Yeah, its obvious they need to sell players and other clubs will just wait for the prices to come down or try to take players they don’t want to sell (ie, Brighton with Colwill) just to see if they get desperate.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the rumors of them being in advanced talks to sell certain players have been planted by Chelsea themselves.
70m for both players is more realistic, based on their performance for the past 2-3 seasons
Nah, I’m not having that. He’s just a guy and he comes out with some dumbshit takes like the rest of us. The only real additional insight he’s got is with respect to transfers because of his connections to the business.
And it’s most definitely not a binary choice. I think Edu and Arteta deserve a ton of credit for going down the road of developing young players. It’s no secret that I prefer that approach so of course I’m going to give them credit for it. But with Havertz in particular, I have a lot of concerns. He’s not a striker, he’s okay to awful for a few seasons and while you can make the argument that it’s always smart to kick the tires on a once highly-rated 24 year old, the ideal situation is to buy low and Chelsea aren’t (apparently) interested in selling low. So that means it’s a huge investment for a rehabilitation project and I’m not really into that. We all have players we just don’t particularly warm to or rate and he’s definitely one for me.
I mean, the guy pretty much played everywhere.
I wouldn’t worry much about him be used to playing moreso from the right. Vieira was too but we’ve seen Arteta use him in Xhaka’s position this season.
I guess the big question is, can he do what Xhaka does?
I think he does, and he can probably do that better than Vieira and probably ESR. And that’s not even from offensive POV but defensive. Vieira is non-existent in duels and ESR struggles for fitness. Despite being lanky, he seems to have a knack in aerial duels and duels in general, which is key in this team.
If there’s a person to get his quality out of him it’s probably Arteta.
Most of those CF appearances are at Chelsea where he has been pressed into service largely out of necessity and because their team building has been so incoherent. He played a little there at Leverkusen when others were injured but its just not a natural role for him. And he really has played very little on the left side of the pitch in general. Even when technically listed as a 10 he was playing in the right half space rather than equally across the field, sort of like Odegaard.
I think Arteta has made pretty clear what kind of profile he wants in that left 8 position and its much more Xhaka/Rice rather than ESR, Vieira, or Havertz (unless we’re chasing a match).
Saka and Odegaard missed one PL match between them last year. We can’t count on that happening again, especially with CL football, and a lack of cover for those positions is one of the biggest possible ways next season could go wrong. Vieira was bought to provide cover in those two positions and he looks like a bust. I don’t think its much more complicated than that.
Someone like Havertz will cost some serious money though. If it’s not 70m as reported, it’ll probably 50-60m. And then you add in the potential wages, he’s already on 250k pw, even if he takes a pay cut, I doubt it’d be by much.
And then, you have to convince him to come here, which would require assurances about his playing time, especially with the Euros in Germany next year.
If he comes, he will most likely have to be eyed as a potential starter here and as things stand, there’s only one spot open in the starting XI, and that’s the one Xhaka left open. Whether he fills it or Odegaard and he takes Odegaard’s place I don’t know.
https://twitter.com/david_ornstein/status/1669000734904401923?s=46&t=AXaXFdGpC85RzXwk6DBMgA
Ornybomb
The reports on his wages are all over the map. I don’t think he comes here on >200k per week in any capacity, starter or not. We’re not going to make him one of the 2-3 highest earners at the club. So if his wages are truly that high its just not going to happen.
If it was more like 50m fee and 150k per week wages (the low end of what has been reported for him) then I think its doable. That is like 17-18m in annual cost over a five year deal. Rice is going to be close to 30m in annual cost, Caicedo probably low 20s.
Not sure we can afford both Havertz and Caicedo (on top of Rice) so if we got Havertz maybe a cheaper midfield option would be more likely.
Yep, yep.
Putting Bayern in the mud again 
Rice, Caicedo and Havertz plus whoever else is some otherworldly stuff. As much as I trust the ambition of the club, this is some Galactico shit, and even the Galactico shit doesn’t happen unless Madrid hit a bit of low point and Perez wants a rebuild.
We’re past that. Will most likely be Rice and Havertz plus some others more affordable acquisitions.
Hopefully this is all a good old transfer joke. Just like the time we were signing Felaini from Man Utd.
Fabrizio taps it in from close range!!
https://twitter.com/fabrizioromano/status/1669002478086414336?s=46&t=AXaXFdGpC85RzXwk6DBMgA
I will trust Arteta on this one
Fuck off. He is not a striker, we dont play with a 10, he is not a CM. He would maybe compete with Saka on the left, but I would rather have Nelson and Trossard in that role instead of this lanky bastard.
Love how Arteta’s biggest fans in here hate Rice and Havertz, and it looks like both of them are priority targets at the minute. 
Nah I have started to like Rice. Havertz is just too much. We have all seen him stink out the place for years now. Even when Tuchels Chelsea was good he was efin crap.
how about this? this is not bad IMO?
Possibly Ode can move back a bit and being the CM with Rice when needed?
Martinelli - Jesus - Saka
Havartz - Ode
Rice/Partey
Bro, I’ve called him a James Charles lookalike and called his flop at Chelsea(alongside Werner). I’m looking like a proper mug myself if I do an 180 because we’re interested. 
At the end of the day though, dude was regarded as the best attacking players to come out of Germany since Ozil, and some even said he could end up even better.
Madrid were long interested in him too. There has to be something there that people at top clubs see that even after he pretty much flopped at Chelsea, they’re still after him.
I think Havertz will end up back in Germany, at Bayern.
Chelsea want too much money, and won’t lower their demands enough to sell him to us.
