6 hours ago, 19seventyone said:

Looks like Zubimendi will go to Madrid

I agree but that must surely open up the Tchouameni, Camavinga, Valverde, Guler question again. They will have to let at least one go, and frankly, whilst I do really like Zubimendi and Ruiz come to that (if he was cheaper) I'd also take pretty much any one of these as well.

11 hours ago, All Barco no bite said:

If we ship out Enzo and Neto at the back end of this window this might go down as the greatest transfer window of all time. Blue Co will be forgiven for their crimes.

Eghbali & Boehly will be chair lifted above the crowd at the following home game! In the bath with the players post match! hip hip hooray!

Al Hilal have talks scheduled with Chelsea this week to discuss Pedro Neto. Neto has already received personal terms proposal from the Saudi Club. (@FabrizioRomano) #CFC

City look to be missing out on Neto, they arent backing Maresca tut tut.🤔

If you snooze you lose! 😄

Edited yesterday at 07:431 day by OTL

53 minutes ago, OTL said:

Al Hilal have talks scheduled with Chelsea this week to discuss Pedro Neto. Neto has already received personal terms proposal from the Saudi Club. (@FabrizioRomano) #CFC

City look to be missing out on Neto, they arent backing Maresca tut tut.🤔

If you snooze you lose! 😄

He'll have to make do with Fernandez and Gusto !

WE WONT SELL HIM UNLESS THE OWNERS GET REAL

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/neto-transfer-latest-chelsea-fc-al-hilal-tottenham-liverpool-b1293645.html

When you see Summerville has gone Saudi for 64M, you can't help but feel Neto is worth more but if we can get what we paid for him back i'd jump at it regardless of market value.

It's difficult to say Neto is worth anywhere near what we apparently want for him, but wingers are at a premium nowadays and when you look at what Diomande, Summerville and Gordon have gone for the market is pretty crazy. If we can get around £80m it would be great business.

6 minutes ago, timetowaste said:

It's difficult to say Neto is worth anywhere near what we apparently want for him, but wingers are at a premium nowadays and when you look at what Diomande, Summerville and Gordon have gone for the market is pretty crazy. If we can get around £80m it would be great business.

I would be astounded if we got anything near that figure TBH. Gordon and Summerville were at least in form and had fairly decent world cups. Was shocked that Summerville didn't get snapped up by a PL club. Would take first half decent offer we get for Neto.

Al Hilal have the money and Neto is a starter for Portugal. His agent is Jorge Mendes who we have a good connection with. Think we could be in for some good money here. Also is value in the books is now around 36M so anything above that and we keep a clean balance.

4 minutes ago, Nibs said:

I would be astounded if we got anything near that figure TBH. Gordon and Summerville were at least in form and had fairly decent world cups. Was shocked that Summerville didn't get snapped up by a PL club. Would take first half decent offer we get for Neto.

Gordon wasn’t starting for Newcastle at seasons end so not sure you are right about his form and when it came to the WC wasn’t he was transferred before the WC kicked off.

When it comes to Summerville he had a couple of ok to gook periods but again nothing to write home about . Has a decent ish WC. Didnt surprise me that he wasn’t a target of note for any PL club.

We aren’t going to get close to £100m for Neto but don’t be surprised if it’s close to £80m than £60m

Honestly in this day and age why do we need to schedule talks??

Haven’t any of our many SD’s got phones🙄

5 hours ago, C3blue said:

Honestly in this day and age why do we need to schedule talks??

Haven’t any of our many SD’s got phones🙄

Have you seen the amount of players we need to sell? Even with the amount of sporting directors we have their time will be spent offering out players to any club that will listen. Wouldn’t surprise me if there’s one director solely in charge of flogging Delap.

In fact I say we need to cull our sporting directors so who ever can sell Delap gets to stay. fire the rest.

7 hours ago, Nibs said:

I would be astounded if we got anything near that figure TBH. Gordon and Summerville were at least in form and had fairly decent world cups. Was shocked that Summerville didn't get snapped up by a PL club. Would take first half decent offer we get for Neto.

