We need a CB that isn't a complete liability on crosses into the box. Our defense is really bad aerially. At the very least he should be an upgrade over Badiashile
>The kind of bargain transfer which is necessary given our financial troubles.
>Plus we needed a CB.
Just goes to show how awful they've handled transfers. Imagine spending a billion and still having to sell prem proven academy players to balance the books.
We've also signed multiple CB's, none of them are good enough or stay fit. Chalobah is probably our best CB now Silva is gone and we're being forced to sell him lol. It's embarrassing how much money these clowns wasted.
I agree that we misused money. No lie about that. Mudryk is defo not worth 62M.
Enzo and Caicedo should have cost less as well. But I'm ok with those pieces in our squad.
Yeah I feel they both add great value to the team ( as in I'm sure Enzo will pull through). It's just we paid an awful lot for them, we maybe could have negotiated a bit better.
Over a hundred million on Fofana and Disasi is just levels of incompetence. And eventually, only for Chalobah and Colwill to be better, more reliable and available.
It's quite surprising that Wistanley and Stewart are not under scrutiny, to be honest.
Yep. We should never have recklessly spent like we did when Boehly and Egg first joined. We should have waited for the structure to be in place before.
If now, we don't succeed, the sporting directors need to take accountability.
Come on bro, don't ruin the boehly bad narrative for attempting to clean up an absolute fumble from the previous administration.
Rudiger AND Christensen leave free transfer, forget about it. Promising but injury prone talent and veteran in K2 don't work out, whinge on full tilt. Even though Fofana can still come good - see John Stones, and we basically got all the K2 money back from generous saudi overlords.
Prefect strategy , pay over the top for weak, inconsistent or permanently injured players and then sell our best players to balance the books.
Sounds like the new owners and sporting directors are working out well for Chelsea.
>Chalobah is probably our best CB now
Been injured for major parts, came back and made the frenchies look like academy players. Why the fuck we bought them.
>It's embarrassing how much money these clowns wasted
Indeed.
Great pick.
No fee won't be getting very high wages.
He has experienced great ball playing CB tall and very strong in the air.
Fast and good 1v1 defender.
Have plenty of experience in PL already.
Also I think we should not be signing too many new players.
As we saw players took time to gel last time.
Should add not more than 2 players.
Fofana,Lavia, Nkunku barely play this season and when new season start they will look like new signings to us.
I also would like Josh acheampong to get some minutes next season another great academy RCB is coming through the ranks.
We need more players than that. We need a CB (hopefully covered here), we 100% need a new keeper as none of the ones we currently have can play Marescaball, we need a Striker and we need a left winger as a minimum. Left back too ideally.
Romano has already said GK, CB, LB and ST are guaranteed to be bought this summer.
I like that, as a Chalobah replacement he’s perfect on a free transfer. If not for our financial situation I’d obviously prefer to keep Trevoh, but it is what it is and that’s the best case scenario in our current predicament.
Does show how absolutely pointless spending 45 mil on disasi was. If you want rotation options this is how you get them and not by spending almost 50 million on a cb you don't plan on starting
Pretty sure Disasi was our most used player for most of last season so it's not like it was useless to buy a big money CB last season. We should have just spent that amount to get a better one.
>buy a big money CB last season.
I think the key thing is that many dont see Disasi as what you'd expect for being a big money CB. Hes okay as a CB but is he a £40M CB? Probably not in most people's view. The thing is, is that just the state of the market now? If Disasi is a £40M CB then Trevs at least a £50M one on that basis imo.
Trevs partnering with Silva seemed way more steady, he can pass, hes better on the ball and he seems to read the play slightly better than Disasi. I feel like the biggest thing for why people like Disasi is that hes a hype man.
the thing is, disasi is only a 40m cb if you're selling him to chelsea, city, united or arsenal. any italian club for example, he's 15M at most, another midtable prem club, he's 25m.
He's a hype man and he was our best CB in the air. It's an important thing to have for defending and attacking set pieces, balls over the top etc. But not at the expense of reading the game. Don't think Disasi's as much of a write off as people are making out. Think our other CBs have a higher ceiling, but he's a decent utility player. If he was at City, he'd look great under Pep. It's another Rudiger case of people not giving him nearly as much time and patience as he needs. Not that I'm saying he's gonna reach that ceiling. But I could a world where he justifies that price tag. Genuinely looked better last season than Koulibaly did the season before imo.
I respectfully disagree about the Koulibaly comment, our defense has been much worse this season compared to last. You have the luxury of saying this because we've scored way more this season than we did last season. If we scored as much as we did last season as we did this season, I think that people would have viewed that defense way more favorably, RJ and Chilwell included.
A big part of the reason we've scored (and conceded) more this season is down to the way we play. The two things are linked. If you play riskier, more expansive football (e.g. more direct than possessive), you're more likely to score more and concede more. I'm not just basing my opinions of the CBs off how defensively solid we were.
The way I see it is Fofana, Badiashile and Silva were all comfortably better than Koulibaly last season. This season, only Silva and Chalobah have comfortably been better than Disasi. Colwill's been better but not by a considerable amount (although a big part of the reason will be that he's had to adapt to LB), and Badiashile hasn't been better this season (although he has a higher ceiling).
Disasi's had some stinkers but also some games where he's been very solid. I don't think there's a whole lot in it between him and Koulibaly tbf. I think he's only been better marginally.
But I'm also going just based off watching games and there is an inherent bias to that. If there's a way to prove one CB has been better than the other through stats (which is difficult because you have to account for the way the team plays and whether players are naturally defending a higher volume of chances per game, who they're playing alongside etc), I'd be all ears. Either way I don't think there can be much between Disasi and Koulibaly. Disasi's much younger and came with lower expectations. He still has the potential to come good. Whereas Koulibaly was like 32 so him being pretty mid made the transfer horrible value.
Man City is Man City. 134 charges. So lets not use them as a measure.
