13 minutes ago, General said:

He was always going out the door with the clubs need for cash to balance the books. Him along with a couple more by June 30th in what will be a buyers market so Clearfake will have thought they did well with the purchase price agreed in January; and I’m guessing the clubs technical dept did nor foresee young Ian becoming a CL finalist.  When he leaves end of season will be 35 mill euros  towards FFP compliance even if he wins it. More poor squad management by the leadership or a good price for a player surplus to requirements? 

Ding ding ding 🤑🤑🤑

 

9 hours ago, ozboy said:

The idea that Maatsen couldn’t do the job cucu has been doing recently is risible. 

Why is it risible? I have only really watched Maatsen this season but he seems to have a bit about him. He looks quicker than Cucurella, has bags of energy and is more positionally aware. Certainly makes more of an impact when he gets to the final third. His downsides are his height and his lack of experience but he certainly showed up for the CL semis.

7 minutes ago, just said:

Why is it risible? I have only really watched Maatsen this season but he seems to have a bit about him. He looks quicker than Cucurella, has bags of energy and is more positionally aware. Certainly makes more of an impact when he gets to the final third. His downsides are his height and his lack of experience but he certainly showed up for the CL semis.

I think you mis read what I wrote mate. 

Edited May 8, 20242 yr by ozboy

11 minutes ago, just said:

Why is it risible? I have only really watched Maatsen this season but he seems to have a bit about him. He looks quicker than Cucurella, has bags of energy and is more positionally aware. Certainly makes more of an impact when he gets to the final third. His downsides are his height and his lack of experience but he certainly showed up for the CL semis.

I completely agree but you will end up with massive problem with Cucu whose contract is not movable. 

😂😂😂

1 hour ago, ozboy said:

I think you mis read what I wrote mate. 

Sorry Oz. Just re-read it. I agree.

Note to self - Book opticians appointment urgently.

3 hours ago, Bob stark said:

I completely agree but you will end up with massive problem with Cucu whose contract is not movable. 

😂😂😂

All 3 left backs we have can get good playtime as they all offer different things. Maatsen further forward, can rotate with cucu in this invert role or a normal attacking fullback, Chilwell as the normal attacking fullback and Cucu purely playing the invert role as he’s not better than the other two as a proper fullback.

Ideally we just sell Chilwell but doubt we would get any takers or he would leave. Either way, still very much workable considering injuries anyway. 

1 hour ago, Remodez said:

All 3 left backs we have can get good playtime as they all offer different things. Maatsen further forward, can rotate with cucu in this invert role or a normal attacking fullback, Chilwell as the normal attacking fullback and Cucu purely playing the invert role as he’s not better than the other two as a proper fullback.

Ideally we just sell Chilwell but doubt we would get any takers or he would leave. Either way, still very much workable considering injuries anyway. 

If I want a short inverted fb, Maatsen can play that role easily but if I want a fb who can fight in the air which is very important due to lack of height in this team both Maatsen and Cucu are beyond useless. Colwil need a lot of work defending far post as lb, he still play lb more like cb. Chilwell can play that role easily. 

So it is actually no brainer to move Cucu. The problem is cucu contract, he is not movable. 

 

Edited May 8, 20242 yr by Bob stark

Well - he f**ked over dortmund there..... not sure they will want to buy him now 

That's 10mil knocked off the asking price 

4 minutes ago, KonaKai Blue said:

That's 10mil knocked off the asking price 

Dortmund were never going to pay their record transfer fee for a left back ...

Hopefully it will still go through. £35m was always pie in the sky ; I think £25m would still represent a very good fee for us to get.

Didn’t need to win the header just put Carvajal off that’s all he needed to do and he just let him walk by. Then the square pass across the back in a final. 
He would fit into early Chelsea this season with comical defending.

 

 

For 22 years old he's really good, can invert as well. Not sure why everyone's so keen to sell him.

 

Poor mistake at the end though

Edited June 1, 20242 yr by Drogba1

His first half was good, he started well the second half but when Real Madrid started to play their own game I think all Dortmund players were struggling.

Overall he had a very good spell in Dortmund, it's surprising not to see him in the Euros. 

I'd like to see him in our shirt next season, giving a chance to prove himself at his position and have minutes. But if our plans are to stay with Chilwell and Cucurella, then unfortunately we have to earn money on him.

Personally I'd rather see him starting before them. 

 

Didn't have much in the way of defending to do in the first half. The bulk of RM's attacking was through Vinicius on the left. Struggled the further the game went. Rodrygo got around him much too easily in the box and the pass to Bellingham was, well, less said the better. He's a skilful player, no doubt, but lacks a defender's natural instincts. Positioning, anticipation and decision making under pressure are dodgy, especially when he doesn't have Adeyemi coming back to help him. His strength is going forward, he can be outstanding, but that's only half his job. 

Well, he's just played in a CL final, something none of our players are likely to do for a very long time.

Fair play to him, if it wasn't for our need to raise cash there wouldn't be any doubt that we would keep him I believe.

14 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

Well, he's just played in a CL final, something none of our players are likely to do for a very long time.

Fair play to him, if it wasn't for our need to raise cash there wouldn't be any doubt that we would keep him I believe.

And gave away the winning goal. When or if Chelsea players make it to a CL final is irrelevant.

1 hour ago, dermott said:

Didn't have much in the way of defending to do in the first half. The bulk of RM's attacking was through Vinicius on the left. Struggled the further the game went. Rodrygo got around him much too easily in the box and the pass to Bellingham was, well, less said the better. He's a skilful player, no doubt, but lacks a defender's natural instincts. Positioning, anticipation and decision making under pressure are dodgy, especially when he doesn't have Adeyemi coming back to help him. His strength is going forward, he can be outstanding, but that's only half his job. 

This is precisely why he will struggle in the PL unless he’s playing for a team that doesn’t have to defend much which is only City maybe Arsenal. Some of our fans can’t take emotion out and the blue tinted glasses off to see he’s not a good defender at all. He’s a good attacker but defensively look at the goals yesterday.

Even in the first half yesterday that they dominated you could see him get pulled out of position multiple times. 

Poor game for young Ian, but hopefully doesn't stop somebody splashing out £35m this summer.

Maatsen didn't have the best game, but he is a decent player.  He just didn't seem to 'fit' at Chelsea. We will hopefully get some decent money for him and also money from selling Lewis Hall to the geordies.  But before we pat ourselves on the back for being so  great at sports business we have to remember what we paid for the injury prone Ben Cillwell and the erratic performances of Cucurealla.

£55 million for Marc and £45 million for Ben. . . with some add ons.

And we are now going back into the transfer market for a left back apparently.

4 hours ago, dermott said:

And gave away the winning goal. When or if Chelsea players make it to a CL final is irrelevant.

The mistake is irrelevant.

We paid a record fee for a left back who makes mistakes.

 

Funny how anyone from the Chelsea academy who is potentially up for sale just to bring in funds because of our overspending is also just not good enough for us.

 

Andreas Christensen must have narrowly missed out.

AMA ing that only one Man C player made that team. 

18 hours ago, charierre said:

We're not even in the competition and still ended up with more players in the team of the season than Arsenal.

Forever in our European shadow.