It's not looking good for a striker, apart from Toney who else can we get? most are going to other clubs

Pretty clear they're sticking with Jackson with the Spanish lad, Guiu, onboard too.

49 minutes ago, POCH OUT said:

It's not looking good for a striker, apart from Toney who else can we get? most are going to other clubs

We've signed an 18 year old with 71 league minutes to his name. What more do you want?

1 hour ago, dermott said:

Pretty clear they're sticking with Jackson with the Spanish lad, Guiu, onboard too.

Agreed, Guiu is supposed to be the real deal and Jackson has a full season under his belt now. Hopefully he'll waste less chances created this season and do better than he did in his first season (which isn't bad at all, btw).

🤞 

1 hour ago, dermott said:

Pretty clear they're sticking with Jackson with the Spanish lad, Guiu, onboard too.

Depends on how they do in preseason me thinks. 

Wait a minute we're relinked with Elye Wahi.  Remember him?

 

 

..... me neither.

6 minutes ago, DarkMata said:

Wait a minute we're relinked with Elye Wahi.  Remember him?

 

 

..... me neither.

Isn't that the one who forced some youngsters to undress during his good old teenage days? All I can remember about him, thought someone said he was nothing special as well.

16 minutes ago, Brigadeiro Mk II said:

Isn't that the one who forced some youngsters to undress during his good old teenage days? All I can remember about him, thought someone said he was nothing special as well.

It's not like this will be major news if he signs for Chelsea eh?  I mean we love a bit of controversy here at Chelsea, why not?  

33 minutes ago, DarkMata said:

Wait a minute we're relinked with Elye Wahi.  Remember him?

 

 

..... me neither.

He's a French U21 international of Ivorian descent....... Um

5 hours ago, dermott said:

Pretty clear they're sticking with Jackson with the Spanish lad, Guiu, onboard too.

Seems Maresca has recommended that he should be sent out on loan. Begs a couple of questions; on Guiu’s side if he had remained at Barca he will get loads of mins this season, as Lewandowski is on his last legs. On our side you wonder what we are trying to do. We have spent around £40m on the trio of Guiu, Fofana & Washington; if neither of the 3 are good enough to be a backup to Jackson, what was the point of the signings. We will struggle to recoup our outlay on the latter 2 as things stand. 

50 minutes ago, ducavis said:

Seems Maresca has recommended that he should be sent out on loan. Begs a couple of questions; on Guiu’s side if he had remained at Barca he will get loads of mins this season, as Lewandowski is on his last legs. On our side you wonder what we are trying to do. We have spent around £40m on the trio of Guiu, Fofana & Washington; if neither of the 3 are good enough to be a backup to Jackson, what was the point of the signings. We will struggle to recoup our outlay on the latter 2 as things stand. 

Wait a min...maresca is the one that wanted guiu right. I read that he was definitely not going out on loan and wanted him for USA.

They haven't even played yet and he's already changed his mind? Where did you read guiu is going on loan bud?

1 hour ago, ducavis said:

Seems Maresca has recommended that he should be sent out on loan. Begs a couple of questions; on Guiu’s side if he had remained at Barca he will get loads of mins this season, as Lewandowski is on his last legs. On our side you wonder what we are trying to do. We have spent around £40m on the trio of Guiu, Fofana & Washington; if neither of the 3 are good enough to be a backup to Jackson, what was the point of the signings. We will struggle to recoup our outlay on the latter 2 as things stand. 

It's incredibly frustrating, I just can't see the sense in it. We buy all of these kids, a ton of them aren't even close to being ready and some never will be ready to make the step up, and we end up needing to sell players to avoid getting into trouble with FFP.

When it comes to us signing players, I have completely lost interest at this point. We just sign a bunch of random kids with barely any senior football to their name. So far, only one of them looks like the real deal, and that's Palmer. Caicedo and Gusto are the only other ones I feel a bit confident about reaching a high level. The rest? It's still a bit of a coin toss.

Also, I'm a bit concerned about what the goal is exactly. Are they being brought in to bring success to Chelsea football club? or are they being nurtured into top players to sell on to the likes of City and Real Madrid in the future? Players like Palmer ain't going to sit around for 4 years waiting for Chelsea to start competing at the top again, most players aren't idiots like Kane that stuck around at Tottenham for too long and risk going their entire career without a single winners medal to their name.

Lol...I'm again evil I know. But I love the kane bit. I did feel sorry for him for a few seconds after the euros. But that quickly went away seeing him in a white top.

 

Tbh, I'm fed up with googling them. Then you watch and read all the info and realise oh, he's one of the "commodities" and not for the chelsea squad. I have no idea who's genuinely in the team and who's part of the "sell later/make a profit" grp anymore.