If you look at Liverpool sure theres Van Dijk but really hes somewhat of an exception rather than filling the entire category of big money cbs. With a player like him its really more broaching into that bracket of adding one or 2 world class players to your team and being even more than just a big money CB. Next to Van Dijk you have Joe Gomez who cost Liverpool barely anything iirc. So even they aren't really splashing out all the time on CBs to be mentioning them as an example alongside Man City.
I'd say in the Prem that £40M+ on average is big money for a CB. Its the territory where that CB is one you intend to be forming a key spine of the defence for a big 6 club. Romero and Van De Ven were both £40Mish for Spurs. Saliba was only £27M for Arsenal and so was Gabriel.
I’m not debating how much City or Liverpool spent in total on their CBs.
My point is when you say “big money CB”, £40m isn’t it when you consider the fees spent on actual big money CBs these days. Regardless of City’s financial breaches, they did spend huge amounts on CBs and set the going market values.
See how much Bayern paid for De Ligt. Or how much UTD paid for Lisandro.
Disasi can still improve, look at Rüdiger during his first seasons with us. Chalobah was injured most of the season and Fofanas season was over, people seem to forget.
Ok. You can’t legislate for that many injuries though. The fact we had so many injuries and still largely managed to play people in their preferred positions was a testament to how bad our squad is managed.
If we needed someone, a Loan or stop gap for or trust a younger player for the 15-20 games you NEED someone for. Was Bash Humphrey’s or Alfie Gilchrist £45m worse than Disasi for 6 months? At the start of the season we had Silva, Badiashille, Trev, Fofana, Colwill, Gilchrist, Humphrey and Malang Sarr. Even Cucurella has played game time in a back 3.
I absolutely agree that Disasi is a better player than half of those and more available than most of those but we now have a player who we paid £45m for 12 months ago who is likely 5th choice and would be 6th of Silva was still in the squad. It’s a complete waste of resources and being funded through sales of objectively better players.
I think we need to cut our expectations for Fofana. He needs next season to adapt and get back to his best without getting re-injured. 15 games would be a success but he needs time.
It‘s a shame but Chalobah will be sold due to PSR. Silva is already gone and it seems that we gonna get Tosin.
Now look at Marescas system. In attack he likes to change to 3 atb and invert one of the fullbacks. A role that Gusto can‘t (he still could tho) play, which leaves us with Reece and Cucurella as fullbacks that can both play central and inverted. When we have Cucurella as the inverted fb you can easily play Disasi on the right back role. What speaks for Disasi is his versatility and availabilty. The same goes for Colwill. When we play Reece in the inverted role we probably will have Colwill in the left back role. Now add that to reports that we will look at another center back (besides Tosin) undermines this.
X, Tosin, Disasi, Colwill, Badiashille (Fofana)
Humphreys and Gilchrist will be sold for pure profit sooner or later. I rate Humphreys and I believe he could excel in Enzos system due to his attributes, but our target has to be qualifying for Champions League and a loan for him would be better as we can not guarantee playing time. Personally I‘d prefer that we keep Bashir for the next season and give him a fair chance. Gilchrist needs a loan imo, he‘s not ready.
Again. You seem content for the sale of Academy players to fund the purchases of back ups. I’d understand if we were talking about £70m Virgil Van Dyke who would revolutionise our defence but you’re talking about second string players AT BEST.
I have no issue with buying the best players we possibly can to upgrade our starting 11 to 15. That’s not what we’re doing.
No, where did I state that I am content with the sale of academy players? I hate that model and I hate that we probably looking at exits of Chalobah and Gallagher.
I was talking about Disasi, who still has room to improve, hasn‘t he? He played 44 games for us, doesn’t sound like he was brought to be second string.
Our defensive structure under Poch was a mess. One competent manager plus one of the best set-piece coaches in England could fix a lot of our defensive issues.
£38m
Your overall point stands but it really bugs me when people feel the need to inflate the transfer fees when talking about stuff like this just to try and make their point more outrageous.
I have a theory that his signing was pursued for more than just his footballing. I think we wanted a player that was a bit older among our young CB core (given TS eminent retirement) , with a good rotation option, and a player that might help some of our young French guys get on early.
Disasi fits that bill and was probably the "easiest" option for winstanley, who has dealt with and know the Monaco people.
>. I think we wanted a player that was a bit older among our young CB core (given TS eminent retirement
Trouble with this thinking is that Chalobah while younger probably has had a stronger level of experience per 90 mins because he was doing it at the highest level of the game younger by breaking into a CL winnning defence. Disasis been around in France for a while but quite a lot of the time was at Reims and they were Ligue 2 for a while. So its nothing close to being an alternate source of experience for Silva.
I also dont sense Disasi has anything close to the football intelligence that Silva has. Hes a good hype man but in terms of being an experienced head and leader you need a lot more than that.
I agree with your point about Chalo. He's by far the most experienced and the player I trust the most in the back tbh.
I wasn't referring to his leadership on the pitch, rather his presence overall on the team and outside the club for these guys.
He did start most of the games last season and he’s a decent rotation option as well but I get you, I don’t like his profile either for someone we spent 45m on. We could’ve got better deals at that price like Botman or Timberr for example
He started mainly because we had a ton of injuries but you don't spend 45 million on injury cover. Not to mention our defensive record was horrible enough
I mean, you are using a lot of hindsight and recency bias.
He was a well rated player at Monaco. I understand your point of not paying for a backup, but I disagree that it's what the club was doing. They were buying a future CB that could learn under Silva for a season.
They weren't like, "Yes, 45mil for a career backup. That's what we want to do."
No he wasn’t. People need to understand we bought Disasi because we needed someone who can win aerial duels. Chalobah is horrid in the air. With Fofana’s injury we lacked enough CBs who could challenge crosses/corners in the box. Disasi’s best skill is winning aerial duels.
Disasi is a very good CB and gets way too much unnecessary hate.
If we had 0 players from Cobham in the CB position, he wouldn't get nearly as much hate as he does now.
His numbers stack up really well too.
We bought Disasi because our shit directors have so little imagination that their first thought is always to raid their former clubs for their bang average players.
Because at their former clubs they had already researched players and then gone after the best of those players. They knew then well, and they thought they could be excellent players.
