Ola Toivonen has joined Rennes from PSV - €2.5 million. Has been linked with a lot of clubs over the past few seasons but he has looked shit anytime I have seen him
[quote=“Mark Renton, post: 891240, member: 1796”]Couldn’t see Mourinho selling to them, they may not be a threat this year but they will still be around in the coming seasons.
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I wonder is this a plan by Mourinho to have United spending the rest of the transfer window trying to sign Mata and then pulling the plug on deadline day to fuck up United even more
You wouldn’t put anything past him… Like he was really gonna buy Rooney last summer. The man will do anything to win and selling to utd doesn’t make sense.
If it’s true, where does Rooney, Mata and RvP fit in when all fit?
[quote=“Mark Renton, post: 891244, member: 1796”]You wouldn’t put anything past him… Like he was really gonna buy Rooney last summer. The man will do anything to win and selling to utd doesn’t make sense.
If it’s true, where does Rooney, Mata and RvP fit in when all fit?[/quote]
That is a good point, unless he is going to use Mata as a left winger. Mata has been linked with Athletico Madrid as well but I would doubt that there is any substance to that as he wouldn’t fit their high energy, hard working, in your face pressure and style of play at all. It is the same reason that Oscar is ahead of him at Stamford Bridge
I was thinking that this morning. Aren’t Chelsea £50m or so in the red though?
They probably have to let another one go after De Bruyne leaving for £18m or so.
[quote=“Mark Renton, post: 891244, member: 1796”]. The man will do anything to win and selling to utd doesn’t make sense.
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it does in the short term as Chelsea have played united twice in league and Mourinho has stated he doesn’t think that united can win the league now…so its strengthens united’s squad for the league games against chelasea’a main rivals for the title…
[quote=“croppy_boy, post: 891256, member: 306”]I was thinking that this morning. Aren’t Chelsea £50m or so in the red though?
They probably have to let another one go after De Bruyne leaving for £18m or so.[/quote]
I’d say Chelsea are nicely on the way to sorting out any debt issues, sure a few big purchases will affect it badly, but a clear out in Summer would set them up again you’d feel, especially if Mata to Athletico is still a thing. INteresting article here
http://m.goal.com/s/en-gb/news/4547064
[SIZE=6]Buy now, play later: How Chelsea’s transfer strategy will change the game forever[/SIZE]
[SIZE=5]The Blues have 22 players out on loan with four more likely to follow this month, and the likes of Romelu Lukaku, Thibaut Courtois and Lucas Piazon are making a big impact
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When Nemanja Matic next runs onto a football pitch in a Chelsea shirt, almost three years, two transfers and over £40 million in spent cash after his last appearance, no one will argue it was all part of the plan.
Had the Serb not been deemed expendable in the £25m deal which brought David Luiz to Stamford Bridge from Benfica in January 2011 and inconsequential enough to make the insertion of a buy-back clause seem unnecessary, Roman Abramovich need not have reached so deep into his pockets to acquire the powerful, dominating midfielder Jose Mourinho craved.
Yet Matic’s career path, leaving Chelsea to forge his reputation before returning to enjoy his peak years, is one the club fully expect – and indeed hope – will soon become a road more taken.
Chelsea currently have 22 players out on loan. Four more – Sam Hutchinson, Gael Kakuta, Josh McEachran and Nathaniel Chalobah – returned to the club this month and can reasonably be classed as ‘in-between loans’. That makes 26 in all. Chelsea’s Premier League squad list has 25 names on it, and only 20 of those have actually been picked by Mourinho in the competition this season.
It is a truly vast operation, overseen by technical director Michael Emenalo, involving players of 14 different nationalities playing in nine different divisions across five countries, and clearly operated with an eye on more than simply developing the future stars of Stamford Bridge.
Some, including the likes of Romelu Lukaku and Thibaut Courtois, are widely expected to be welcomed into the first-team fold sooner rather than later. Others, such as Lucas Piazon, Kenneth Omeruo, Christian Atsu and Wallace, are being monitored with considerable excitement.