I honestly thought guiu was first team...everything pointed towards it.

7 transfers so far and not one player upgrades our first team.  Half will probably never play for us.  The excitement of these mad transfer windows has completely dwindled and started to become more of an annoyance.  Maybe we should have a new section that’s called proper signing rumours.

Renato Vega

KDH

Guiu

Tosin

Kellyman

Wiley

E Willian

9 minutes ago, DarkMata said:

7 transfers so far and not one player upgrades our first team.  Half will probably never play for us.  The excitement of these mad transfer windows has completely dwindled and started to become more of an annoyance.  Maybe we should have a new section that’s called proper signing rumours.

Renato Vega

KDH

Guiu

Tosin

Kellyman

Wiley

E Willian

I'm glad we aren't in the headlines every week (bar Enzo) about splashing large amounts of money again. 

As far as upgrading the first team, Nkunku, James, Carney, Lavia, and Fofana will be back fully fit where 2 of which will generally be treated as new first team signings. KDB, Tosin, and Guiu improve our squad depth. 

At this point outgoings are more important imo. 

8 hours ago, DarkMata said:

7 transfers so far and not one player upgrades our first team.  Half will probably never play for us.  The excitement of these mad transfer windows has completely dwindled and started to become more of an annoyance.  Maybe we should have a new section that’s called proper signing rumours.

Renato Vega

KDH

Guiu

Tosin

Kellyman

Wiley

E Willian

I personally feel that a quality experienced CB is desperately what we need now that Silva has left. Tosin is apparently decent, but is he good enough? A top quality left winger and striker would be good too, but I'm going to pray that what we have can improve. If Nkunku stays fit, then he can play there, but I have a feeling Maresca will play him up front.

Yeah I liked tosin's attitude in the vid, no idea about his playing abilities but he showed more leadership in that "first week back" clip than our own leadership (chilly)

Kdh...Will make transitioning to marescas style go smoother and will help out.

Guiu...is the only other one from that list I sort of rate to be able to get into the squad.

 

Estevao is one for the next year...jury still out.

 

Other 3...I agree, the only way I can make sense of their purchase is if they are commodities to make a profit from. I can't see them as strengthening the squad.

 

Splitting the thread up into stock rumours and first team rumours actually makes sense with our owners. Lol

Edited July 19, 20241 yr by Simplymo

10 hours ago, DarkMata said:

7 transfers so far and not one player upgrades our first team.  Half will probably never play for us.  The excitement of these mad transfer windows has completely dwindled and started to become more of an annoyance.  Maybe we should have a new section that’s called proper signing rumours.

Renato Vega

KDH

Guiu

Tosin

Kellyman

Wiley

E Willian

You're breaking some of the fans dreams here who think we'll compete at the top with this lot. At this point, I'm more concerned about the financial health and long term vision for the club. The desire to compete at the top has been replaced with the desire to run things differently than the rest. With the signing of Maresca, the focus has shifted from trying to unearth the next set of Cech/ Lampard/Terry/ Drogba/ Robben/ Hazard/ Mata to now taking a gamble on a manager who they hope can get the best out of an average squad(sprinkled with some good players) just like Xabi Alonso and Thiago Motta.

Edited July 19, 20241 yr by Nick05

I see West Spam are trying to bringback Kante

3 hours ago, Simplymo said:

Yeah I liked tosin's attitude in the vid, no idea about his playing abilities but he showed more leadership in that "first week back" clip than our own leadership (chilly)

Kdh...Will make transitioning to marescas style go smoother and will help out.

Guiu...is the only other one from that list I sort of rate to be able to get into the squad.

 

Estevao is one for the next year...jury still out.

 

Other 3...I agree, the only way I can make sense of their purchase is if they are commodities to make a profit from. I can't see them as strengthening the squad.

 

Splitting the thread up into stock rumours and first team rumours actually makes sense with our owners. Lol

Lol.. can we please stop with this, this isn’t a Sarri transitioning a counter attacking Chelsea side to play a possession style and requiring Jorginho. We ranked 5th in the league ahead of Arsenal, and this is despite bedding in some young inexperienced players. 

KDH had a pass success rate of 83% in the championship, and he was only playing 1.4 long balls per game so he wasn’t exactly adventurous. I expect his pass success rate to drop under 80%, & his long balls to drop to under 1 per game in the PL. To put that into perspective; his Championship numbers put him ahead of Murdyk, Sterling, Jackson, Petrovic & Sanchez. The former 3 you would expect to take more risks as they operate in the final 3rd. Gallagher in comparison has a 91% pass success rate rate & averages 1.5 long balls per game.  IMO the club sees him as a cheaper alternative to Gallagher, on lower wages & he also covers the homegrown aspect. 