I'd a be careful with form; the WCC f**ked our season in that regard IMO.
Otherwise how to explain Cole's last season?

1 hour ago, acaeus said:

I'd a be careful with form; the WCC f**ked our season in that regard IMO.
Otherwise how to explain Cole's last season?

Easy.

Enzo Maresca

1 hour ago, 19seventyone said:

Easy.

Enzo Maresca

YMMV, but I never blame the manager for a player's shortcomings. Otherwise players are never in bad form, tired, unfit, or unfocused — it's always one person's fault: the manager.
Cole was visibly slower, more ponderous on the ball, and less clinical in front of goal last season. That's a player being out of form, regardless of what you think of Maresca.

1 hour ago, acaeus said:

YMMV, but I never blame the manager for a player's shortcomings. Otherwise players are never in bad form, tired, unfit, or unfocused — it's always one person's fault: the manager.
Cole was visibly slower, more ponderous on the ball, and less clinical in front of goal last season. That's a player being out of form, regardless of what you think of Maresca.

It’s no coincidence that the moment Maresca’s tactics were properly embedded was the moment Palmer’s form fell off a cliff. Sure, he’s had injuries and other factors but I have absolutely no doubt the main reason for his form was Maresca’s tactics.

Palmer, Neto, Garnacho et al basically played against defences that had been allowed to set.

Maresca’s need for “control” harmed every single attacker we had under him not just Palmer. Other than 6 months of a firing Palmer can you say any other of our attackers were a success?

So maybe you can blame a manager for a player’s form….. especially when several others are in the same boat.

“Manchester City also like Pedro Neto but they consider the £100m valuation too high.”

So they don’t want to sell.

22 minutes ago, markpitts said:

“Manchester City also like Pedro Neto but they consider the £100m valuation too high.”

So they don’t want to sell.

That’s how I see it. Unless someone’s willing to pay stupid money.

59 minutes ago, 19seventyone said:

It’s no coincidence that the moment Maresca’s tactics were properly embedded was the moment Palmer’s form fell off a cliff. Sure, he’s had injuries and other factors but I have absolutely no doubt the main reason for his form was Maresca’s tactics.

Palmer, Neto, Garnacho et al basically played against defences that had been allowed to set.

Maresca’s need for “control” harmed every single attacker we had under him not just Palmer. Other than 6 months of a firing Palmer can you say any other of our attackers were a success?

So maybe you can blame a manager for a player’s form….. especially when several others are in the same boat.

I think the coincidence is being forced in rather than found. The epitome of what Maresca wanted IMO was showcased in the WCC final against PSG with that super high press. Hardly the "control" football supposedly killing all our attackers.

Palmer then had that stretch of excellent form before the niggling injuries and poor form that followed. So if we're going to draw a causal line, why that one? For me it was 100% the club's fault and the cozy relationship with Trump that made Chelsea go all-in on that tournament while the other teams rested/had fun.

11 minutes ago, acaeus said:

I think the coincidence is being forced in rather than found. The epitome of what Maresca wanted IMO was showcased in the WCC final against PSG with that super high press. Hardly the "control" football supposedly killing all our attackers.

Palmer then had that stretch of excellent form before the niggling injuries and poor form that followed. So if we're going to draw a causal line, why that one? For me it was 100% the club's fault and the cozy relationship with Trump that made Chelsea go all-in on that tournament while the other teams rested/had fun.

There was £85m in prize money on the line, the other clubs were not “resting or having fun”, you could argue some managers like Pep, in City’s case, had so much power, that if Pep wasn’t bothered about collecting more than the £37m they managed out of it for his owners, then that’s that, as he’s untouchable. We earned double what Bayern collected, and Inter Milan from a league where everyone is broke only collected £26m, a massive disappointment, ‘objectively’.

We really need to stop with the revisionism, PSG wanted to win, they turned up, with the first team. They lost, it happens (almost happened against Arsenal in a final). Both teams wanted it, Maresca got it right on the day for once. There is no Trump conspiracy.

