2 minutes ago, 2211 said:

What would you say he’s worth?

55-60m

Any more and we should go for Morgan Rogers.

15 hours ago, The Boehly Babes said:

Oh by no means was I having a pop at Cobham we’ve produced some excellent players, but we also have a tendency to exaggerate the abilities of those players as well.

RLC was unplayable til the injury, that ‘friendly’ in the US has led to one of the biggest what ifs in recent football memory.

Mase had a few Top Top seasons, once again injuries have derailed his career.

Reece James is World Class, fitness depending.

Tino Livramento, I believe will be a Top 3 fullback in the Prem over the next 2-3 seasons and is some of the worst business we’ve done as a club allowing him to leave.

Aina, Lamptey, Solanke are acceptable lower level Prem players.

But then there are the Tino Anjorims, Lewis Bates & Izzy Browns of the world that we convince ourselves are the next big thing, for me George falls into that category.

Don't let facts get in the way. Timo's decision, not the club's. He was offered a new contract. He turned it down. At the time - 4 years ago - he was third in line behind Azpi and James. He, perfectly reasonably, didn't see game time on the horizon. Sold to Southampton with a sell-on clause which was triggered when Newcastle bought him.

27 minutes ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

55-60m

Any more and we should go for Morgan Rogers.

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in either Rogers or Simons, but i'd be surprised if Rogers was anywhere near the as good of a player as SImons and the similar(ish) prices isn't the English/Premier League tax talking

1 hour ago, dermott said:

Don't let facts get in the way. Timo's decision, not the club's. He was offered a new contract. He turned it down. At the time - 4 years ago - he was third in line behind Azpi and James. He, perfectly reasonably, didn't see game time on the horizon. Sold to Southampton with a sell-on clause which was triggered when Newcastle bought him.

We could have gave him more playing time and showed him a clear development path. Lets not pretend like it was impossible to keep him.

1 hour ago, Qaz said:

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in either Rogers or Simons, but i'd be surprised if Rogers was anywhere near the as good of a player as SImons and the similar(ish) prices isn't the English/Premier League tax talking

If Rogers was playing in the Bundesliga he'd be getting 50 goals and 50 assists a season, pathetic league.

Bundesliga is the new Ligue 1, absolute farmers league even Harry Kane can win trophies over there.

3 hours ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

55-60m

Any more and we should go for Morgan Rogers.

£60m including add ons exactly is what they want.

We just haven’t made an official bid yet.

My point was it’s time to start negotiations IMO, start at £55m all in, see if they accept and if not hopefully meet somewhere in the middle.

Edited August 4, 20251 yr by 2211

26 minutes ago, 2211 said:

£60m including add ons exactly is what they want.

We just haven’t made an official bid yet.

My point was it’s time to start negotiations IMO, start at £55m all in, see if they accept and if not hopefully meet somewhere in the middle.

We probably need to sell before we can spend anymore. Simons is a nice to have, but not essential.

4 hours ago, dermott said:

Don't let facts get in the way. Timo's decision, not the club's. He was offered a new contract. He turned it down. At the time - 4 years ago - he was third in line behind Azpi and James. He, perfectly reasonably, didn't see game time on the horizon. Sold to Southampton with a sell-on clause which was triggered when Newcastle bought him.

Also didn’t help Tuchel wanted Hakimi on top of James/Azpilicueta. Perfectly understandable why he wanted to leave vs the endless loans he would’ve gotten.

2 hours ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

We could have gave him more playing time and showed him a clear development path. Lets not pretend like it was impossible to keep him.

A clear development path? What exactly might that be when he was solely a RB and third choice behind Azpi and James? Azpi played another two seasons. They wanted to keep him, he wanted senior football and fair enough.

12 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Also didn’t help Tuchel wanted Hakimi on top of James/Azpilicueta. Perfectly understandable why he wanted to leave vs the endless loans he would’ve gotten.

Quite. The Livramento thing resurfaces from time to time with zero regard for the facts at the time.

6 hours ago, 2211 said:

He seems to have done his bit including removing RB Leipzig from his IG profile and saying he wants to join Chelsea.

It’s time to do our bit and make a bid and get this done otherwise there will be a point where he’ll feel we’ve hung him out to dry without even making an official bid.

We did the exact same with Kounde then when Barcelona stepped in he accepted - there’s only so long players will hang around for a club.

I say wrap this deal up this week then concentrate on more outgoings and Garnacho, doing it the other way round is risky with Arsenal and Bayern waiting in the wings.

If any of those clubs bid close to £60m then RB Leipzig will accept and everything could change in Simmons head.

Also if Man Utd or Newcastle buy Sesko then they are definitely digging thier heels in and not dropping the asking price.

I wish we’d stop messing around and get this done.

For once the club is making the right moves.

Sales should be the priority and Simons being done on deadline day is still fine.

