2 hours ago, OriginalS said:

Apparently arriving for his medical today.

Selling players is good but replacing them with the likes of Jackson i'm not sure about. Completely unproven and at £30 million that strikes me as a huge risk and uneccesary risk.

But technically he would be replacing Aubameyang at the moment, which frankly in commitment and application, he is already matching, simply by getting on a plane and coming here. Anything approaching productivity on the pitch will surely be a step up.

I am hoping this is one of the incoming strikers and not THE incoming striker. I am still hankering after the forlorn hope that Lukaku can be used as some form of makeweight (pardon the pun) to get another striker, probably out of Italy. Lukaku as part of a deal that gets us Martinez. Could definitely get behind that. Also i mentioned before about Vlahovic. I don't rate him but it appears that the club are interested. Lukaku's bridges are well and truly burnt. Trying a player like Vlahovic might not work but if so he would still ultimately be easier to move than Lukaku, and you never know he might work in a Pochettino structure.

1 hour ago, Scott Harris said:

You know how all of those clubs manage to find one of those relatively unknown names that turns out to be brilliant and we question why we never find them first? can this guy be one of those players please? It would be really good to finally grab one of them.

This is the reason the Brighton scouting team was bought in. Why buy the finished product for 80 - 100 mill'. when you can scout them when they're 25 - 40 mill'. Cut out the likes of Brighton from the process.

53 minutes ago, Ajbod said:

This is the reason the Brighton scouting team was bought in. Why buy the finished product for 80 - 100 mill'. when you can scout them when they're 25 - 40 mill'. Cut out the likes of Brighton from the process.

Did the Brighton scout stick around?

5 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

You know how all of those clubs manage to find one of those relatively unknown names that turns out to be brilliant and we question why we never find them first? can this guy be one of those players please? It would be really good to finally grab one of them.

Yeah it would be nice. Holy 5hit for a spell there it was like Atletico Madrid were churning world class strikers out for fun. 

On 16/06/2023 at 00:59, JM7 said:

Matt Law was on the London is Blue podcast saying that we shouldn’t be anywhere near him. He’s not Chelsea quality at all. He won’t get back to where we need. 

I listened to that podcast episode and while I like Matt Law, I think he's a bit out of touch with the reality of the current Chelsea.

We are losing Mount, Havertz and others not because they aren't good enough, but because we don't want to pay the wages they want to extend their contracts.

This was a conscious choice by Chelsea to sign young players, on long contracts, on (relatively) low wages, and develop them. It was a very clear decision that was made by Chelsea backroom management.

The idea that we are going to now go out and sign a bunch of senior footballers on big wages is just not inline with the very clear change in direction we took last season.

I don't know if Jackson will be good or not, but I can say it's far more likely we go for someone of his type than pumping another 100+ million pounds plus massive wages on a Victor Osimhen type

5 minutes ago, Qaz said:

I don't know if Jackson will be good or not, but I can say it's far more likely we go for someone of his type than pumping another 100+ million pounds plus massive wages on a Victor Osimhen type

I don't particularly rate Osimhen so not bothered by not going for him but if Jackson is supposed to be our main striker signing this summer then that spells trouble. Going into the season with him and Broja and striker options would be incredibly naive.

Unfortunately I am 90% sure Jackson flops.

1 hour ago, OriginalS said:

I don't particularly rate Osimhen so not bothered by not going for him but if Jackson is supposed to be our main striker signing this summer then that spells trouble. Going into the season with him and Broja and striker options would be incredibly naive.

Unfortunately I am 90% sure Jackson flops.

unless plan is Nkunku up top as some have suggested 

19 hours ago, Adamrb said:

Did the Brighton scout stick around?

Brighton turn up the remarkable young talent they do because their recruiting team have seriously good, reliable contacts in leagues all over the world. Hopefully the ex-Brighton members of our recruiting team brought their little black books with them.

2 hours ago, OriginalS said:

I don't particularly rate Osimhen so not bothered by not going for him but if Jackson is supposed to be our main striker signing this summer then that spells trouble. Going into the season with him and Broja and striker options would be incredibly naive.

Unfortunately I am 90% sure Jackson flops.

I think tha theuy may well go for a marquee signing, but Lukjaku seems to be pivotal in that. I can see Caceido or possibly,hopefully, Tchoumeini and a marque striker being our main purchases with some young emerging talent around them.

Not forgetting of course, we already have one marquee signing through the door.

17 hours ago, Roland The Bruin said:

Yeah it would be nice. Holy 5hit for a spell there it was like Atletico Madrid were churning world class strikers out for fun. 

Wasnt the majority of that South Americans? It was at a time when Spanish clubs had an advantage over most other clubs as their work permit laws were much more erm "flexible" for footballers than mot other european countries.

11 minutes ago, dkw said:

Wasnt the majority of that South Americans? It was at a time when Spanish clubs had an advantage over most other clubs as their work permit laws were much more erm "flexible" for footballers than mot other european countries.

Yeah that makes sense mate. Now i think about it the only one that i can think of that wasnt actually south American was Torres

22 hours ago, Ajbod said:

This is the reason the Brighton scouting team was bought in. Why buy the finished product for 80 - 100 mill'. when you can scout them when they're 25 - 40 mill'. Cut out the likes of Brighton from the process.

The big difference is Brighton play their young signings allowing them to develop like Caicedo, Ferguson, Ensico, and Buonanotte all playing large portions of the seasons at young ages.  Whereas Casedei and Santos get farmed out on loans.  We’d probably be paying £60m for each of them if they’d played a season for Brighton.  Obviously it’s easier to blood youngsters at clubs like Brighton compared to Chelsea and is probably why it’s rare for any of the big sides to buy young hidden gems on the cheap.