5 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

I personally feel that a quality experienced CB is desperately what we need now that Silva has left. Tosin is apparently decent, but is he good enough? A top quality left winger and striker would be good too, but I'm going to pray that what we have can improve. If Nkunku stays fit, then he can play there, but I have a feeling Maresca will play him up front.

Agree don’t have much faith any of our defenders are capable of putting in consistent performances.  I’d probably add a goalkeeper to that list too.

3 hours ago, Nick05 said:

You're breaking some of the fans dreams here who think we'll compete at the top with this lot. At this point, I'm more concerned about the financial health and long term vision for the club. The desire to compete at the top has been replaced with the desire to run things differently than the rest. With the signing of Maresca, the focus has shifted from trying to unearth the next set of Cech/ Lampard/Terry/ Drogba/ Robben/ Hazard/ Mata to now taking a gamble on a manager who they hope can get the best out of an average squad(sprinkled with some good players) just like Xabi Alonso and Thiago Motta.

Are current wage structure seems to be at a level where top players are out of reach.  Rumours that Olise, Williams wage demands are too high is slightly worrying as these two aren’t exactly galacticos.  
 

Maybe part of the problem is the sheer amount of players we have accumulated.  The wages for all these none first teamers must be incredible.  You can’t tell me this doesn’t affect our spending on the first team.  

It gives an impression the main team is less important than profiting off of youngsters.  I’m expecting a load of last minute deals to patch over the teams weak points after they’ve spent most of the summer buying nobody’s for profit.

I just don't see the point of most of the signings, it feels like there's no sporting plan to back the first team with the signings. It feels like the stock exchange, but instead of stocks we buy and sell (loan rather) young players. Where are the rumours for the positions that we need to strengthen? And, do they hope to strengthen with unknown, young potential or do they rather buy some established players to help the first team compete for top 4?

7 hours ago, DarkMata said:

Agree don’t have much faith any of our defenders are capable of putting in consistent performances.  I’d probably add a goalkeeper to that list too.

Are current wage structure seems to be at a level where top players are out of reach.  Rumours that Olise, Williams wage demands are too high is slightly worrying as these two aren’t exactly galacticos.  
 

Maybe part of the problem is the sheer amount of players we have accumulated.  The wages for all these none first teamers must be incredible.  You can’t tell me this doesn’t affect our spending on the first team.  

It gives an impression the main team is less important than profiting off of youngsters.  I’m expecting a load of last minute deals to patch over the teams weak points after they’ve spent most of the summer buying nobody’s for profit.

The only profit the board is earning is by selling the academy players. Of all the players we signed, only Palmer and Gusto would command a fee higher than what we signed them for. For the rest we won't even get half of what we've paid because we've overpaid for every player.

On 18/07/2024 at 20:13, Sconnie Blue said:

I'm glad we aren't in the headlines every week (bar Enzo) about splashing large amounts of money again. 

As far as upgrading the first team, Nkunku, James, Carney, Lavia, and Fofana will be back fully fit where 2 of which will generally be treated as new first team signings. KDB, Tosin, and Guiu improve our squad depth. 

At this point outgoings are more important imo. 

The optics around Man Utd's and Arsenal's movements are significantly better than ours because they are going for young, but seasoned, recognisable talents. We are hoovering up countless youth team products and then using our hopelessly transparent PR machine to try to make everyone think that we are trailblazers and signing future talents for the club, when in reality weare puppy farming.. Add in a sprinkling of twitter trash talk and some delusional quotes from Chelsea fans and we are mocking these clubs for the players they are going after. 

I have been away and in fact I'm still trapped in Egypt due to that global IT issue, but I read the Zirkzee signing being mocked whilst we are bigging up the signing of an 18 year old kid that's played 1 hour of football simply because he came from the Barcelona academy.

On 19/07/2024 at 10:47, RMH said:

I just don't see the point of most of the signings, it feels like there's no sporting plan to back the first team with the signings. It feels like the stock exchange, but instead of stocks we buy and sell (loan rather) young players. Where are the rumours for the positions that we need to strengthen? And, do they hope to strengthen with unknown, young potential or do they rather buy some established players to help the first team compete for top 4?

I agree. If you look at the positions that we apparently want to strengthen, the wages that it would take to strengthen in the pose positions mean it will never happen. So if we do buy, we'll get the same at best that's cheaper and then we'll run the usual PR bullsh*t to make us think we're getting the next big thing.

We can't afford Nico Williams who would truly improve us, so he'll go to a big club with footballing ambition. We will get some unproven talent and big him up as having a higher ceiling than Sterling or Mudryk. One of these will leave, probably on loan because once again our valuation of these players is not in line with what the market can afford. In reality we will then find that regardless of the wages and the value, said player is actually a major step down from Sterling, for example.