Football: 3rd Season Meltdown

[Consigliere]

Continue.

[Consigliere]

Have to say that Mourinho is not inspiring much confidence in the upcoming season. He's been moaning since preseason started and just about every word out of his mouth is something negative. He's at Roy Keane levels of miserable.

 

ETA. Barca pull the rug out from under Roma and snatch up Malcom.

Reports also saying that negotiations have started between AC Milan and Juve for the return of Bonucci with Higuain heading the other way.

[Mark Antony]

Seen some Conte to Milan rumors as well. Would be harsh on Gattusso but Conte is world class. 

Poor Roma. Very odd that both teams had announced the agreements on twitter before Barca snuck in and stole Malcom. Will he even start for Barca? Don’t him and Dembele play the same position? Think he would have been smarter to go to Roma for a few years but  

[Isalie]

Oh well, fuck Barca and fuck bordeaux.

[Jordan La Cabra]

@Iskaral Pust, in response to your post in the previous thread, I have hopes for Barkley this season.

I’ve said before that I was never a big fan of his when he was at Everton, and he hardly set the world alight in any games for us last season, but I think he arrived at Chelsea at the wrong time, under the wrong circumstances.

He had the chance to join us last August for £35m - I think he got as far as a medical - but decided against it. He stayed at Everton, didn’t play, then signed for us for £15m.

To me, it was a club buy, that Conte had little or nothing to do with. A player like Barkley didn’t fit our style under Conte, as there was no clear position that suited him.

Sarri plays a 433 system that I think will suit Barkley, either as the free roaming midfielder in a three or as a wide forward. Against Perth Glory, he played the first half on the left side of midfield and the second on the left wing. I think he suits midfield better, as he can drive from deep. I was very impressed with his performance.

Unfortunately, we have seen players like KdB and Lukaku look excellent in preseason, only to be shipped out before the window closes.

As for Drinkwater, I would be surprised if we could get half of the £35m we paid for him back. 

There is a misconception that Chelsea don’t spend as much these days. But last season, we spent the second most after Man City, we just spent so much of it stupidly that people forget where the money went. Drinkwater is an example of that.

[Jordan La Cabra]

He will have to earn his place in the squad. At the moment, I think he’s probably treating this as the real beginning of his Chelsea career and trying to give Sarri a reason to play him.

Fabregas played alongside Jorginho against Perth Glory, but I feel we only need one of them playing at a time, as they are quite similar. When Jorginho went off at half time, Fabregas slotted into his position. 

Should Kante stay, you’d imagine he’d be starting alongside Jorginho, which leaves Fabregas, Barkley, Bakayoko and Drinkwater to fight for the other position. Weighing up what they all bring to the team and their styles, I would probably go with Barkley, as he offers something different. A run of games and a manager that’s confident in him could bring out the talent we saw at Everton in flashes, in a more consistent basis.

Barkley could benefit from the fact we are probably going to lose Hazard, as his versatility offers us options in a few positions.

 

[ljkeane]

There problem with Barkley is while he can look half decent at times there's just no end product in terms of goals or assists.

So does Barcelona swooping in for Malcolm mean they've given up on Willian?

[Jordan La Cabra]

As much as it would have been good business on Chelsea’s behalf, especially if they were able to keep edging higher bids out of Barcelona for Willian, I do hope that Malcom signing for them stops their pursuit of Willian.

As we are likely to lose Hazard and Courtois without replacing them with someone of similar quality, it would be less than ideal to lose another of our best players, who we would be unlikely to replace with the same quality, again.

We spent over £200m last summer, yet our squad ended up worse than it was the season before, mainly because we sold two key players, Costa and Matic, and replaced them with weaker players. 

Chelsea can’t expect to keep selling players, not replacing them, yet still contend for the title, when Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Man United have all improved their squad this summer.

[Daemon the Leaner]

19 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

United improved their squad by much?

Well, Dalot's gonna be a good back-up /contender for Valencia's job, and Fred's the exact piece we were needing to build our 3-man midifielder: a dynamic left-footed box-to-box midfielder.

Plus, we sold Blind. (Cared so little about the dude that I Don't event know how much we got for him)

On the dark side of the board, we gave Marouane Fellaini a new contract, and we are still lacking wingers. Not to mention Ashley Young is still presumably our starting LB.

So, could be better. But could be worse.

