12 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Can someone verify those reports, or is it just typical BlueCo PR because we needed to replace Sarr after pump faking yet another transfer target?

November 2025 the Sporting Director publicly stating they want to sign him permanently. Same thing they did with Chukwuemeka and same thing they tried with Maatsen. If he's saying this in public, he's certainly in the players ear behind closed doors.

This is the report in the news:

The Argentine’s loan deal has no option to buy clause, but Dortmund’s sporting director Sebastian Kehl hinted that the club are looking to open talks with Chelsea to explore making the deal permanent.

‘I will have to pick up the phone in the next few days and will certainly call them,’ Kehl said after their victory.

So the SD said they're interested and will give Chelsea a call to enquire about Anselmino. Is that considered tapping up a player? Are they not allowed to ask Chelsea if they are interested in buying the player?

5 minutes ago, RMH said:

This is the report in the news:

So the SD said they're interested and will give Chelsea a call to enquire about Anselmino. Is that considered tapping up a player? Are they not allowed to ask Chelsea if they are interested in buying the player?

Given we loaned them Chukwuemeka and then agreed a permanent sale right after the loan, I'd say this is "normal" behaviour on Dortmund's part that we have been happy to go along with before. So not sure why we would now be having a hissy fit with them ... seems daft to piss off a decent club that is happy to take some of our SDs "speculative" signings and give them experience in the CL and competing domestically.

Edited February 6Feb 6 by Sexyfootball

4 hours ago, 19seventyone said:

If the tapping rumours are true then I don’t care if Anselmino was distraught at leaving. Club have done the right thing by getting him out of Germany.

Is it tapping up though if you loan me a player, and I make it known I am interested in signing him permanently? Ideally you either come to the table with a reasonable number or price him out of the market. Instead we have thrown our dummies out, not even bothered checking to see what Dortmund are seeing, and sent him to an inferior league.

Dortmund’s actions aren’t unusual and we could have even sold him to them short term at a discounted fee with a buyback/sell on clause. As it stand, I don’t see the plan with Anselmino

25 minutes ago, markpitts said:

Is it tapping up though if you loan me a player, and I make it known I am interested in signing him permanently? Ideally you either come to the table with a reasonable number or price him out of the market. Instead we have thrown our dummies out, not even bothered checking to see what Dortmund are seeing, and sent him to an inferior league.

Dortmund’s actions aren’t unusual and we could have even sold him to them short term at a discounted fee with a buyback/sell on clause. As it stand, I don’t see the plan with Anselmino

Ligue 1 is not inferior to Bundesliga in 2026.

He's missed 2/3 of his time at Dortmund with them unable to manage his minutes and fitness. We can manage it far better for the long term at Strasbourg and as we've seen its a legitimate path into the Chelsea team.

1 minute ago, GarnachoCheese said:

Ligue 1 is not inferior to Bundesliga in 2026.

He's missed 2/3 of his time at Dortmund with them unable to manage his minutes and fitness. We can manage it far better for the long term at Strasbourg and as we've seen its a legitimate path into the Chelsea team.

And if that's their assessment, then it would be a fairly valid opinion to put out there as the reason to bring him back to be sent to Strasbourg. Instead, the club has decided to go with the "tapping up" story.

1 minute ago, RMH said:

And if that's their assessment, then it would be a fairly valid opinion to put out there as the reason to bring him back to be sent to Strasbourg. Instead, the club has decided to go with the "tapping up" story.

Dortmund are pretty well known for it.

Its been a one way relationship since the start, f**k them.

1 minute ago, GarnachoCheese said:

Dortmund are pretty well known for it.

Its been a one way relationship since the start, f**k them.

Are they? I thought that Dortmund was a team losing their players to bigger teams across Europe but, otherwise, I don't really know about how much "tapping up" Dortmund does. And, in this case, it seems that they were open with Chelsea about their interest. Also, tapping up is what we did with Olise and Palace, so I'm not sure that we are in a good place to condemn it.

1 hour ago, markpitts said:

Is it tapping up though if you loan me a player, and I make it known I am interested in signing him permanently? Ideally you either come to the table with a reasonable number or price him out of the market. Instead we have thrown our dummies out, not even bothered checking to see what Dortmund are seeing, and sent him to an inferior league.

Dortmund’s actions aren’t unusual and we could have even sold him to them short term at a discounted fee with a buyback/sell on clause. As it stand, I don’t see the plan with Anselmino

Yes it is tapping up especially if the rumours that said Dortmund asked him to submit a transfer request.

That would be the perfect example of tapping up.

1 hour ago, RMH said:

Are they? I thought that Dortmund was a team losing their players to bigger teams across Europe but, otherwise, I don't really know about how much "tapping up" Dortmund does. And, in this case, it seems that they were open with Chelsea about their interest. Also, tapping up is what we did with Olise and Palace, so I'm not sure that we are in a good place to condemn it.

We did it once so we should let any team do it to us? I'm sure if Olise was on loan to us when we did it Palace would have wanted him back.

Edited February 6Feb 6 by GarnachoCheese

2 hours ago, 19seventyone said:

Yes it is tapping up especially if the rumours that said Dortmund asked him to submit a transfer request.

That would be the perfect example of tapping up.

Based on rumours, started by our PR BS machine? What we know is that Dortmund SD said that they were going to get in contact with Chelsea to enquire about the possibility of buying. Other than that, we don't know.

1 hour ago, GarnachoCheese said:

We did it once so we should let any team do it to us? I'm sure if Olise was on loan to us when we did it Palace would have wanted him back.

No, but we can't get our knickers on a twist about it either, since we've done it to others too. We're in our right to recall the player, no excuses needed, and even less such a lame one. More of the PR BS released by our magnificent board and directors.

