liverpool and City have awful managers. United are doing nothing meaningful in the transfer window and have champions league football, whilst Tottenham are reliant on a bunch of new signings all clicking under a manager who has always failed to convince me.

Arsenal should run away with the title. We should be best of the rest considering no European football

This is dependent on us signing Lacroix and Wharton. Which I assume is going to happen.

Wharton isn’t happening.

Behind on news today. Disappointed to read this - never really got his chance but can see us regretting this one. Could think of 8-10 players to sell ahead of Santos, although that doesn’t mean that isn’t also happening.

Just have to get used to it. BlueCo player trading model is going nowhere.

1 hour ago, PhilH930 said:

Behind on news today. Disappointed to read this - never really got his chance but can see us regretting this one. Could think of 8-10 players to sell ahead of Santos, although that doesn’t mean that isn’t also happening.

Just have to get used to it. BlueCo player trading model is going nowhere.

Quite strange his entire time at Chelsea.. but in this market this looks cheap.. we signed bloody gittens and had are pants pulled down for 60 mil.. all due to gross mid management by this mob … if these fools had used some sanity and we had a decent sponsor and a decent left side we would not be here ..the circus continues.

8 hours ago, bisright1 said:

.

We signed a guy for £10m. He didn't excel. We sold him for £50m

He's proving the model, not disproving it.

We signed 3 midfielders for £77m (Lavia, Santos, Essugo). Two were completely useless, one was half decent. We sold him to offset the cost of the duds we're stuck with.

7 hours ago, bisright1 said:

Top 4. Provided we sign a decent centre back, a decent central midfielder and don't lose any quality, Alonso can get this lot comfortably in top 4. Our best attacking players have had the summer off. Our best centre back is fully fit.

Liverpool and City have awful managers. United are doing nothing meaningful in the transfer window and have champions league football, whilst Tottenham are reliant on a bunch of new signings all clicking under a manager who has always failed to convince me.

Arsenal should run away with the title. We should be best of the rest considering no European football

This is dependent on us signing Lacroix and Wharton. Which I assume is going to happen.

What makes you assume Wharton and Lacroix will happen. We haven't even made a bid for them have we?

9 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

What makes you assume Wharton and Lacroix will happen. We haven't even made a bid for them have we?

I think lacroix will happen but not wharton

Based on his time here, he's decent, not great not poor overall, can't really say it's outright a bad business because 50mils is also decent for just decent player.

6 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

Behind on news today. Disappointed to read this - never really got his chance but can see us regretting this one. Could think of 8-10 players to sell ahead of Santos, although that doesn’t mean that isn’t also happening.

Just have to get used to it. BlueCo player trading model is going nowhere.

Yeah, same.

I liked Santos as he looked decent at times but then also had games where he looked average and had a habit of switching off and losing his man. But as you say, we have a whole load of deadwood we need to get rid of before Santos, but then getting rid of said deadwood is probably easier said than done.

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by Nibs

3 hours ago, WhiteWall said:

What makes you assume Wharton and Lacroix will happen. We haven't even made a bid for them have we?

We don't get told what happens until it happens. But there's enough noise about Lacroix and Wharton for me, no one else is getting them.

Yet another crap decision by the sporting directors.

11 hours ago, Dubair said:

A 8 min highlight video isn’t going to sway me in 2026. He could barely get on the pitch under Maresca, I recall one good game against Burnley.

He’d a quick upturn under Rosenior which faded just as quick and then spent the rest of the season rotating between the bench and middling performances.

In an ideal world, he’d be given another season but I do think money constraints means they can’t turn a decent fee for someone who didn’t show too much.

Not getting on the pitch under Maresca shows that he is actually a good footballer. Maresca was allergic to talent.

35 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

We don't get told what happens until it happens. But there's enough noise about Lacroix and Wharton for me, no one else is getting them.

It's going to be hard to get Palace to sell two of their key players. They're a selling club, but they are smart about it. They let one go and usually wait until the next season before they let the other go. They didn't want to sell Guehi, but had no choice because his contract was going to be up at the end of the season.