[Nas!]

https://fcbayern.com/en/news/2018/07/fc-bayern-sign-alphonso-davies-until-2023

Well, it is official: Bayern have signed Vancouver Whitecaps’ Canadian wonderkid Alphonso Davies.  Big news for Canadian football, and for MLS and, potentially, for Bayern as well.

I’ve watched pretty much every minute of football he’s played professionally, and I think he’s going to be good. 

As a Whitecaps supporter, I’ll be very sorry to see him go.  But as a football fan, I’m excited to see him develop at a top club in a top league.

[ljkeane]

23 minutes ago, Nas! said:

Well, it is official: Bayern have signed Vancouver Whitecaps’ Canadian wonderkid Alphonso Davies.  Big news for Canadian football, and for MLS and, potentially, for Bayern as well.

I can't say I really remember ever having seen him play but Bayern's an interesting choice for him. If he's good enough to consistently get in the team then Canada have a very good player on their hands but there's probably a real danger he doesn't get much game time. He might have been better off going to one of the other Bundesliga sides first.

[Consigliere]

2 hours ago, Warm-hands said:

Well, Dalot's gonna be a good back-up /contender for Valencia's job, and Fred's the exact piece we were needing to build our 3-man midifielder: a dynamic left-footed box-to-box midfielder.

and we are still lacking wingers. Not to mention Ashley Young is still presumably our starting LB.

So, could be better. But could be worse.

Young and Valencia are definitely going to be out first choice fullbacks both of whom severely restrict our attacking play as they are pants in attack (there's a reason they were converted to fullbacks in the first place). Dalot might not see much game time this season - he's injured anyway and will not be available for the first month or so of the season according to Mourinho. We desperately need a LB. We should just pay whatever Juve want for Sandro or raid Porto again for Alex Telles - I'd prefer the latter. 

 

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Plus, we sold Blind. (Cared so little about the dude that I Don't event know how much we got for him)

Initial fee of £14.1m + £4.5m in add ons.

 

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On the dark side of the board, we gave Marouane Fellaini a new contract, 

Not as far as Mourinho is concerned. He never wasted an opportunity to talk up Fellaini every chance he got and basically strong armed the board into reopening contract negotiations. 

 

ETA. reports saying that Monaco have reached an agreement for Golovin for €30m. And Andre Schürrle has joined Fulham on a two year loan. 

[Iskaral Pust]

Liverpool’s game with City this evening was televised too.  City fielded a team mostly of youngsters at the start, perhaps because the pitch was so bad they didn’t want to risk injuries.  But the youngsters were pretty talented, lots of pace and some cohesion from familiarity, leavened with Mahrez, Zinchenko (in MF) and Bravo.  Silva and Sane appeared later.

Liverpool were on top without being great.  Keita was missing (sore neck), replaced by Gini.  Cohesion was poor, largely because Lallana was drifting in and out of every position as he tried too hard, and Gini had long periods without touching the ball, and Clyne was indecisive in attacking possession and Sturridge wasn’t really on the right wavelength.  Curtis Jones was good again, Milner looked good and Fabinho looked assured once he grew into the game. 

At half time Leroy Sane and Sadio Mane came on and added pace, skill and sharpness.  Sane scored a nice goal on the break from pure pace — raising a question of whether Pep is right to push him so wide usually.  Then Salah came on and electrified the game, scoring a goal (looked a few inches offside), hit the bar, had a goalbound header deflected, set up a great chance for Mane and generally scampered around with pace, control and directness.  Whatever kind of holiday they’ve just had, Mane and Salah looked really fresh and sharp for players making their first preseason appearance after a very long season.  For the last half hour they were just tormenting the City defense. 

Grujic was good too in the second half, aside from a ballooned shot.  More physical and confident in his pressing.  You can see how half a season at Cardiff gave him good experience.

Good workout with no injuries on a terrible pitch and a poor referee (unbiased in his ineptitude).  VVD played RCB for a while alongside Klavan after Gomez went off.  With Lovren, Matip and Gomez all relatively injury prone, we may lack a stable CB pairing this year. 

The start of the season is getting very close and the top teams have seen little yet of their main players.  Arsenal were more fortunate with WC absences and may have an early season advantage if Laca, Auba and Mkhi are fresher than everyone else. 

[Jordan La Cabra]

15 hours ago, Consigliere said:

ETA. reports saying that Monaco have reached an agreement for Golovin for €30m. And Andre Schürrle has joined Fulham on a two year loan. 