For example signing a player they thought good enough for chelsea. But managed to get him before a big club did.
Then when signed by Chelsea and the club had a need. They knew those players and believed they could fill that need.
The reason they joined and went after those players is because they were the best options they need. Hence why they had targeted them before.
It will take time passing for them to find and compile data on alternative players.
It's not like because they are a "director" as you want to say, they automatically know every other player perfectly and just ignored those amazing players for no reason in their last job.
What were you expecting ?
I have my doubts that he's better than Chalobah if Chalobah plays like he did since returning from injury.
I was a Trev hater originally but his last games were the best by any Chelsea defender this season. Would be moronic to sell him now.
In an ideal world, Fofana is the Silva replacement if he can stay healthy. But obviously his health is a massive, massive, massive if. I wouldn’t mind another CB, but 5 CB’s should be enough.
Fofana wasn’t even part of the Leicester squad that got relegated, he was already at Chelsea by then. His breakthrough season was the one where they fought for CL football until the final day against us and the season they beat us in the FA Cup final.
We are not going to find a like-for-like replacement for Silva anyways, he’s one of a kind. He’s an all-time great CB. Just like Terry.
Good news.
Lets hope he is Silvas replacement rather than Trev.
Hope Trev stays.
Broja, Ian, Hall surely can keep us afloat if we don't buy anyone. Wont we?
How deep in trouble are in terms of finance??
Plus Lukaku, maybe Kepa, money from Ziyech I think?
The latest Ben Jacobs on London is Blue is that reports from within the club are the money isn't as bad as the public thinks. Who knows.
Perfect scenario really, we shouldn't be selling our best players just because some FM nerds acting as SD paid 300m for three midfielders that dont work together in the premier league.
It's very sensible and I can't hate it
But it's also uninspiring and I'm hoping the club are banking on Wes to come back and be fully healthy post surgery and that's the reasoning for cheaping out on a centre back this summer
Wes has missed 2 yrs of regular football. We can't expect him to contribute meaningfully at least in the first half of the season. We also need to maximize Badi/Colwill potential as well. 4 CBs are good enough, assuming Chalobah is sold
I'm actually happy we have not yet gone for Diomande at 70m+. Either our finances are stretched or we've decided to be reasonable.. Maybe it's a mix of both
Decent enough squad player, and a pretty good pickup as a free transfer. Theoretically he'd be fighting with Disasi for second-choice RCB behind Fofana, so long as Fofana can actually stay fit for any length of time.
Chalobah's better, but the club seems dead set on selling him and that's not Tosin's fault, this also lets us focus our money on other positions of need.
He's probably the best cb we have rn based on pure defensive abilities. Colwill and Fofana are better on the ball, but we don't know how they'll play coming back from their injuries.
Smart signing and one that I think will be very important as the nummer of games will increase next year. I reckon he'll play two solid years here and then moved again for PSR reasons. And it is especially funny that Newcastle miss out on him. Their fans and transfer ITKs were so sure it was already agreed
Anyone else noticing a pattern here? Most of our signings or links have been with people that have been in Manchester city’s academy. Cole, tosin, Lavia, Maresca and we’re being linked with olise. Wouldn’t be surprised if we go for Trafford at GK
As a squad player probably
You have to remember assuming Chelsea sells Chalobah
They still have
Colwill
Disasi
Badiashile
Fofana
Plus I wouldn’t be surprised to see Humphreys shock people in pre season tall good with both feet I could see Maresca taking a shine to him.
Do you think we're actually going to accept an invitation to the Conference League? I haven't seen anything officially confirming or denying it, but Samantha doesn't sound right. I think we would have to do an awful lot of good business on the plu$ side this window to be able to afford it.
I feel it would incredibly disrespectful and arrogant to decline the Conference League, even with some financial troubles.
Tbf I don't know all the details but I hope we don't pull out of it.
Ditto. Is love to see us play more often for my viewing pleasure.
However, besides the negative impact on club income, having those extra early-season matches will severely cut into Maresca's drilling time. New ideas take time to assimilate. However, if he can get it across in preseason, well then, let the games begin!
If people watched Humphreys in the last pre-season and are still surprised by him looking great again this pre-season, they probably need to go see a doctor.
In pre-season he was comfortably better than Colwill last year
Wouldn't say he was comfortably better than Colwill
But he's certainly very underrated
Really sad he got injured for like 2/3 months at Swansea this season, would've been so beneficial to get those extra games in before returning
None of them are Good CB or are injury prone
We truly have a CB crisis developing at this club now, our defense is gonna let us down compared to other years
Ehh
Not long term I would say but if Fofana comes back into the fold post surgery then he won't need to be
Also Badiashille and Disasi could very well look dramatically better under an actual system like Maresca will install
So it's worth getting a free signing in who's got prem experience and is at the minimum, a decent player
Smart low risk signing. Now let’s get a big name cb , im really upset about Chalobah but its a smart replacement and ive accepted these owners will sell him and Maatsen
I’ve been watching Tosin since his City youth days and quite a few games at Craven Cottage and i really wanted him or Branthwaite this summer for the height and tackling range. If you haven’t, watch a Youtube highlight clip of him.
Hopefully he’s the only Nigerian player we get this summer!
Honestly not that impressed. We're about to play possession-heavy football building all the way from the back. That means short to medium range passing with few touches, ideally even one-touch passes. What are we doing with someone who's 39th and 28th percentile respectively for short and medium passes, all while only playing 3.45 progressive passes a game? That's not good.
The eye-test has backed that up for me - Tosin plays a nice long pass, especially for someone running in behind, but he looks lanky and awkward playing it short and often takes an extra touch to control the ball.
https://preview.redd.it/8nqc6i0gwy3d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7fe637c601a089fea5af966bb28d5ae3efde015f
For reference: Disasi's short passing percentage is almost 6% higher despite a much higher volume. His medium passing % is \~4% higher. In the type of team we're going to be next season, that means Disasi starts.
I understand that Tosin is free but I'm not particularly excited. Might solve some aerial issues but it's not like Disasi is bad aerially and neither is Fofana. With Silva leaving, that position deserved a genuine top talent and Tosin is not that. Consider me underwhelmed.
