I'm not going to lose my mind over Guehi tbh. Is he going to be a consistent starter for them, even when their injured players return? I genuinely don't know their injury situation when it comes to CBs.

8 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

I mean if we're going to randomly blame clearlake for this, we may also have to look at why we let a player like this leave us in the first place.

Guehi left for the same reasons as Livramento. Wanted to be a starter somewhere else rather than develop at Chelsea. He'd have had Rudiger, Thiago Silva and Christensen ahead of him in that 20/21 season, and it did end rather well for us in Porto as I recall !

Clearlake could have tried to buy him back at any point in their tenure under the favourable terms of the selling clauses, but preferred instead to "invest" £144m in Fofana, Disasi and Badiashile.

Good old Pep, has he ever been at a club where he hasn't had the choice of the best players? He might be classed as one of the best managers, but he's hardly struggled at clubs when it comes to personnel. Haaland has been a one man team at times for them. How long did it take him to try and make Savinho and Marmoush work before spending another £100m on players. Not a cheque book manager, though.

Edited January 16Jan 16 by Sunspear_88

56 minutes ago, Sunspear_88 said:

Good old Pep, has he ever been at a club where he hasn't had the choice of the best players? He might be classed as one of the best managers, but he's hardly struggled at clubs when it comes to personnel. Haaland has been a one man team at times for them. How long did it take him to try and make Savinho and Marmoush work before spending another £100m on players. Not a cheque book manager, though.

He might be tempted to see his contract out through the end of next season now ;).

Having said that, anybody else think that Glasner might be their next manager now he is announced he is leaving Palace end of season? The obvious choice might be United, but I suspect he has admirers at City, given how well Palace did against them in cup final etc. Maybe also explains the Guehi signing over other options they had.

Guehi off to City, we should be pushing for Ake to return to us imo

1 hour ago, Sunspear_88 said:

Good old Pep, has he ever been at a club where he hasn't had the choice of the best players? He might be classed as one of the best managers, but he's hardly struggled at clubs when it comes to personnel. Haaland has been a one man team at times for them. How long did it take him to try and make Savinho and Marmoush work before spending another £100m on players. Not a cheque book manager, though.

The best managers attract the best players. He completely transformed that over rated Barcelona team filled with egos into the most dominant team in football history.

2 hours ago, Sunspear_88 said:

I'm not going to lose my mind over Guehi tbh. Is he going to be a consistent starter for them, even when their injured players return? I genuinely don't know their injury situation when it comes to CBs.

Might not be a consistent starter for City but for us he instantly becomes our best CB.

Most of our misery this season is due to the fact that we don't have a decent CB.

He’s not the best cb in the world but for 20m we are insane not to be bringing him back, solid, regular starter for England, brings leadership knows the club well, whilst we probably are going to spunk 50m on some unknown 18 year old centre back.. madness

37 minutes ago, GarnachoCheese said:

Guehi off to City, we should be pushing for Ake to return to us imo

Yey, another player to add to the injury list. City laughing to the bank.

Ruthless from City, no messing about. They needed a player and got him. We've had our best CB injured for the entire season and haven't even bothered trying to bring a replacement in. Our clowns got tunnel vision and prioritised two sh*t wingers.

34 minutes ago, Term_X said:

Yey, another player to add to the injury list. City laughing to the bank.

Not missed a game this season and would be cheap. Adds experience and wouldn’t be expected to play every game, especially when Colwill is back.

4 hours ago, bisright1 said:

I mean if we're going to randomly blame clearlake for this, we may also have to look at why we let a player like this leave us in the first place.

Perhaps due to the competition. Thiago Silva and Rudiger were the resident CBs then. Compared to Tosin and Baddysh!te now. Hmm

@Sconnie Blue on the money, linked with 57mill Jeremy Jacquet from Rennes.

Is like BlueCo just use the same blueprint don't they?

Rumoured to be getting £300k a week at City, sorry but that's absolutely mental.

Rosenior knows all the best defenders in France having worked there for 18

Oh because that worked out so well with Stewart and Disasi+Badiashile.

f**k Clearlake. f**k BlueCo.

25 minutes ago, timetowaste said:

Rumoured to be getting £300k a week at City, sorry but that's absolutely mental.

If that's true, I think only Haaland would be above that at City ... Guehi's agent has played a blinder there LOL

4 hours ago, dan_cfc said:

He’s not the best cb in the world but for 20m we are insane not to be bringing him back, solid, regular starter for England, brings leadership knows the club well, whilst we probably are going to spunk 50m on some unknown 18 year old centre back.. madness

I dont think him coming back has been on the table for the past 2 years at least.

