29 minutes ago, Blue72 said:

He ain't coming here we messed him about just like we did to Kunde, promising players to buy them and pay release clause then when they agree terms with us we go back and lowball their clubs. He will be at City in the summer and we will pay the high cost of this cock up as usual

Apparently it was Tuchel that went cold on Kounde, not the club. With James injury, having Kounde would have been a lot better. We should have signed him. 

50 minutes ago, LongtimerLurker said:

I hope we can finally put this chapter behind us, never a fan of spending north of £75m on a single player.

Was he what we needed perhaps, but the whole point of getting all these people in place for our recruitment team is so we can find the players we need at a good price that not only guarantees relatively high resale potential, but also puts less pressure on the club and the player due to the smaller price tag.

Potter might have been given time atm, but signing a £100m player at the start of your long-term project only tightens the noose around your neck when things start to go from bad to worse, especially if Enzo also doesn't perform too well.

I wanted Enzo just not at the price being quoted and I for one won't lose sleep that we didn't pay the release clause. Do I think we look silly in all of this ofc, Boehly hasn't done him self any favours here.

The problem is that they aren’t doing it, are they? We desperately need a midfielder of quality and strong, at least to rotate Jorginho and play alongside Kova/Zakaria, but they are focused on attacking players.

3 minutes ago, JM7 said:

Apparently it was Tuchel that went cold on Kounde, not the club. With James injury, having Kounde would have been a lot better. We should have signed him. 

That can't be true. Tuchel was infallible, apparently.

9 minutes ago, Snedger said:

That can't be true. Tuchel was infallible, apparently.

Hence the problem of giving the manager power to decide transfers. 

7 minutes ago, JM7 said:

Hence the problem of giving the manager power to decide transfers. 

I'd rather the manager decide than Boehly though. Probably.

 

42 minutes ago, JM7 said:

Apparently it was Tuchel that went cold on Kounde, not the club. With James injury, having Kounde would have been a lot better. We should have signed him. 

Kounde didn't want to join he was waiting for Barcelona. De Jong didn't want to join either nor did Raphinha. Can't blame the manager for that.

Gutted this one looks pretty dead, certainly in January anyway, and unless we miraculously make top 4, I dont see it happening in the summer either. 

Enzo is a really unique player, that's what makes it very disappointing for me. There are loads of good box to box midfielders, that can bring energy, and physicality into the midfield, Kone, Caicedo, Rice, etc. There are very few that have a world class passing range, and even fewer that can score goals too. 

Honestly I think he is worth the buy out clause because of his skill set, we have just fronted £20m for Felix, having already secured Nkunku in the summer anyway. 

Wouldve made more sense to put that money on top of the reported 1st enzo bid, which would be pretty much at the release clause level. 

We're going to regret this massively if we don't sign him now. We had a free run too.

4 hours ago, Gol15 said:

We just didn't have enough money, we tried to bluff and get away with it and it was never going to work.

Could well be the case. We wasted a lot of money in the summer.

Pep or Real will get him and conquer Europe for 10 years. He is the perfect Modric/Fernandinho replacement

Edited January 11, 20233 yr by Deino

This is an outcome that reinforces my belief that we are in a bad way. Of all the signings we've made or tried to make since Boehly took over, this is the one we should definitely have made. Aubameyang and Felix secured and Fernandez missed. And people deny that the club is heading in a bad direction.

4 hours ago, JM7 said:

Apparently it was Tuchel that went cold on Kounde, not the club. With James injury, having Kounde would have been a lot better. We should have signed him. 

Is this the same kounde that struggle to handle a half fit di maria in wc final? 

5 hours ago, Argo said:

I disagree, if he goes to a rival we are really, really going to regret this, I'd go as far as saying it would be worse than seeing KDB at City.

He would have been gamechanging for us and I'm absolutely gutted we appear to have fluffed it.

Just further proof that Todd's Chelsea are not an elite club anymore. 

Any club can thrown money around, Roman made it easy for them clearing the debt, they can also.make a mess of it like Everton have done.