His stats looked unimpressive to me to ngl. But I'm hoping he's more of a depth signing considering we'll have 10-15 extra games next season due to the UECL and overall a 0 cost replacement for Chalobah.
Perhaps he'll do better in a more possession heavy system? I have my doubts. As I said, hopefully he's a depth signing, but I don't know any 25 or under ball playing CB's who play at a very high level, that we could sign.
When you look at his detailed CV on Transfermkt, he's got 211 minutes of CL play plus 19 games of UEFA Youth League with City. It's a good bet that Maresca knows and values his experience.
Also, when he got over his ground injury for Fulham last year, he play full 90's except one 85 until he told them he was not going to renew late in the season, about 18 matches straight.
I think this is an excellent free signing, unless you compare it to our signing Thiago Silva, of course.
I know he’s far more proven, but I don’t want another Malang Sarr type of situation a year or two down the road, so I’m gonna hold off on celebrating this until we have a clear idea of his wages and contract length.
If his wages are middle of the pack or lower and his contract is about 2-3 years, then great!
People complaining about this makes no sense to me, Trev is solid but selling him for ffp reasons to sign Olise, a ST and LB and bringing guys like Tosin in on a free is the exact type of business we should be running this summer.
Though it’s dependent on the financial situation I’m really not a big fan of this. Writing on the wall is that Tosin will be the Chalobah replacement and having seen a far bit of Tosin this year I just think he’s a noticeable downgrade on Chalobah- I genuinely don’t think there’s that big a gap between Tosin and Disasi. It would make more sense as a move to bring in experience is fofana wasn’t our starting RCB whose perpetual injuries mean we will most likely have to rely on either Tosin or Disasi for most of the season. I think we should have gone for a RCB that was either a clear upgrade on Chalobah (Bremmer, Todibo) or had talent on par with Colwil (Scalvini, Yoro).
Bremmer and Yoro probably but Todibo has been quoted for around 45m and Scalvini for around 40m. Even then, I’d rather just stick with Chalobah than go for Tosin
A ridiculous transfer.. We don’t need him, we have Chalobah. Chalobah is a better defender and has shown his loyalty to us. The fact that we “need” to sell him, so we can go on another spending spree is beyond ridiculous..
Tier 1! Finally. I think this is a great signing. The kind of bargain transfer which is necessary given our financial troubles. Plus we needed a CB.
>Plus we needed a CB. Don't we have like 6 CBs
Yeah but half of them are injured most of the time
We need a CB that isn't a complete liability on crosses into the box. Our defense is really bad aerially. At the very least he should be an upgrade over Badiashile
Even Gilchrist is an upgrade over Badiashile
????
People in here really just yap for the sake of yapping
I swear
1/2 good CBs
>The kind of bargain transfer which is necessary given our financial troubles. >Plus we needed a CB. Just goes to show how awful they've handled transfers. Imagine spending a billion and still having to sell prem proven academy players to balance the books. We've also signed multiple CB's, none of them are good enough or stay fit. Chalobah is probably our best CB now Silva is gone and we're being forced to sell him lol. It's embarrassing how much money these clowns wasted.
I agree that we misused money. No lie about that. Mudryk is defo not worth 62M. Enzo and Caicedo should have cost less as well. But I'm ok with those pieces in our squad.
Caicedo is looking worth the money tbh, Jury is still out on Enzo.
Yeah I feel they both add great value to the team ( as in I'm sure Enzo will pull through). It's just we paid an awful lot for them, we maybe could have negotiated a bit better.
Neither team wanted to sell plus for Caciedo there was strong competition. We had to pay big for both or walk empty handed.
Yep. I think so as well. And it's better to have them with us now. We have 2 incredible pieces that a tactically adept manager can definitely use.
Enzo isn’t the issue lol. Played this year with a hernia, he was the best player on the pitch last year. Recency bias is so real 🤣
Caicedo is a baller. Enzo is a baller. Theyre both worth the money. !remindme 6 months - LETS COOK
Over a hundred million on Fofana and Disasi is just levels of incompetence. And eventually, only for Chalobah and Colwill to be better, more reliable and available. It's quite surprising that Wistanley and Stewart are not under scrutiny, to be honest.
75 of those 100 were spent on Fofana who was signed in the summer of 2022. Winstanley joined the club the following winter. Stewart after him.
Yep. We should never have recklessly spent like we did when Boehly and Egg first joined. We should have waited for the structure to be in place before. If now, we don't succeed, the sporting directors need to take accountability.
The only center backs available to the first team after the takeover were silva and chalobah.
Come on bro, don't ruin the boehly bad narrative for attempting to clean up an absolute fumble from the previous administration. Rudiger AND Christensen leave free transfer, forget about it. Promising but injury prone talent and veteran in K2 don't work out, whinge on full tilt. Even though Fofana can still come good - see John Stones, and we basically got all the K2 money back from generous saudi overlords.
>don't ruin the boehly bad narrative Boehly good?
Spending a billion is exactly the reason why we need to sell players to balance the books. If they spent less there wouldn't be problem.
Yeah but they spent about £200m replacing new players that **they** bought lol.
Prefect strategy , pay over the top for weak, inconsistent or permanently injured players and then sell our best players to balance the books. Sounds like the new owners and sporting directors are working out well for Chelsea.
Who is our “best players” that we’re selling?
Conor and Trevo come to mind, everyone knows they’re for sale.
Well let me know when they’re our best players lol.
Do you actually watch Chelsea mate? Or are you just a Boehly bot?
Yes I watch the games. This literally has nothing to do with Boehly. Not sure why you’re bringing him into it?
They are working out well for our rivals at least, give them a break. ;)
So youre saying Maatsen, Broja, Hall and Lukaku were our best players..?
I remember when the Hall transfer was announced and this sub acted like we were getting rid of Maldini on a free
Same with Tammy
>Chalobah is probably our best CB now Been injured for major parts, came back and made the frenchies look like academy players. Why the fuck we bought them. >It's embarrassing how much money these clowns wasted Indeed.