3 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

It's going to be hard to get Palace to sell two of their key players. They're a selling club, but they are smart about it. They let one go and usually wait until the next season before they let the other go. They didn't want to sell Guehi, but had no choice because his contract was going to be up at the end of the season.

With Santos gone, I would rather we get Wharton then Lacroix. Honestly think Wharton would be an upgrade on Santos and he is just the sort of midfielder we are crying out for.

8 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

Just have to get used to it. BlueCo player trading model is going nowhere.

This is the thing, they admitted very early on that they like the idea of trading players.

I reckon even if we had just won the league they would still trade players just for the hell of it - and end up making us worse after the transfer window shuts.

Doulbe post

Edited 9 hours ago9 hr by 2211

2 hours ago, Nibs said:

Yeah, same.

I liked Santos as he looked decent at times but then also had games where he looked average and had a habit of switching off and losing his man. But as you say, we have a whole load of deadwood we need to get rid of before Santos, but then getting rid of said deadwood is probably easier said than done.

The thing is for me is not so much we are losing the greatest prospect the world has ever seen but he has looked decent.

Strenghtening a "rival" (loose term considering where both teams finished last season) for a relatively low fee compared to what other Premier League teams nowadays sell for isn't smart business IMO.

Worse than that is we have sold our only reliably fit midfielder leaving us with Ussugo and Lavia.

So now we are a Caicedo injury or suspension away from having to use Reece James in midfield, and lets be honest he is frequently injured as well.

We are so finished.

32 minutes ago, GarnachoCheese said:

We are so finished.

He asked to leave because he knew he wasnt going to start next season and United told him he would.

He's going to be their next Fred.

2 hours ago, bisright1 said:

We don't get told what happens until it happens. But there's enough noise about Lacroix and Wharton for me, no one else is getting them.

Thing with Wharton is there is no incentive to coming to Chelsea. He is already in London, Palace can give him the £150k/w he will get here, they have Europa league next season, and most importantly he isn’t tied into a ridiculous 6yr contract if he wants out.

12 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

He asked to leave because he knew he wasnt going to start next season and United told him he would.

He's going to be their next Fred.

There's a blast from the past. What happened to him?

10 minutes ago, dermott said:

There's a blast from the past. What happened to him?

Rod and Jane are still kicking about not so much Freddy

1 hour ago, GarnachoCheese said:

Not getting on the pitch under Maresca shows that he is actually a good footballer. Maresca was allergic to talent.

It’s a recurring theme with him though. 3 Chelsea managers didn’t really fancy him + the sporting directors.

He was very young but he got 2 games in a half season at Forrest and couldn’t get into a poor Brazil midfield even as a squad member.

I don’t think he was useless but nothing to suggest to me, he’s going to amount to a quality player either. Main concern is who he is replaced with or is he replaced at all.

12 minutes ago, markpitts said:

Thing with Wharton is there is no incentive to coming to Chelsea. He is already in London, Palace can give him the £150k/w he will get here, they have Europa league next season, and most importantly he isn’t tied into a ridiculous 6yr contract if he wants out.

Palace , because of their participation in the EL, can not exceed 70% of income in squad costs.

Their wage bill in 2024/25 was &145 m and amortisation £53 m . There total income was £195 m.

Ok things have changed since 30/6/25 for instance the allowable sum is down 10%, they sold a couple of high value players but they also signed some high value ones as well

I very much doubt that they can realistically increase their squad costs by much if at all and If I had to guess it would be that they are going to have to sell one maybe even two players

Re Wharton he still has three years left on a deal with reported wages of £35k a week.

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by terraloon

Santos' biggest problem with us is that Eghbali didn't pay £107m for him.

If he had, he'd be in the team for every game !

56 minutes ago, markpitts said:

Thing with Wharton is there is no incentive to coming to Chelsea. He is already in London, Palace can give him the £150k/w he will get here, they have Europa league next season, and most importantly he isn’t tied into a ridiculous 6yr contract if he wants out.

If we can't incentivise someone to leave Palace and come to Chelsea, then surely we should be delighted for Santos that he's managed to have a chance to go to a "big" club 🤣

Come on seriously. Glasner left there to go to Nottingham Forest. Wharton would be desperate to come here.