As I said, blue co/sd is trying to to remove everyone

Edited February 11Feb 11 by Bob stark

I have heard Emma Hayes walked away due to Paul Winstanley interfering in team matters. Looks like him and Steward are getting their claws in deeper, and blueco continues to rip out as much of Roman's empire as they can.

21 minutes ago, VascoRF92 said:

My feeling is that Rayan will be Barcelona's next great striker.

If he goes to Arsenal it will be a disappointment for me, a mediocre club.

Newcastle I think is stupid too.

Liverpool and Chelsea would be two clubs that would make better use of him in England.

Furthermore, I have information that scouts from Barcelona came to São Januário (Vasco's stadium) last year in search of information.

Can you fit Rayan & Estevao in the same team? Seems they are two different players; Estevao excels with dribbling and making key passes, while Rayan is better with his finishing, shooting and aerially. I suppose long term Rayan might end up as a “9” where he has played before, but better in the short term to develop his game on the wings.

Still early days, and still too early to tell but I have a feeling Rayan might end up being the better of the two. Helps he is developing in a low pressure environment, and going under the radar.

6 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

I have heard Emma Hayes walked away due to Paul Winstanley interfering in team matters. Looks like him and Steward are getting their claws in deeper, and blueco continues to rip out as much of Roman's empire as they can.

There is a theory BlueCo might be looking to looking to spin off the Ladies team, as that is where the real value is in the club. Found it odd they brought in Alexis Ohanian & Giannis as investors in the ladies team.

2 hours ago, markpitts said:

Can you fit Rayan & Estevao in the same team? Seems they are two different players; Estevao excels with dribbling and making key passes, while Rayan is better with his finishing, shooting and aerially. I suppose long term Rayan might end up as a “9” where he has played before, but better in the short term to develop his game on the wings.

Still early days, and still too early to tell but I have a feeling Rayan might end up being the better of the two. Helps he is developing in a low pressure environment, and going under the radar.

Rayan before leave's Vasco was playing as a false 9, he floated all over the attacking area, wings and midfield. he's an explosive player. I think he's even better as a number 9 than as a right winger, I've always thought so.

But his original position has always been right winger.

A curious fact: in the youth categories, Rayan scored more than 100 goals. In all categories, he also played in all categories of the Brazilian youth national team.

I can guarantee you, it's not too early to say, trust me.

Rayan is the next phenomenon of Brazilian football; for him, playing in the Premier League is the same as playing on the dirt fields of Rio de Janeiro streets, he doesn't feel the pressure.

Edited February 11Feb 11 by VascoRF92

Haven’t Bournemouth inserted like a 100M release clause into Rayans contract?

Maybe a summer offer of Pedro Neto + 120M could tempt them to part?

6 hours ago, markpitts said:

Not a chance, last summer was a perfect example. The needed a CB; Huljsen had performed brilliantly at Bournemouth, and had a release clause so it was straightforward. We had a bargaining chip with Kepa on loan at Bournemouth, they were interested in a permanent deal. Huljsen’s agent even expected them to seal the deal, and said he had a brilliant relationship with us. There was always the little issue of Madrid coming into play because he was Spanish, and they had an ageing backline.

Smartest move would have been to buy him in the Jan window, loan him back to Bournemouth and let them have Kepa permanently at a bargain to help smooth things over. When Madrid now signed him, they release a daft briefing about how he was just one of the targets they were monitoring. They ended up signing no one even though it was obvious we needed a change. They now sent Sarr back out on loan, only to recall him midseason and then release another silly briefing that he along with Josh were the reasons why they didn’t sign Huljsen. Why was Sarr sent on loan then? The issue is the wage ceiling which they have in place. No top player in their prime is coming to play here for a pittance.

Hasn't Huijsen been dog sh*t at Madrid?

Looks like it’s winstanley behind the sacking of Paul green

Winstanley is not very well liked within the club and I would imagine this will only make those feelings worse

On 11/02/2026 at 12:00, markpitts said:

Can you fit Rayan & Estevao in the same team? Seems they are two different players; Estevao excels with dribbling and making key passes, while Rayan is better with his finishing, shooting and aerially. I suppose long term Rayan might end up as a “9” where he has played before, but better in the short term to develop his game on the wings.

Still early days, and still too early to tell but I have a feeling Rayan might end up being the better of the two. Helps he is developing in a low pressure environment, and going under the radar.

They played in the same international team for years.

12 hours ago, GarnachoCheese said:

Hasn't Huijsen been dog sh*t at Madrid?

Absolutely not! Been a rock & top 3 Madrid player this season, behind Mbappe & Vini

11 hours ago, Deino said:

They played in the same international team for years.

