"Both Costa & Matic were not very interested most of last season", and we still managed to win the league!
Still want 4 more players according to Sky. Van Dijk, Llorente, Candreva/Cedric & Bertrand/Sandro Good to see us looking at wing backs, will need them next season with the extra games. Still feel like we might be short in midfield though. Gone from Kante, Matic, Fab & Chalobah to Kante, Bakayoko & Fab.
Absolutely everyone seems to be linked to Van Dijk. I wonder how much of this comes from his agent trying to materialise a move to a bigger club.
For such a "sought after" player, no one actually seems to be making any (legal) bids for him. Apparently City, Chelsea, Spurs and various other clubs are interested, but no bids? I think you might be right about his agent talking ****e
Chelsea linked with groundsman from Sorrento. His agent won't let him go for less than £12,000,000, but his wife says if we do his washing we can get him on a 5 year deal and she'll pay us 10,000 euros a season.
We are close to finalizing a £40m deal with Man United for Nemanja Matic. Why in god's **** would we be looking to sell anyone to Man United right now? Especially a decent midfielder, which they are sorely lacking. And especially when there is interest from Juve as well. Even if Juve's offer was slightly lower, surely that would be preferable?
Seems odd. We seem to have a bit of history letting players go to rival (Mata, Cech, Matic) but don't get any joy the other way around. Not too bothered. it'll probably be 40-50 million and United would have just spent that on someone else anyway like a Naingolan or even Bakayoko who was rumoured for a while.
£40m for Matic is a superb piece of business by the looks of it. He hasn't ever fully recaptured the form of his first season (back) at Chelsea (aside from the bloody FA Cup semi final last season ), and tbh Bakayoko is going to be better in every aspect of the game. Matic with Kante was far too conservative. Bakayoko with Kante will be unstoppable.
Just wondering what you all make of the sale of Matic to ManUre? £40m is good money but selling a first team player to a rival? Conte didn't want to sell him by all accounts, so what's going on?
Chelsea reward loyal players when they want to go or are not wanted by the club as per Petr Cech. Personally for me it doesn't make great sense but it's not up to me.
I thought the Cech transfer was odd as well. You need at least two world-class gk's at a club like Chelsea. Not sure Caballero is the answer though! If Matic wanted to leave then fair enough, but why would he? Leaving the Champions for a team who finished 6th? Cahill has been openly critical of the sale as well - seems like something odd is brewing at the Bridge - although from an outsiders perspective.
Conte's transfer business soo far has been super weird. Matic is a quality holding player and Costa is FAR more likely to win you titles than a player like Morata. Maybe this is his weakness as a manager. Good tactically, maybe he's not great a building a side from scratch.
I don't understand it when fans come on here who are evidently football fans. Its made headline pages that Conte has insinuated he isn't happy and that Matic being sold to rivals (or sold at all) is the policy of the club rather than him so i don't get why people still ask the question of why Conte sold him to United. Costa is because he fell out with him and Conte has always been a team centric coach than one about prima donnas. Probably because he was time sharing with Fab a bit, maybe for the money that United are offering and the prestige of joining United. I'm a bit surprised by him joining Jose as i thought they'd fallen out hence his horrendous season when Jose was in charge. Evidently i was wrong about that. One thing is for sure though, United are spending way more than Chelsea and on that basis they are showing more ambition in that respect.
Unlike the Mancs, we have to balance the books a bit and have to sell players now and then when good offers come in for fringe players. Matic was starting to look like 4th choice centre mid and at 29 years old, 40 million is a decent return. Costa has wanted out pretty much every window since he joined. It was never going to last so may as well move on now rather than have a stroppy number 9 next year. People always say not to keep bad eggs around and now we are getting rid of one we are being criticised! Fergie constantly moved on players like this and was lauded for it (Stam, Beckham, Keane)
Yeah 40M for Matic is good money just would've been better had he gone abroad. He will make United a better team though. I really, really, really want us to keep Costa.
What a strange statement, we also balance the books Second highlight is very true, good managers prune the weeds to make the team stronger.