Maybe there was a chance once upon a time but would have cost us 60+

2 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

I dont think him coming back has been on the table for the past 2 years at least.

Maybe there was a chance once upon a time but would have cost us 60+

I think once the academy players decide to leave, then that's it ... they've mentally checked out of the club full stop ... in fact I'm struggling to think of any that we've re-signed ?

Players we've paid fees for there are a few ... e.g. Matic, Luiz and Lukaku ... (and Joao Felix LOL) ... but they weren't academy players ...

5 hours ago, dan_cfc said:

He’s not the best cb in the world but for 20m we are insane not to be bringing him back, solid, regular starter for England, brings leadership knows the club well, whilst we probably are going to spunk 50m on some unknown 18 year old centre back.. madness

The truth is what could possibly interest him in coming to a club like this that would offer him no more than he'd get at Palace. Not sure we'd have been able or prepared to have matched his Palace wage anyway, let alone what City will be paying him.

On 17/01/2026 at 01:44, bisright1 said:

I mean if we're going to randomly blame clearlake for this, we may also have to look at why we let a player like this leave us in the first place.

Coming into the 2020s, the Club had to choose between Chalobah/Colwill/Guehi/Tomori at CB, Mount/Gallagher/Hall for CM and most notoriously, Lamptey/James/Livramento at RB.

It so happened that Cobham spawned 3 successive golden generations. Guehi was undoubtedly the most controversial since he was extremely highly-rated internally, but he simply didn't want to play backup.

On 17/01/2026 at 07:49, timetowaste said:

Rumoured to be getting £300k a week at City, sorry but that's absolutely mental.

Wait until you here what Chelsea are paying Raheem Sterling

8 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

Coming into the 2020s, the Club had to choose between Chalobah/Colwill/Guehi/Tomori at CB, Mount/Gallagher/Hall for CM and most notoriously, Lamptey/James/Livramento at RB.

It so happened that Cobham spawned 3 successive golden generations. Guehi was undoubtedly the most controversial since he was extremely highly-rated internally, but he simply didn't want to play backup.

Wait until you here what Chelsea are paying Raheem Sterling

To complicate things, his loan spells at Southampton were seriously underwhelming.

42 minutes ago, dermott said:

To complicate things, his loan spells at Southampton were seriously underwhelming.

Honestly don't think he's anything special ... I'd say he is a similar level to Tomori or Chalobah.

Guehi has very average defensive stats for someone who is going to be getting £300K a week (which in itself is an insane salary for a centre back). It highlights for me the lack of decent alternatives in the market place (in any league). He has PL experience and leadership as qualities for sure, but he's not exactly John Terry or Marcel Desailly ...

Not our problem anyway !

I

11 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

Wait until you here what Chelsea are paying Raheem Sterling

I know, and you wonder why we're gun shy about handing out big wages 😂

12 hours ago, dermott said:

To complicate things, his loan spells at Southampton were seriously underwhelming.

Swansea? He was fantastic actually, but as part of a really good defensive unit. His performances on loan were what condemned the club to sell Tomori. Guehi was always highly rated internally but the main concerns were his height (he is "only" 6ft) and pace, which stood out like a sore thumb in comparison to the visibly more athletic Chalobah and Tomori, both of whom could also play multiple positions in defence. Colwill had also just broken through, and for obvious reasons is the most highly-rated defender to come out of Cobham since Reece James.

There was no way that Guehi could be anything other than 4th choice rotation behind Christensen, Rudiger and Silva although he would have got a lot of minutes thanks to Tuchel's preferred back 3.

The other issue was the FFP pressure of the Lukaku purchase (FFS) so when Palace came offering 18m pure profit + a buyback clause, it seemed to be a mutually beneficial offer.

11 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

Swansea? He was fantastic actually, but as part of a really good defensive unit. His performances on loan were what condemned the club to sell Tomori. Guehi was always highly rated internally but the main concerns were his height (he is "only" 6ft) and pace, which stood out like a sore thumb in comparison to the visibly more athletic Chalobah and Tomori, both of whom could also play multiple positions in defence. Colwill had also just broken through, and for obvious reasons is the most highly-rated defender to come out of Cobham since Reece James.

There was no way that Guehi could be anything other than 4th choice rotation behind Christensen, Rudiger and Silva although he would have got a lot of minutes thanks to Tuchel's preferred back 3.

The other issue was the FFP pressure of the Lukaku purchase (FFS) so when Palace came offering 18m pure profit + a buyback clause, it seemed to be a mutually beneficial offer.

Bah. Both start with S, they're near water.