Todd has just done it on a larger scale signing has been like Sterling, Auba and Koulibaly and players that were never going to be top level like Cucurella and wasting huge sums on them.

Only class player he has gotten  us is Felix, and he is only here for 4 and a half months.

16 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Just further proof that Todd's Chelsea are not an elite club anymore. 

Any club can thrown money around, Roman made it easy for them clearing the debt, they can also.make a mess of it like Everton have done.

Todd has just done it on a larger scale signing has been like Sterling, Auba and Koulibaly and players that were never going to be top level like Cucurella and wasting huge sums on them.

Only class player he has gotten  us is Felix, and he is only here for 4 and a half months.

Harsh on Sterling I think when played in his actual position he's been decent. Looked good under TT especially on the left or the right and decent at cf even though that's not his position. 

Potter playing him on the wing in a 3atb system just completely disrupted his form. So I'd say it's too early to write him off or conclude Felix is the only good signing Boehly has made. 

The others are dire though, KK at the time sounded good in retrospect should have gone for a lesser known profile who could do a job for us. I'm tired of flashy names I just want players to put in a shift.

We should just pay the money ffs. 
in the summer he defo goes elsewhere 

2 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Just further proof that Todd's Chelsea are not an elite club anymore. 

Any club can thrown money around, Roman made it easy for them clearing the debt, they can also.make a mess of it like Everton have done.

Todd has just done it on a larger scale signing has been like Sterling, Auba and Koulibaly and players that were never going to be top level like Cucurella and wasting huge sums on them.

Only class player he has gotten  us is Felix, and he is only here for 4 and a half months.

I disagree, but only because we would have him if we paid the money. We just didn't want to. 

However I am confused why we won't just put up the money. He'd be a starter, he'd be world class for us, he fixes a problem. 

I'd prefer we bought one or two less 20m prospects if it leads to buying a 100m player. 

3 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

I disagree, but only because we would have him if we paid the money. We just didn't want to. 

However I am confused why we won't just put up the money. He'd be a starter, he'd be world class for us, he fixes a problem. 

I'd prefer we bought one or two less 20m prospects if it leads to buying a 100m player. 

But then we won’t be able to buy Lavia and Gordon!

I think we have firmly burned our bridges with both Benfica & Fernandez here. We acted in such a way that Benfica clearly felt disrespected and we obviously unsettled a player who then made himself unpopular at his current club without following through on our presumed promises of bringing him here.

Think there is no chance Fernandez wants to come here this summer even if we were interested.

13 hours ago, Argo said:

I disagree, if he goes to a rival we are really, really going to regret this, I'd go as far as saying it would be worse than seeing KDB at City.

He would have been gamechanging for us and I'm absolutely gutted we appear to have fluffed it.

The way you talk about him mate is how I imagine we would be if we had the foreknowledge to see how great Zola was for us, and then end up in an alternative reality where he joined Spurs instead.

Bring in Caicedo, Lavia, and Zakaryhan and it’ll fill the void on missing out on Enzo. 
 

 

26 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Bring in Caicedo, Lavia, and Zakaryhan and it’ll fill the void on missing out on Enzo. 
 

 

Also cost more too.

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

Also cost more too.

But more than fill the void also. 🙂

Not getting Lavia with Saints staring at Relegation. Zakaryhan I wake up everyday hoping to hear that it's done. Caicedo less so.

On 11/01/2023 at 13:30, Luca Vialli said:

We're going to regret this massively if we don't sign him [Enzo] now. We had a free run too.

If we can call £106m free!I

Hearing that Milinkovic would be available for 44m. Will take him in a heartbeat of Enzo.

On 11/01/2023 at 10:45, JM7 said:

Apparently it was Tuchel that went cold on Kounde, not the club. With James injury, having Kounde would have been a lot better. We should have signed him. 

I'm happy he did because I have not been impressed with him this season. 2 seasons ago he looked good, last season not so much. This season I haven't been impressed at all. I also thought he was awful for France at RB.

1 hour ago, d-one said:

Hearing that Milinkovic would be available for 44m. Will take him in a heartbeat of Enzo.

No, stay away from any player that has played pretty much their entire senior career in Italy.