You are right; had a look at it and Rayan started on the LW with Estevao on the RW.

On 11/02/2026 at 08:09, The Boehly Babes said:

Haven’t Bournemouth inserted like a 100M release clause into Rayans contract?

Maybe a summer offer of Pedro Neto + 120M could tempt them to part?

True because they felt they were lowballed with Semenyo. The €100m release clause is an interesting one as it limits his market to 6-8 clubs globally. The problem like Brighton are finding out with Baleba now is if the player reacts badly to you rejecting bids from top clubs, he can start phoning in his performances. They will be lucky to get £50m for him this summer.

“Of the current Chelsea first-team squad, only captain Reece James, Marc Cucurella, Trevoh Chalobah, and Tosin Adarabioyo are in conventional positions for contract negotiations. All are set to be free agents in the summer of 2028”

This coming transfer window will be very interesting, can see a few players kicking off if they don’t raise that wage ceiling.

Hopefully James extends before the World Cup.

44 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Hopefully James extends before the World Cup.

Love it when you talk dirty....

6 hours ago, markpitts said:

“Of the current Chelsea first-team squad, only captain Reece James, Marc Cucurella, Trevoh Chalobah, and Tosin Adarabioyo are in conventional positions for contract negotiations. All are set to be free agents in the summer of 2028”

This coming transfer window will be very interesting, can see a few players kicking off if they don’t raise that wage ceiling.

In theory they could all be sold, but they tried with Trev before and could not make it happen.

Some seriously horrible squad building, how these clowns managed to get a contract extension is insane.

And that's just the half of it.

Need to also consider how poor the balance of the team is.

3 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

And that's just the half of it.

Need to also consider how poor the balance of the team is.

Very poor balance. I would love to sit them down and ask what their thinking was when they signed Lavia, Caicedo & Enzo in the same window. That is almost £280m with an unbalanced midfield. The owners lack of knowledge about football has kept the SDs in a job for this long, under Roman they would have been long gone. The CB situation is also a mess, we have 9-10 CBs on our books but need to keep buying every summer because the balance isn’t right. CBs also don’t trade for big money except the big boys come in for them, so we are stuck with them. Then you have the wingers and the CFs, it’s all a big mess.

9 hours ago, GarnachoCheese said:

Some seriously horrible squad building, how these clowns managed to get a contract extension is insane.

Eghbali and Clearlake are very happy with them.

4 hours ago, markpitts said:

Very poor balance. I would love to sit them down and ask what their thinking was when they signed Lavia, Caicedo & Enzo in the same window. That is almost £280m with an unbalanced midfield. The owners lack of knowledge about football has kept the SDs in a job for this long, under Roman they would have been long gone. The CB situation is also a mess, we have 9-10 CBs on our books but need to keep buying every summer because the balance isn’t right. CBs also don’t trade for big money except the big boys come in for them, so we are stuck with them. Then you have the wingers and the CFs, it’s all a big mess.

This!
Add Santos to the list and we basically have the same player four times. I mean, obviously Caicedo is the best ball-winning CM, Lavia would be the best passed if he played, and Enzo can nick a goal here and there, but they aren’t vastly different from one another.

OPTA have released an analysis that is inadvertently damning of our squad building and planning.

The data shows that we have more players in their "peak" years than most PL clubs. In fact, we have more players at their apparent peak than most clubs and a similar proportion of players at their peak as the supposed 'results now' clubs.

In other words, it's not the age of our players, it's their quality.

19 minutes ago, SydneyChelsea said:

OPTA have released an analysis that is inadvertently damning of our squad building and planning.

The data shows that we have more players in their "peak" years than most PL clubs. In fact, we have more players at their apparent peak than most clubs and a similar proportion of players at their peak as the supposed 'results now' clubs.

In other words, it's not the age of our players, it's their quality.

But…but… the data showed Gittebs will be a £90m rated winger in a couple years 😢

1 hour ago, Sconnie Blue said:

But…but… the data showed Gittebs will be a £90m rated winger in a couple years 😢

Trust the project

The project:

Edited March 4Mar 4 by SydneyChelsea

11 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

OPTA have released an analysis that is inadvertently damning of our squad building and planning.

The data shows that we have more players in their "peak" years than most PL clubs. In fact, we have more players at their apparent peak than most clubs and a similar proportion of players at their peak as the supposed 'results now' clubs.

In other words, it's not the age of our players, it's their quality.

It say minutes though and it kinda make sense. We have a lot of u-24 players but the one who play most minutes are the one in the peak zone.

Btw this diagram is a good rule of thumb for player's age bracket. You need to consider position, playing style but 24 is the sweet spot.

Edited March 5Mar 5 by Bob stark