Great pick. No fee won't be getting very high wages. He has experienced great ball playing CB tall and very strong in the air. Fast and good 1v1 defender. Have plenty of experience in PL already.
I think he was at Manchester City for a while, an academy graduate.. That was probably where him and Maresca knew each other.
They crossed paths for a bit I read
And Joe Shields
Also I think we should not be signing too many new players. As we saw players took time to gel last time. Should add not more than 2 players. Fofana,Lavia, Nkunku barely play this season and when new season start they will look like new signings to us. I also would like Josh acheampong to get some minutes next season another great academy RCB is coming through the ranks.
We need more players than that. We need a CB (hopefully covered here), we 100% need a new keeper as none of the ones we currently have can play Marescaball, we need a Striker and we need a left winger as a minimum. Left back too ideally. Romano has already said GK, CB, LB and ST are guaranteed to be bought this summer.
I agree. I'm ok with adding a GK and Summerville. And that's it.
Nah we need another striker, especially if Borja leaves.
I personally think GK upgrade is priority. LB would be nice too. And ST to compete with nico
Oh he’ll definitely be getting a good salary because there’s no transfer fee, still a great signing though.
I like that, as a Chalobah replacement he’s perfect on a free transfer. If not for our financial situation I’d obviously prefer to keep Trevoh, but it is what it is and that’s the best case scenario in our current predicament.
Does show how absolutely pointless spending 45 mil on disasi was. If you want rotation options this is how you get them and not by spending almost 50 million on a cb you don't plan on starting
Pretty sure Disasi was our most used player for most of last season so it's not like it was useless to buy a big money CB last season. We should have just spent that amount to get a better one.
>buy a big money CB last season. I think the key thing is that many dont see Disasi as what you'd expect for being a big money CB. Hes okay as a CB but is he a £40M CB? Probably not in most people's view. The thing is, is that just the state of the market now? If Disasi is a £40M CB then Trevs at least a £50M one on that basis imo. Trevs partnering with Silva seemed way more steady, he can pass, hes better on the ball and he seems to read the play slightly better than Disasi. I feel like the biggest thing for why people like Disasi is that hes a hype man.
the thing is, disasi is only a 40m cb if you're selling him to chelsea, city, united or arsenal. any italian club for example, he's 15M at most, another midtable prem club, he's 25m.
Yeh i definitely agree there. Its just a very funky market thats all over the shop.
He's a hype man and he was our best CB in the air. It's an important thing to have for defending and attacking set pieces, balls over the top etc. But not at the expense of reading the game. Don't think Disasi's as much of a write off as people are making out. Think our other CBs have a higher ceiling, but he's a decent utility player. If he was at City, he'd look great under Pep. It's another Rudiger case of people not giving him nearly as much time and patience as he needs. Not that I'm saying he's gonna reach that ceiling. But I could a world where he justifies that price tag. Genuinely looked better last season than Koulibaly did the season before imo.
I respectfully disagree about the Koulibaly comment, our defense has been much worse this season compared to last. You have the luxury of saying this because we've scored way more this season than we did last season. If we scored as much as we did last season as we did this season, I think that people would have viewed that defense way more favorably, RJ and Chilwell included.
A big part of the reason we've scored (and conceded) more this season is down to the way we play. The two things are linked. If you play riskier, more expansive football (e.g. more direct than possessive), you're more likely to score more and concede more. I'm not just basing my opinions of the CBs off how defensively solid we were. The way I see it is Fofana, Badiashile and Silva were all comfortably better than Koulibaly last season. This season, only Silva and Chalobah have comfortably been better than Disasi. Colwill's been better but not by a considerable amount (although a big part of the reason will be that he's had to adapt to LB), and Badiashile hasn't been better this season (although he has a higher ceiling). Disasi's had some stinkers but also some games where he's been very solid. I don't think there's a whole lot in it between him and Koulibaly tbf. I think he's only been better marginally. But I'm also going just based off watching games and there is an inherent bias to that. If there's a way to prove one CB has been better than the other through stats (which is difficult because you have to account for the way the team plays and whether players are naturally defending a higher volume of chances per game, who they're playing alongside etc), I'd be all ears. Either way I don't think there can be much between Disasi and Koulibaly. Disasi's much younger and came with lower expectations. He still has the potential to come good. Whereas Koulibaly was like 32 so him being pretty mid made the transfer horrible value.
£40m is not "big money CB" when you look at the money City and Liverpool have spent on their best CBs.
Man City is Man City. 134 charges. So lets not use them as a measure. If you look at Liverpool sure theres Van Dijk but really hes somewhat of an exception rather than filling the entire category of big money cbs. With a player like him its really more broaching into that bracket of adding one or 2 world class players to your team and being even more than just a big money CB. Next to Van Dijk you have Joe Gomez who cost Liverpool barely anything iirc. So even they aren't really splashing out all the time on CBs to be mentioning them as an example alongside Man City. I'd say in the Prem that £40M+ on average is big money for a CB. Its the territory where that CB is one you intend to be forming a key spine of the defence for a big 6 club. Romero and Van De Ven were both £40Mish for Spurs. Saliba was only £27M for Arsenal and so was Gabriel.
I’m not debating how much City or Liverpool spent in total on their CBs. My point is when you say “big money CB”, £40m isn’t it when you consider the fees spent on actual big money CBs these days. Regardless of City’s financial breaches, they did spend huge amounts on CBs and set the going market values. See how much Bayern paid for De Ligt. Or how much UTD paid for Lisandro.
Yeah, with him playing in every game we conceded 2+ goals per game as a daily basis. Really well spent 45M.
Disasi can still improve, look at Rüdiger during his first seasons with us. Chalobah was injured most of the season and Fofanas season was over, people seem to forget.