2 hours ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

We could have gave him more playing time and showed him a clear development path. Lets not pretend like it was impossible to keep him.

How? He was never going to be able to beat Reece at that point in time. It's like the Wayne Bridge-Ashley Cole conundrum

5 minutes ago, dermott said:

A clear development path? What exactly might that be when he was solely a RB and third choice behind Azpi and James? Azpi played another two seasons. They wanted to keep him, he wanted senior football and fair enough.

The season before Tino left Azpi was playing as a CB, in a back 3. Tuchel gave Tino a grand total of ZERO minutes. Lets not forget he can play on either side too.

4 minutes ago, Deino said:

How? He was never going to be able to beat Reece at that point in time. It's like the Wayne Bridge-Ashley Cole conundrum

I don't think even Tino would have expected to beat RJ, but i'm sure he would have expected more than zero minutes on the pitch. We could have saved a fortune had we drip fed him minutes that season with how much RJ has missed since then.

1 hour ago, Deino said:

For once the club is making the right moves.

Sales should be the priority and Simons being done on deadline day is still fine.

Sales make sense I agree but we’ve literally made £50m today, why not reinvestment it and integrate him into the squad before the season starts.

We are obviously hell bent on Garnacho, I’d rather reinvest todays sales on Simmons and then deadline day for Garnacho if more sales allow.

1 hour ago, Deino said:

For once the club is making the right moves.

Sales should be the priority and Simons being done on deadline day is still fine.

No. Sooner the better. Needs to get up to speed in this system so he’s at CAM/LF match week one and Enzo + Caicedo pivot.

Edited August 4, 20251 yr by Sconnie Blue

2 hours ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

The season before Tino left Azpi was playing as a CB, in a back 3. Tuchel gave Tino a grand total of ZERO minutes. Lets not forget he can play on either side too.

I don't think even Tino would have expected to beat RJ, but i'm sure he would have expected more than zero minutes on the pitch. We could have saved a fortune had we drip fed him minutes that season with how much RJ has missed since then.

In hindsight, yes but both Reece and Tino needed a lot of minutes, we can't be banking on injuries to happen. It's just how it turned out, hard to fault anyone

4 hours ago, 2211 said:

£60m including add ons exactly is what they want.

We just haven’t made an official bid yet.

My point was it’s time to start negotiations IMO, start at £55m all in, see if they accept and if not hopefully meet somewhere in the middle.

Its one of the things that i do agree with Younes over. If they get to sell Sesko first for what they want, Leipzig may well start hiking the price for Simons. If we are going to do it we need to do it soon

2 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

No. Sooner the better. Needs to get up to speed in this system so he’s at CAM/LF match week one and Enzo + Caicedo pivot.

Enzo pivot shouts in summer 2025 🥀

1 hour ago, Deino said:

In hindsight, yes but both Reece and Tino needed a lot of minutes, we can't be banking on injuries to happen. It's just how it turned out, hard to fault anyone

Tino was 17/18? He didn’t need lots of minutes, he just needed exposure. 800-1200 minutes across cup competitions and games when we were resting Reece should have been enough. We had to show him a path and we didn’t. The ship has sailed now but the club didn’t do enough for a player of his talent.

5 hours ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

Enzo pivot shouts in summer 2025 🥀

Enzo is like that kid who, even if you play them as goalkeeper, always tries to run up front

9 hours ago, 2211 said:

Sales make sense I agree but we’ve literally made £50m today, why not reinvestment it and integrate him into the squad before the season starts.

We are obviously hell bent on Garnacho, I’d rather reinvest todays sales on Simmons and then deadline day for Garnacho if more sales allow.

I'm sure the club wants it like that too but there's so many moving parts going on that the transfer and finance team are probably putting their focus in keeping everything running smoothly first. This isn't like buying candy at the shop, mind you.

9 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

No. Sooner the better. Needs to get up to speed in this system so he’s at CAM/LF match week one and Enzo + Caicedo pivot.

Ideally, yes but we're also selling and loaning guys like Ugochukwu, Broja, Guiu, KDH etc. Doesn't matter how many employees we have, orchestrating all of that at the same time is a nightmare

11 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

Enzo is like that kid who, even if you play them as goalkeeper, always tries to run up front

Always been a fan of rush goalie tbh

1 hour ago, TheCeleryKing said:

Always been a fan of rush goalie tbh

thanks for that comment Robert.😉

20 hours ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

Tino was 17/18? He didn’t need lots of minutes, he just needed exposure. 800-1200 minutes across cup competitions and games when we were resting Reece should have been enough. We had to show him a path and we didn’t. The ship has sailed now but the club didn’t do enough for a player of his talent.

Soton was offering him a starting position. Can't compete with that

In hindsight, he too torn an ACL in the same season he was sold and only played the year after. Sometimes it's just not meant to be

Edited August 5, 20251 yr by Deino