If we can make those assurances it could be worthwhile, considering the story about Kevin Prince Boateng's first day in training where Martin Jol walked up to him on the training pitch and told him to his face "I didn't want you" as KPB was only signed due to the actions of a rogue DoF
We'll agree to disagree about squad depth. Glad you agree about Walker Yes Sissoko and Winks have done surprisingly well but you'd have to have a short memory indeed to argue that they are as good a pairing as Wanyama Dembele in 16/17. Those two dominated the midfield, bossing games from start to finish enabling our FBs to bomb forward at every opportunity and our defence to break all manner of records. The current pair is nowhere near as technically gifted instead relying on outworking the opposition to control games. This works most of the time but has failed too often to be considered a step forward. Your final point is the Catch 22 I keep droning on about. Can't grow a winning mentality until you win things...can't win things without a winning mentality. The middle ground is like I said: more players coming in like Davids, Gallas and VDV who have been there and done it and can help others understand what needs to be done. The closest thing we have to that is Llorente, which is why I wouldn't be at all against bringing Bale back, nor would I mind us offering a generous wage to Juan Mata, who will be a free agent at the end of the month.
Here's what I don't get about wanting players with winning experience: we have plenty already, be it Toby winning La Liga, Verts and Eriksen winning the Eredivisie, Lucas and Aurier financially doping their way to Ligue 1 glory, Sanchez winning the Copa Libertadores, plus both Hugo and Llorente winning the World Cup While it isn't entirely unfair to throw an asterisk after the various Ajax and PSG titles as it would have required a lot of effort to not win the league in those seasons, ignoring every last piece of silverwear our squad won before joining us is a bit Adrian Durham
By all means, throw those asterisks. Strike the utterly irrelevant trophies off the list. Then strike Toby's off too as he only made 12 appearances for Atletico that season. So we're down to Hugo, who inspires confidence in no-one and isn't an outfield player anyway. And Llorente. So my point stands.
And Sanchez, given the Copa Libertadores tends to get won by the usual suspects from Argentina or Brazil, so Nacional winning it is as worthy an achievement as someone like Lyon or Schalke winning the Champions League
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/04/paul...ilson-to-join-chelsea-over-tottenham-9413390/ Love the fact this is presented as a football expert giving an independent unbiased view....while not mentioning that Merson: A) played for arsenal for 7 or 8 years and B) Is a life long Chelsea fan and C) Chelsea may not be able to sign him due yo a possible transfer ban Other than that ... great reporting
Missing the point....why is he ignoring Everton, West Ham, United etc all of who are looking for strikers. And yes, he could well play at Spurs as Kane needs back up as does Son and this season has show that our squad is thin when the players need a break or are injured. But most of all Merson is promoting Chelsea as though he is impartial which he clearly is not. Bearing in mind Sarri has said he wants to keep Higuain and wants to promote Loftus Cheek and Chelsea may not be able to buy players in the window and the article nor Merson mention these things suggests the article does not make sense. 8 out of 10 for speed of response 1 out of 10 for wummability
I was being serious, you all look at strikers as being "back up" to Kane, most strikers like to think of themselves as first choice. If you had a choice of Westham, Everton, Spurs and Chelsea which two would you toss the coin for? Higuain is a stop gap and RLC is not a striker. Straight choice, play for Chelsea most weeks or sit on the bench for Spurs, which would you choose?
1. Why would a serious pundit not mention the transfer ban? You have ignored this point I raised twice so far. 2. Teams that wish to compete need more than one striker as we are showing now. 3. Fair point about RLC, I meant Callum Hudson Odi... my bad. 4. On what basis would he start most weeks for Chelsea? Giroud has a good record but rarely starts as the manager likes Higuain. He has said on a near continuous basis, including again today, that he wants him on a permanent deal. 5. There are other clubs where he'd get regular football but these weren't mentioned. Why? Cos Merson is a life long Chelsea fan.
0 out of 10. Diego is always on the "night shift" lurking. so the timing was merely a consequence of when you posted and nothing else.
Martin 'the General' Cahill might be if the IRA, in collusion* with the Northern Irish Police, hadn't executed him. *not proven but highly likely.
**** Bayern Watch Euro United claim that Hakim Ziyech not only prefers a move to Bayern over us, but has already agreed terms and is hoping they and Ajax can thrash out a deal to make his dream move happen ...although that does sound more than a little contradictory given how many stories are out there saying Ziyech has a £25m release clause this summer
Rabiot Watch please log in to view this image Reports in the Gazetta dello Sport say that Juventus met with his mother, where she stated that her son expected a salary of €10m net ...he's going to experience Death By Levy in early August, isn't he?