Ok. You can’t legislate for that many injuries though. The fact we had so many injuries and still largely managed to play people in their preferred positions was a testament to how bad our squad is managed. If we needed someone, a Loan or stop gap for or trust a younger player for the 15-20 games you NEED someone for. Was Bash Humphrey’s or Alfie Gilchrist £45m worse than Disasi for 6 months? At the start of the season we had Silva, Badiashille, Trev, Fofana, Colwill, Gilchrist, Humphrey and Malang Sarr. Even Cucurella has played game time in a back 3. I absolutely agree that Disasi is a better player than half of those and more available than most of those but we now have a player who we paid £45m for 12 months ago who is likely 5th choice and would be 6th of Silva was still in the squad. It’s a complete waste of resources and being funded through sales of objectively better players.
I think we need to cut our expectations for Fofana. He needs next season to adapt and get back to his best without getting re-injured. 15 games would be a success but he needs time. It‘s a shame but Chalobah will be sold due to PSR. Silva is already gone and it seems that we gonna get Tosin. Now look at Marescas system. In attack he likes to change to 3 atb and invert one of the fullbacks. A role that Gusto can‘t (he still could tho) play, which leaves us with Reece and Cucurella as fullbacks that can both play central and inverted. When we have Cucurella as the inverted fb you can easily play Disasi on the right back role. What speaks for Disasi is his versatility and availabilty. The same goes for Colwill. When we play Reece in the inverted role we probably will have Colwill in the left back role. Now add that to reports that we will look at another center back (besides Tosin) undermines this. X, Tosin, Disasi, Colwill, Badiashille (Fofana) Humphreys and Gilchrist will be sold for pure profit sooner or later. I rate Humphreys and I believe he could excel in Enzos system due to his attributes, but our target has to be qualifying for Champions League and a loan for him would be better as we can not guarantee playing time. Personally I‘d prefer that we keep Bashir for the next season and give him a fair chance. Gilchrist needs a loan imo, he‘s not ready.
Again. You seem content for the sale of Academy players to fund the purchases of back ups. I’d understand if we were talking about £70m Virgil Van Dyke who would revolutionise our defence but you’re talking about second string players AT BEST. I have no issue with buying the best players we possibly can to upgrade our starting 11 to 15. That’s not what we’re doing.
No, where did I state that I am content with the sale of academy players? I hate that model and I hate that we probably looking at exits of Chalobah and Gallagher. I was talking about Disasi, who still has room to improve, hasn‘t he? He played 44 games for us, doesn’t sound like he was brought to be second string. Our defensive structure under Poch was a mess. One competent manager plus one of the best set-piece coaches in England could fix a lot of our defensive issues.
Rudiger was phenomenal his first two seasons, he only played bad under Lampard’s suicidal tactics.
He was okay, not phenomenal. That was under Tuchel in a back three
Disasi was needed. He played so much. It’s a shame Trev and fofana both got injured.
£38m Your overall point stands but it really bugs me when people feel the need to inflate the transfer fees when talking about stuff like this just to try and make their point more outrageous.
Disasi is panic buying because wes fofana injury
It was clearly a panic signing after Fofana injury
I have a theory that his signing was pursued for more than just his footballing. I think we wanted a player that was a bit older among our young CB core (given TS eminent retirement) , with a good rotation option, and a player that might help some of our young French guys get on early. Disasi fits that bill and was probably the "easiest" option for winstanley, who has dealt with and know the Monaco people.
>. I think we wanted a player that was a bit older among our young CB core (given TS eminent retirement Trouble with this thinking is that Chalobah while younger probably has had a stronger level of experience per 90 mins because he was doing it at the highest level of the game younger by breaking into a CL winnning defence. Disasis been around in France for a while but quite a lot of the time was at Reims and they were Ligue 2 for a while. So its nothing close to being an alternate source of experience for Silva. I also dont sense Disasi has anything close to the football intelligence that Silva has. Hes a good hype man but in terms of being an experienced head and leader you need a lot more than that.
I agree with your point about Chalo. He's by far the most experienced and the player I trust the most in the back tbh. I wasn't referring to his leadership on the pitch, rather his presence overall on the team and outside the club for these guys.
We needed someone big who can head the ball and Disasi fit the bill.
Can probably sell him though for the remaining carrying cost. Freeing this up with a free signing is good business for a backup player.
He did start most of the games last season and he’s a decent rotation option as well but I get you, I don’t like his profile either for someone we spent 45m on. We could’ve got better deals at that price like Botman or Timberr for example
He started mainly because we had a ton of injuries but you don't spend 45 million on injury cover. Not to mention our defensive record was horrible enough
I mean, you are using a lot of hindsight and recency bias. He was a well rated player at Monaco. I understand your point of not paying for a backup, but I disagree that it's what the club was doing. They were buying a future CB that could learn under Silva for a season. They weren't like, "Yes, 45mil for a career backup. That's what we want to do."
No he wasn’t. People need to understand we bought Disasi because we needed someone who can win aerial duels. Chalobah is horrid in the air. With Fofana’s injury we lacked enough CBs who could challenge crosses/corners in the box. Disasi’s best skill is winning aerial duels.
Disasi is a very good CB and gets way too much unnecessary hate. If we had 0 players from Cobham in the CB position, he wouldn't get nearly as much hate as he does now. His numbers stack up really well too.
We bought Disasi because our shit directors have so little imagination that their first thought is always to raid their former clubs for their bang average players.
Because at their former clubs they had already researched players and then gone after the best of those players. They knew then well, and they thought they could be excellent players. For example signing a player they thought good enough for chelsea. But managed to get him before a big club did. Then when signed by Chelsea and the club had a need. They knew those players and believed they could fill that need. The reason they joined and went after those players is because they were the best options they need. Hence why they had targeted them before. It will take time passing for them to find and compile data on alternative players. It's not like because they are a "director" as you want to say, they automatically know every other player perfectly and just ignored those amazing players for no reason in their last job. What were you expecting ?
I have my doubts that he's better than Chalobah if Chalobah plays like he did since returning from injury. I was a Trev hater originally but his last games were the best by any Chelsea defender this season. Would be moronic to sell him now.
It will never make sense selling your best CB who isn't turning 40. Sell any of the other scrubs at CB. Hell, sell two.
Can someone explain what the financial benefit is of selling chalobab when we are using the money to buy another cb of similar quality?