13 minutes ago, RMH said:

No, but we can't get our knickers on a twist about it either, since we've done it to others too. We're in our right to recall the player, no excuses needed, and even less such a lame one. More of the PR BS released by our magnificent board and directors.

Have we got our knickers in a twist? All i've seen is he's got recalled, Dortmund are said to be furious and we explained why he was recalled.

I know these owners are dog sh*t and the club is dying but we don't need to overreact to everything. i honestly don't see anything wrong with the way this was handled and actually think its the right decision for the club and player.

1 hour ago, GarnachoCheese said:

Have we got our knickers in a twist? All i've seen is he's got recalled, Dortmund are said to be furious and we explained why he was recalled.

I know these owners are dog sh*t and the club is dying but we don't need to overreact to everything. i honestly don't see anything wrong with the way this was handled and actually think its the right decision for the club and player.

How? Pulling a player from a stable environment where he is competing for the Bundesliga & CL, and dumping him in a Conference team that are out of European places.

Fully expect his agent to shop him around in the summer, and or Dortmund slap in a bid.

The whole Dortmund were tapping him up thing is just so convenient.

We recalled Anselmino because it was becoming apparent Jacquet didn’t want to come here amidst Liverpool and Bayern interest, so they used Sarr as a fall back and sent Anselmino to Strasbourg in order to not have Strasbourg with just their dick in their hand.

We all know their every move and intention by now.

18 hours ago, markpitts said:

How? Pulling a player from a stable environment where he is competing for the Bundesliga & CL, and dumping him in a Conference team that are out of European places.

Fully expect his agent to shop him around in the summer, and or Dortmund slap in a bid.

A team that’s mismanaged his fitness so poorly he’s only played in 1/3 of the games available to him.

Dortmund can slap a bid in all the want, he’s a contracted player for multiple years. They’ll have to pay up if they want him.

17 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

The whole Dortmund were tapping him up thing is just so convenient.

We recalled Anselmino because it was becoming apparent Jacquet didn’t want to come here amidst Liverpool and Bayern interest, so they used Sarr as a fall back and sent Anselmino to Strasbourg in order to not have Strasbourg with just their dick in their hand.

We all know their every move and intention by now.

Are you just ignoring the Dortmund’s SD’s own words from November? Two things can be true.

So I think his minutes for Strasbourg thus far is in the single digit range. Meanwhile, Sarr doesn't get a lot of minutes for us and in the one he does get, he's played out of position and is directly at fault for a goal vs PSG. Oh, and he kind of blocks Acheampong. So thats a negative for Strasbourg, Dortmund, Chelsea, Sarr, Anselmino and Acheampong. Have to be some kind of record, surely?

1 hour ago, AndyDowsleftflank said:

So I think his minutes for Strasbourg thus far is in the single digit range. Meanwhile, Sarr doesn't get a lot of minutes for us and in the one he does get, he's played out of position and is directly at fault for a goal vs PSG. Oh, and he kind of blocks Acheampong. So thats a negative for Strasbourg, Dortmund, Chelsea, Sarr, Anselmino and Acheampong. Have to be some kind of record, surely?

But you're missing the bigger picture. Winstanley's opportunity to have his Billy Beane moneyball moment, with Strasbourg on hold on line 1, whilst he plays hardball with Dortmund on line 2, with Anselmino's agent also on hold and Sarr packing his bags in the Strasbourg changing room. Oooh you go WinStupid, you're the man in the know.

There doesn’t appear to be a lot of thought gone into most of these signings.

No plan or pathway for development. Not much guidance on or off the pitch.

It’s not like these kids cost peanuts either. These aren’t worth a punt couple of million prices. We have Quanda coming next season. Him and Essugo cost over £60m ffs. Quanda has Estevau, Gittens, Garnacho as young wide players competing for game time, were stifling all their development in a way.

£4m on Satpeav is more like the prices you’d think is a worth a punt signing not the amounts we spend but to spend it and then have no real idea of what to actually do with the player is madness.

Just now, C3blue said:

There doesn’t appear to be a lot of thought gone into most of these signings.

No plan or pathway for development. Not much guidance on or off the pitch.

It’s not like these kids cost peanuts either. These aren’t worth a punt couple of million prices. We have Quanda coming next season. Him and Essugo cost over £60m ffs. Quanda has Estevau, Gittens, Garnacho as young wide players competing for game time, were stifling all their development in a way.

£4m on Satpeav is more like the prices you’d think is a worth a punt signing not the amounts we spend but to spend it and then have no real idea of what to actually do with the player is madness.

Bang on !

Almost as if there was a complete lack of experience in the sporting director department and the coaching staff ... 😎

Quite why you'd want to invest billions of pounds and have it all managed by such low level staff is beyond me. I'm totally convinced the BlueCo hierarchy are just low IQ bullsh*tting no-marks who have somehow got really lucky in life to this point. Either that or they've already lost half the money they inherited from daddy's trust fund ...

9 hours ago, AndyDowsleftflank said:

So I think his minutes for Strasbourg thus far is in the single digit range. Meanwhile, Sarr doesn't get a lot of minutes for us and in the one he does get, he's played out of position and is directly at fault for a goal vs PSG. Oh, and he kind of blocks Acheampong. So thats a negative for Strasbourg, Dortmund, Chelsea, Sarr, Anselmino and Acheampong. Have to be some kind of record, surely?

Well Sarr & Josh might get more playing time now that Chalobah is injured. But. But the 'strategy' is ludicrous. Glad we were not a fit for Mr.Jacquet. All excellent young prospects - but they need to lurn from the big kids - the older more experienced players and coaches - that is how young players lurn the game innit.

Edited March 20Mar 20 by TheCeleryKing