Chelsea are being beaten in the race for Golovin's signature by Monaco, whose technical director is our former technical director, Michael Emelano. And some Chelsea fans were glad to see him go, when he resigned in November.

I hope Schurrle turns out to be a good signing for Fulham. He was another that I was disappointed to see sold during Mourinho's second spell. 

Fulham fans will already know how good he can be, as he scored a wonderful hat trick against them at Craven Cottage in a West London Derby.

ETA: Reports on SSN suggesting that Man United have made an approach for Harry Maguire. 

[Nas!]

16 hours ago, ljkeane said:

I can't say I really remember ever having seen him play but Bayern's an interesting choice for him. If he's good enough to consistently get in the team then Canada have a very good player on their hands but there's probably a real danger he doesn't get much game time. He might have been better off going to one of the other Bundesliga sides first.

There is a concern that he won’t get enough game time.  I don’t think he’s good enough to be starting games at Bayern yet, but he’s pacy enough that the manager may see him as an option off the bench to stretch tired defenders.  If not, hopefully they loan him out somewhere where he’s good enough to start and the standard of play is higher than MLS. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, Nas! said:

There is a concern that he won’t get enough game time.  I don’t think he’s good enough to be starting games at Bayern yet, but he’s pacy enough that the manager may see him as an option off the bench to stretch tired defenders.  If not, hopefully they loan him out somewhere where he’s good enough to start and the standard of play is higher than MLS. 

Pace alone won't cut it at that level. The first name of a player who was/is just fast, but void of any other footballing quality is US international Joseph-Claude Gyau. So Davies needs to have a few other things going for him. But the transfer will only take place in january (as Davies is currently under the legal age to sign for Bayern in this transfer window). From what I read, finding a place with a higher playing standard than MLS is not that difficult a task.

 

3 hours ago, Jordan La Cabra said:

I hope Schurrle turns out to be a good signing for Fulham. He was another that I was disappointed to see sold during Mourinho's second spell. 

 

Unlikely. Schürrle has turned out to be pretty much a broken good since his (non-)playing years at Chelsea. He underperformed at Wolfsburg (ok, that's the most Wolfsburg thing to do) and wasn't really convincing at Dortmund either (thus they were keen to move him on). He is really a shadow of the player he was at Mainz and Leverkusen.

[polishgenius]

I knew Fulham were lacking a bit in depth but fucking hell they've only got nineteen players listed in their first-team squad and that includes all the new signings. Building a really promising first team but their depth is terrible.

[polishgenius]

We're getting Willian. I don't mind him as a player but another workhorse midfielder/winger is the last thing we need surely?

[ljkeane]

15 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

We're getting Willian. I don't mind him as a player but another workhorse midfielder/winger is the last thing we need surely?

He’s a good player and United are a bit overloaded with players who want to play on the left wing so getting a right winger is useful. Having said that I’m not sure he’s worth £66 million.

ETA: The Fekir transfer saga rumbles on for Liverpool too. With a load of Liverpool connected journalists coming out recently to say it's probably not happening after not saying much for a while I'd been leaning towards thinking something had come up in the medical which was bad enough for us to completely drop our interest.

Klopp was asked about it in an interview with Sky Sports he's just done though and while he sort of rambles on in a vague fashion without saying much he does say 'if not now, next year'. That makes me think it might be a Keita/Van Dijk situation and Fekir's the one we definitely want and it'll just keep going until it gets done. It does seem a little odd that we haven't moved on to another attacking midfielder, especially with Oxlade-Chamberlain out for the year. 

[Iskaral Pust]

Willian is a very good player and fixes a problem position for Utd and is already familiar with the PL and with the manager.  But I’m surprised either club would do this deal.  Utd should be wary of yet another short term signing by Mourinho: older player with no resale value and risk of decline in a couple of years, high price and high wages, blocks existing youth players, manager can seemingly only work with players who are already fully developed.  Chelsea should be wary, especially after the Matic deal, of strengthening a rival when they themselves are definitely not assured of top 4.  Sometimes the fee is not enough compensation for the effect of the transfer (like Leeds selling Cantona).

i assume this means Hazard will definitely stay.  I doubt RM were really ready to pay 200m for him.  Hazard doesn’t seem like the sort to go on strike but he must be pretty disappointed if he loses the chance to move to a superclub in his prime.  He may just see out his contract now. 

Does it mean Mata will be sold?  His Utd tenure really took the momentum out of his career, despite some tidy football in spells.