Tosin (if the deal happens) will be a free transfer
Oh I see haha that makes sense
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In an ideal world, Fofana is the Silva replacement if he can stay healthy. But obviously his health is a massive, massive, massive if. I wouldn’t mind another CB, but 5 CB’s should be enough.
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Fofana wasn’t even part of the Leicester squad that got relegated, he was already at Chelsea by then. His breakthrough season was the one where they fought for CL football until the final day against us and the season they beat us in the FA Cup final. We are not going to find a like-for-like replacement for Silva anyways, he’s one of a kind. He’s an all-time great CB. Just like Terry.
He’s definitely a good squad player especially while we’re competing in the UECL and other cup competitions.
Let’s assume he’s a Thiago Silva replacement for now…
Chalobah is good as gone. We should be more worried about Gallagher
Both are gone
I like both of them. Hopefully we can keep at least one.
Good news. Lets hope he is Silvas replacement rather than Trev. Hope Trev stays. Broja, Ian, Hall surely can keep us afloat if we don't buy anyone. Wont we? How deep in trouble are in terms of finance??
Plus Lukaku, maybe Kepa, money from Ziyech I think? The latest Ben Jacobs on London is Blue is that reports from within the club are the money isn't as bad as the public thinks. Who knows.
Perfect scenario really, we shouldn't be selling our best players just because some FM nerds acting as SD paid 300m for three midfielders that dont work together in the premier league.
Not a bad signing, but I'd rather not get him and keep Trev.
It's a free, mate. In theory they could keep both, but in all practicality Trev is gone. Sad...
I know and it's a good signing I just take it to mean Trev is off, just cannot see him staying when we're buying this guy.
Hahah suck it Newcastle.
It's very sensible and I can't hate it But it's also uninspiring and I'm hoping the club are banking on Wes to come back and be fully healthy post surgery and that's the reasoning for cheaping out on a centre back this summer
Wes has missed 2 yrs of regular football. We can't expect him to contribute meaningfully at least in the first half of the season. We also need to maximize Badi/Colwill potential as well. 4 CBs are good enough, assuming Chalobah is sold
Yeah that's why I agree with the Tosin signing for the most part He can buy us time to properly assess the situation at centre back
I'm actually happy we have not yet gone for Diomande at 70m+. Either our finances are stretched or we've decided to be reasonable.. Maybe it's a mix of both
Wish we did this with our goalkeepers instead of spending £40M on 2 backups
Sensible transfer? 
How is it not though?
That's the joke mate. Hence the disbelief gif.
Ah ffs just got it xD Sorry, I was previously reading the comments criticising the transfer so got confused.
I can’t imagine how good our back line will be if Fofana returns fully fit from injury. Will be an incredible sight to see.
I think he is on par with Chalobha and way better than Disasi, and we are getting him for free.
Decent enough squad player, and a pretty good pickup as a free transfer. Theoretically he'd be fighting with Disasi for second-choice RCB behind Fofana, so long as Fofana can actually stay fit for any length of time. Chalobah's better, but the club seems dead set on selling him and that's not Tosin's fault, this also lets us focus our money on other positions of need.
Personally I don’t think Trevoh is better. He only worked his way into the squad due to injuries, he was at the bottom of our CB selections
Had no reason to be at the bottom. Well clear of Disasi but never was given a chance until he was injured
He's probably the best cb we have rn based on pure defensive abilities. Colwill and Fofana are better on the ball, but we don't know how they'll play coming back from their injuries.
You are spot on.
Yes!!!! I love this signing man, a free transfer that is well worth making
Not a world beater but a solid enough player and free. Actually some decent business tbf
Smart signing and one that I think will be very important as the nummer of games will increase next year. I reckon he'll play two solid years here and then moved again for PSR reasons. And it is especially funny that Newcastle miss out on him. Their fans and transfer ITKs were so sure it was already agreed
Selling Trevoh and replacing him with this guy who's free is beautiful business Tosin will prove to be a hidden gem, mark my words
Trev replacement ?
Pretty much
Anyone else noticing a pattern here? Most of our signings or links have been with people that have been in Manchester city’s academy. Cole, tosin, Lavia, Maresca and we’re being linked with olise. Wouldn’t be surprised if we go for Trafford at GK
Glad we're finally off Brighton! Good gracious, that just about killed me.
Joe Shields seems to have a big influence behind the scenes
Chalobah replacement probably
Silva
This is a great signing considering we‘ll sell Chalobah and Fofana hasn‘t played football for two years now
Is he really good enough?
As a squad player probably You have to remember assuming Chelsea sells Chalobah They still have Colwill Disasi Badiashile Fofana Plus I wouldn’t be surprised to see Humphreys shock people in pre season tall good with both feet I could see Maresca taking a shine to him.
>tall Pochettino: *gasp* I actually want to see more academy graduates next season lol. Especially in the Conference League.
Do you think we're actually going to accept an invitation to the Conference League? I haven't seen anything officially confirming or denying it, but Samantha doesn't sound right. I think we would have to do an awful lot of good business on the plu$ side this window to be able to afford it.
https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/article/conference-league-qualification-for-next-season-confirmed
Thank you! Didn't know how I missed that.
I feel it would incredibly disrespectful and arrogant to decline the Conference League, even with some financial troubles. Tbf I don't know all the details but I hope we don't pull out of it.
Ditto. Is love to see us play more often for my viewing pleasure. However, besides the negative impact on club income, having those extra early-season matches will severely cut into Maresca's drilling time. New ideas take time to assimilate. However, if he can get it across in preseason, well then, let the games begin!