3 hours ago, DarkMata said:

The big difference is Brighton play their young signings allowing them to develop like Caicedo, Ferguson, Ensico, and Buonanotte all playing large portions of the seasons at young ages.  Whereas Casedei and Santos get farmed out on loans.  We’d probably be paying £60m for each of them if they’d played a season for Brighton.  Obviously it’s easier to blood youngsters at clubs like Brighton compared to Chelsea and is probably why it’s rare for any of the big sides to buy young hidden gems on the cheap.

Alan Hansen's 'you can't win anything with kids'

In August 1995, Match of the Day pundit Alan Hansen criticised then-Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson with a comment that went down in football folklore.

Hansen was speaking after Ferguson's young side lost 3-1 to Aston Villa on the opening day of the 1995-96 season.

United went on to win the Premier League and FA Cup that season with a team whose average age was 26 years and 137 days (including only players who played 10 games or more).

Since Hansen's statement, only Chelsea have won the title with a younger squad.

5 hours ago, Roland The Bruin said:

Yeah that makes sense mate. Now i think about it the only one that i can think of that wasnt actually south American was Torres

It was the same at Porto, they made about 4-500m from signing and selling South Americans. 

5 hours ago, dkw said:

Wasnt the majority of that South Americans? It was at a time when Spanish clubs had an advantage over most other clubs as their work permit laws were much more erm "flexible" for footballers than mot other european countries.

To be honest I think Spain/Portugal will always have an advantage with the SA market due to the language barrier. I don't know the exact percentage but i struggled to find English speakers in SA even within the younger population in big cities and I can see why many will want to stick to a place that somewhat resembles home especially at a young age.

 

straight to strasbourg or is he actually going to play for us? Never heard of him before we were linked, not sure how good he is

Here we go from Fabrizio. Actually glad we're going for a signing like this to lead the line. Can't say I've watched much of him but looks exciting on clips (who doesn't).

Fed up of seeing us waste £50m+ on strikers (Torrres/Morata/Lukaku mainly) to come in and not look arsed or forget how to play football. Expectations will be low which is only a good thing for him. 

God I'm excited for next season. 

1 minute ago, Big Nigel said:

straight to strasbourg or is he actually going to play for us? Never heard of him before we were linked, not sure how good he is

I would imagine with the depth we have and the season he's had he's staying with us and D.Fofana is off to France. Jackson/Broja/Nkunku for the number 9.

4 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

I would imagine with the depth we have and the season he's had he's staying with us and D.Fofana is off to France. Jackson/Broja/Nkunku for the number 9.

enough to be a starter or are we still looking to sign an actual striker with him being a backup option?

2 hours ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Here we go from Fabrizio. Actually glad we're going for a signing like this to lead the line. Can't say I've watched much of him but looks exciting on clips (who doesn't).

Fed up of seeing us waste £50m+ on strikers (Torrres/Morata/Lukaku mainly) to come in and not look arsed or forget how to play football. Expectations will be low which is only a good thing for him. 

God I'm excited for next season. 

My opinion for a striker has always been either we get someone young and cheap and develop them or we develop Broja while spending the money on other positions. We've already wasted over 200mil on strikers in the last decade and Costa is still our last good striker so its time to take a new approach. 

Hopefully we’re getting a forward at the right stage of their career for once.

Feels similar to Bats in terms of timings, hopefully will work out better.

40 minutes ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

My opinion for a striker has always been either we get someone young and cheap and develop them or we develop Broja while spending the money on other positions. We've already wasted over 200mil on strikers in the last decade and Costa is still our last good striker so its time to take a new approach. 

Don’t think the price really matters we’ve failed to scout the right player whether they cost 10 or 100 million.  What matters is we buy the right player and hopefully with the new scouting personnel we can final find the right man.  
 

Personally think the style of football we’ve played has been detrimental to strikers and partially to blame too.

I think us signing a good striker right now is the most difficult challenge of all. For the life of me I have no idea who we could sign, the only player I would be confident in is Harry Kane. But that's not realistic, Tottenham are a nightmare to deal with and the asking price would be massive. 

So glad we aren't wasting a shedload of money on that Napoli striker, he just spells FLOP to me.

Maybe this guy is who we need, some potential and cheap, who knows? It's times like this we really need the scouting department to pull off a masterclass because I have no idea who else we could sign. 

Evan Ferguson would be a good shout, but hes signed a new contract and would be pretty expensive now. 

As someone pointed out, the reason why Brighton are successful with their signings is because they actually play them. You sign teenagers with high potentials from S.America like Enciso and Bounotte, then play them in a team who are in good form, chances are they will shine and within 1 year to 2 the bigger clubs will be paying 10x as much.

You then look at our recent strategy. Casadei, Slonina, Andrey Santos could be considered equally as hyped signings if not better. But their development could stagnate if they arent playing at a high enough level straight away. Not to mention none of them look like getting an opportunity with us anytime soon. A few dodgy loans and they become another member of the loan army for infinity. Thats one of the biggest gems of Italian and Brazilian football ruined potentially.

Maybe the multi club model may actually help with this, as it gives these teenagers exposure to the mens game at the highest level for that country. If casadei isnt going to stay with us this year, straight onto brighton with their italian manager for him to do another Colwill. Or Strasbourg in Ligue 1. Not another championship loan.