It's Quiet 18 - Wanna ring the bell?

Blue tiger said:
I like Kovacic, and think at £25m is a decent enough signing, but if he is solely gundo's replacement it worries me. He's scored 4 goals in the league in his time at Chelsea, don't know what his assist stats are, but we've probably just lost best part of 12/15 goals and assists in Gundo. Rice wasn't the answer for me, but we do need more in the middle of the park IMO.
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Got a feeling Alvarez might play in an advanced attack midfield role next season
 
DMA's said:
I think it’s pretty obvious the club are desperate to be seen as a club who are prudent above all else. We have made a very obvious effort to minimise our net expenditure over the last 5 years and both pep and khaldoon have referenced our net spend in interviews last season.

Pep is the reason why this approach has worked imo. Make no mistake though with the investment teams around us are making they will close the gap on us if we stand still. Do wish the club weren’t so bothered about how they are perceived around the league
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I don’t understand it either. People already have a fixed perception. It won’t be undone by a few years of prudent spending. We may as well carry on as we did.
 
Some shit in here about our midfield.

Pep has led us to 5 out of the last 6 PL titles. We've done The Treble as well as the domestic Quad.

Give your head a wobble if you're 'worried' or 'nervous'. We have the greatest manager on the planet who innovates and changes our system every summer.

There's absolutely no doubt that Pep will have a squad he's happy with by August. That's good enough for me.
 
Blue tiger said:
I like Kovacic, and think at £25m is a decent enough signing, but if he is solely gundo's replacement it worries me. He's scored 4 goals in the league in his time at Chelsea, don't know what his assist stats are, but we've probably just lost best part of 12/15 goals and assists in Gundo. Rice wasn't the answer for me, but we do need more in the middle of the park IMO.
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I love Gundo, have done since he took the piss out of us in 2012/13 with Dortmund, but he wasn’t particularly prolific in his time with us aside from that 2021/21 season.

He was a massive(!) game player with a winning mentality, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by Kovacic and his ability to change games. And the difference we’ll see of Chelsea‘s Kovacic compared to one under Pep in a new, progressive role will be massive IMO - by default his numbers will rise IMO.
 
ono said:
He sort of is though. We still don’t have a left back. We have one senior right back. We have limited options out wide. We have just lost our captain.

Our bench is topped up with players Pep does not trust to play meaningful minutes - 1 of those players being a £40m signing. KDB is now 32 and cannot play 90 mins in a game of any intensity.

In addition, we laugh at Arsenal bottling the league, but had they not dropped stupid points, the sales of Jesus and Zinchenko would have looked horrific. We won the league despite spending just a couple of weeks at the top. There’s not a chance in the world we planned for that.

Every team around us is significantly strengthening this summer and they are doing it quickly so the gap is likely going to close. Waiting on outgoings is so risky and a bit baffling after we have publicly tried to sign Bellingham and Rice for fees in excess of £100m. So on one hand, our need in midfield is so great that we need to spend £100m, yet on the other, we can also get by without doing anything? It makes as little sense as the Kane fiasco did two years ago. Some people will point out that that turned out OK, which it did, but for me it’s closer to fortune than it is to good planning. And fortune doesn’t last forever.
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Assume our first eleven last year was : Ederson, Walker, Stones, Dias, Ake, Rodri, Bernardo, De Bruyne, Gundogan, Grealish and Haaland.

In that case the bench was topped up with Ortega, Akanji, Laporte, Foden, Mahrez and Alvarez who, according to you, Pep didn't trust. Note how I left Phillips out and also Cancelo and Gomez. Take a long look at what you posted and stop drinking too much.
 
Ederson, Ortega, Carson

Walker, Rico
Stones, Akanji
Dias, Ake
Gvardiol, Gomes

Rodri, Phillips
Kovacic, Perone
Kev, Phil

Grealish, Mactee
Mahrez, Bernardo, Bobb

Haaland, Alvarez

That’s the current Squad plus Gvardiol instead of Laporte, I know we are expecting a couple of loans and possible outgoings (possibly 5) it feels like a very mixed group. Even with 5 going I can’t see more than 2 more incomings so 4 in total.
 
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skillman said:
RE Gaughan’s piece. I’ll likely get shit but not signing a midfielder unless one goes is a bit short-sighted IMO. Bernie wants to go, has done for years, so the succession plan needs to start at some point.

Signing a player depending on him staying or leaving doesn’t sit right with me (like that matters) for some reason.
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How can you have a succession plan on what ifs? Yes there’s been talk about it, but there’s also talk of him signing a new contract. Of course it’s dependant on how that pans out! You can’t buy players as contingency plans. Also, we have a very tight squad numbers game to balance. If Bernardo resigns, or even just agrees to stay an extra year, then that is fantastic news as we couldn’t possible have signed a better replacement as a contingency.

Are you saying we should have signed Maddison for eg, so we’re not caught short should Bernardo finally leave? I’d rather, we wait and see what happens with Bernardo thanks.
 
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