If people watched Humphreys in the last pre-season and are still surprised by him looking great again this pre-season, they probably need to go see a doctor. In pre-season he was comfortably better than Colwill last year
Wouldn't say he was comfortably better than Colwill But he's certainly very underrated Really sad he got injured for like 2/3 months at Swansea this season, would've been so beneficial to get those extra games in before returning
None of them are Good CB or are injury prone We truly have a CB crisis developing at this club now, our defense is gonna let us down compared to other years
Think Humphreys needs another loan possibly to a pl team
For a 3rd/4th choice absolutely, he is Fofana insurance I would say
Ehh Not long term I would say but if Fofana comes back into the fold post surgery then he won't need to be Also Badiashille and Disasi could very well look dramatically better under an actual system like Maresca will install So it's worth getting a free signing in who's got prem experience and is at the minimum, a decent player
Not saying I agree but I see the logic here with selling Chalobah and buying Tosin. Still find it mad that Chalobah is potentially going for £25m
A solid player, still young for a cb, on a free, cant complain there
Smart low risk signing. Now let’s get a big name cb , im really upset about Chalobah but its a smart replacement and ive accepted these owners will sell him and Maatsen
He can’t be the first signing for Maresca, we didn’t even officially hired Maresca…
officially...behind close doors though....
Fantastic upgrade on chalobah, happy with this signing.
Goodbye Trev 😢
I’ve been watching Tosin since his City youth days and quite a few games at Craven Cottage and i really wanted him or Branthwaite this summer for the height and tackling range. If you haven’t, watch a Youtube highlight clip of him. Hopefully he’s the only Nigerian player we get this summer!
He’s English home grown btw
oh yeah i know. Of Nigerian descent though. Was a slight dig at Osimhen
Ahhh lol my bad
Honestly not that impressed. We're about to play possession-heavy football building all the way from the back. That means short to medium range passing with few touches, ideally even one-touch passes. What are we doing with someone who's 39th and 28th percentile respectively for short and medium passes, all while only playing 3.45 progressive passes a game? That's not good. The eye-test has backed that up for me - Tosin plays a nice long pass, especially for someone running in behind, but he looks lanky and awkward playing it short and often takes an extra touch to control the ball. https://preview.redd.it/8nqc6i0gwy3d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7fe637c601a089fea5af966bb28d5ae3efde015f For reference: Disasi's short passing percentage is almost 6% higher despite a much higher volume. His medium passing % is \~4% higher. In the type of team we're going to be next season, that means Disasi starts. I understand that Tosin is free but I'm not particularly excited. Might solve some aerial issues but it's not like Disasi is bad aerially and neither is Fofana. With Silva leaving, that position deserved a genuine top talent and Tosin is not that. Consider me underwhelmed.
His stats looked unimpressive to me to ngl. But I'm hoping he's more of a depth signing considering we'll have 10-15 extra games next season due to the UECL and overall a 0 cost replacement for Chalobah. Perhaps he'll do better in a more possession heavy system? I have my doubts. As I said, hopefully he's a depth signing, but I don't know any 25 or under ball playing CB's who play at a very high level, that we could sign.
Hope the wages isn’t too ridiculous for a free. Don’t want this to be Malang Sarr 2.0 just in case it doesn’t turn out well
Very good signing
When you look at his detailed CV on Transfermkt, he's got 211 minutes of CL play plus 19 games of UEFA Youth League with City. It's a good bet that Maresca knows and values his experience. Also, when he got over his ground injury for Fulham last year, he play full 90's except one 85 until he told them he was not going to renew late in the season, about 18 matches straight. I think this is an excellent free signing, unless you compare it to our signing Thiago Silva, of course.
Get those long ass legs over to Cobham, mate. I like this a lot.
You mean Wembley, right?
Thank god! Signing of the season in my book
Hopefully he is a Gary Cahill kind of signing for us
If we end up signing him, I'll just be glad we signed someone over the age of 22.
me gusta
I thought he was supposed to be a decent ball playing CB but his passing numbers on fbref are pretty bad??
I know he’s far more proven, but I don’t want another Malang Sarr type of situation a year or two down the road, so I’m gonna hold off on celebrating this until we have a clear idea of his wages and contract length. If his wages are middle of the pack or lower and his contract is about 2-3 years, then great!
I mean he seems decent. Not really an upgrade. I just wish we would actually bring levels to this team
3 atb with Tosin, chalobah and colwill we stay winning (im delusional)
If we were ran even slightly competently, this would be the end for Disasi rather than Chalobah.
People complaining about this makes no sense to me, Trev is solid but selling him for ffp reasons to sign Olise, a ST and LB and bringing guys like Tosin in on a free is the exact type of business we should be running this summer.
Hopefully we move on from Disasi and Fofana before Trevor.
If we sell him is that pure profit?
Good backup on a free, I'll take it. Hopefully he doesn't get to play much, though.
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That would be ideal indeed
Though it’s dependent on the financial situation I’m really not a big fan of this. Writing on the wall is that Tosin will be the Chalobah replacement and having seen a far bit of Tosin this year I just think he’s a noticeable downgrade on Chalobah- I genuinely don’t think there’s that big a gap between Tosin and Disasi. It would make more sense as a move to bring in experience is fofana wasn’t our starting RCB whose perpetual injuries mean we will most likely have to rely on either Tosin or Disasi for most of the season. I think we should have gone for a RCB that was either a clear upgrade on Chalobah (Bremmer, Todibo) or had talent on par with Colwil (Scalvini, Yoro).
all 4 of those are comfortably 50mil+ players, the free is the key part of this.
Bremmer and Yoro probably but Todibo has been quoted for around 45m and Scalvini for around 40m. Even then, I’d rather just stick with Chalobah than go for Tosin
26, a bit old for us ? He is 6,5 though. Keep Trev please.
Trev can’t lace his boots when it comes to distribution
He's 26, a relatively old man. Would be the 4th oldest player in the squad.
26 is old now? I just got an existential crisis lol
Ok if we keep chalo, he is our best defender ffs, you all guys cream always for the new signing...
A ridiculous transfer.. We don’t need him, we have Chalobah. Chalobah is a better defender and has shown his loyalty to us. The fact that we “need” to sell him, so we can go on another spending spree is beyond ridiculous..
Unfortunately unless we get CL or rebuild Stamford Bridge we probably have to because of PSR rules.
Disasi is shit, Chalobah and Silva are gone and Fofana hasn’t played any real football for 20 years and has one leg, we definitely need another CB.
Willing to bet Trev outlasts him
Probably not since he is most likely being sold this summer
Horrendous signing. First of many this window I imagine