2 hours ago, acaeus said:

I think the coincidence is being forced in rather than found. The epitome of what Maresca wanted IMO was showcased in the WCC final against PSG with that super high press. Hardly the "control" football supposedly killing all our attackers.

Palmer then had that stretch of excellent form before the niggling injuries and poor form that followed. So if we're going to draw a causal line, why that one? For me it was 100% the club's fault and the cozy relationship with Trump that made Chelsea go all-in on that tournament while the other teams rested/had fun.

Maresca's tactics in winning the CWC final is no different a situation to Postecogolou instructing Spurs to park the bus in the Europa League final. At the end of day, you do what you need to do to win a trophy, and Maresca can deserve credit for that at least. PSG were the only other European team that cared about winning the trophy, other than us who were obviously desperate to make an impression in America.

The problem is that he saw that as a pragmatic moment, a one-off glitch, rather than an indication that things needed to fundamentally change to be more successful overall. The PL is a known quality where 17 out of 19 teams were always going to be content to sit back and knick a goal on the counter or set-piece, home and away. Only Man City and Liverpool had any intention of doing otherwise.

Form is always the result of the interaction between the player's circumstances and the coach's management. It would be silly to ignore that tactical changes, disputes around injury recovery protocol and general relationship issues between players and their manager wouldn't impact their performances. Players are not solely responsible for their output, to claim that is to ignore reality.

3 hours ago, Term_X said:

There was £85m in prize money on the line, the other clubs were not “resting or having fun”, you could argue some managers like Pep, in City’s case, had so much power, that if Pep wasn’t bothered about collecting more than the £37m they managed out of it for his owners, then that’s that, as he’s untouchable. We earned double what Bayern collected, and Inter Milan from a league where everyone is broke only collected £26m, a massive disappointment, ‘objectively’.

We really need to stop with the revisionism, PSG wanted to win, they turned up, with the first team. They lost, it happens (almost happened against Arsenal in a final). Both teams wanted it, Maresca got it right on the day for once. There is no Trump conspiracy.

I'm not sure if my post indicated how strongly I felt about that tourney, because I don't. Maybe the club was right to go all-in for it, or maybe the physios and fitness coaches internally said that it would break the players as IMO happened. I know some teams wanted more than others; City and Arsenal did not as much... were they right? Arsenal won the league, so I cannot say they weren't.

My main point is that I totally link the poor form of a couple of players—including Cole's niggling injuries—to the tourney. 🤷‍♂️

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by acaeus

53 minutes ago, SydneyChelsea said:

Maresca's tactics in winning the CWC final is no different a situation to Postecogolou instructing Spurs to park the bus in the Europa League final. At the end of day, you do what you need to do to win a trophy, and Maresca can deserve credit for that at least. PSG were the only other European team that cared about winning the trophy, other than us who were obviously desperate to make an impression in America.

The problem is that he saw that as a pragmatic moment, a one-off glitch, rather than an indication that things needed to fundamentally change to be more successful overall. The PL is a known quality where 17 out of 19 teams were always going to be content to sit back and knick a goal on the counter or set-piece, home and away. Only Man City and Liverpool had any intention of doing otherwise.

Form is always the result of the interaction between the player's circumstances and the coach's management. It would be silly to ignore that tactical changes, disputes around injury recovery protocol and general relationship issues between players and their manager wouldn't impact their performances. Players are not solely responsible for their output, to claim that is to ignore reality.

I see form as more of a 2-3 season thing rather than a momentary status. Pre-season, vacation time, recovery time, injuries, workload, etc. are all part of it. A player's performance over a few months can fluctuate for all sorts of reasons, and I don't think it's useful to automatically attribute those fluctuations to the manager.

1 hour ago, acaeus said:

I see form as more of a 2-3 season thing rather than a momentary status. Pre-season, vacation time, recovery time, injuries, workload, etc. are all part of it. A player's performance over a few months can fluctuate for all sorts of reasons, and I don't think it's useful to automatically attribute those fluctuations to the manager.

Sure, but it's very much the manager's job to get the best out of a player taking into account that natural fluctuation. Otherwise, what is the point of having one?