The majority of the 26, however, will never be senior Chelsea players. But for their parent club that is no great disaster, or even really the point. As long as most of them, acquired from all around the world for relatively modest fees, develop in line with their potential under the stewardship of other clubs, the worst likely scenario is they can eventually be sold for a tidy profit.
If, as expected, Kevin De Bruyne completes a £15m move to Wolfsburg this month, the Blues will more than double the £6.7m they paid for him in January 2012 and offset a chunk of their outlay on Matic.
“We are trying to find a way because, given Financial Fair Play stipulations, we need to recruit young and we also need to have a reservoir of talent that we develop,” Emenalo admitted to the club’s official website in a rare interview last September. “This season is a good test for what we’ve implemented with young players given the stipulations of Financial Fair Play, but even regardless of the Financial Fair Play regulations, we think this is the best way to go.”
FFP or no FFP, it is a business model which makes sense. If just one of their 26 loanees reaches a world-class standard – and of the current crop Chelsea arguably boast two such prospects in Lukaku and Courtois – the club will save millions in transfer outlay. If the rest, having rarely burdened their parent club with training or wage costs, can then be sold for significantly more than their purchase price, the Blues can realistically hope to avoid ever replicating the £49.4m annual loss they posted last month.
And of course, Chelsea are also far from unique in hoarding exotic young talent with a view to financial and sporting gain in the long run.
CHELSEA LATEST
12/1 Chelsea are 12/1 with Bet365 to win the Champions LeagueGoal has reported extensively on Manchester City’s increasingly insatiable appetite for acquiring gifted foreign youngsters to add to their elite development squad over the past six months.
Third-party ownership arrangements consistently enable Porto to snap up highly-rated prospects from South America while, slightly lower down the football food chain, the Pozzo family retain an active interest in over 100 players worldwide and use their extensive centralised scouting network to power Udinese, Granada and Watford.
But thanks to its scale, sophistication and sphere of influence, Chelsea’s loan system is changing the face of European football. Powered by Lukaku’s goals, Everton are now genuine top four contenders. The presence of Courtois means Atletico Madrid have never needed to bother replacing David De Gea. And thanks to their prodigious Blues contingent, Vitesse Arnhem are challenging the Dutch elite.
Of the three, the latter example is most troubling. Vitesse sit joint top of the Eredivisie with defending champions Ajax on 47 points after 18 matches, their ranks bolstered by Hutchinson, Kakuta, Patrick van Aanholt, Cristian Cuevas and, in particular, Atsu and Piazon, the club’s top scorer this season. January saw Hutchinson and Kakuta return to Chelsea, with Bertrand Traore moving in the opposite direction.
The relationship between the clubs goes right to the top. Owner Alexander Chigirinsky is a business partner of Abramovich while former chairman Merab Jordania is a personal friend. Emenalo is often seen at GelreDome, as are Piet De Visser and Marina Granovskaia, senior advisors to Abramovich. Both clubs have repeatedly denied that Chelsea exert undue influence over manager Peter Bosz’s team selection and match tactics, but suspicions remain.
The benefit of all this to Dutch football appears minimal. Despite a recent £7.5m investment in their training facilities and a long-standing commitment to developing talent, Vitesse’s ability to field gifted foreign youngsters necessarily reduces the chances of the club producing another Roy Makaay or Marco van Ginkel, while the rest of the Eredivisie must now compete with an artificially inflated rival. Some have suggested, without much irony, that Chelsea could conceivably win league titles in two countries this season.
Beyond this, the moral implications of clubs farming out young men en masse around the football world are cause for concern. Regardless of assurances that a player’s welfare is always top priority and their football development is closely monitored, the crude image of a cattle market is hard to shake.
Yet such concerns will not bother Chelsea. They are breaking no rules and, as many of their loan stars continue to shine around Europe, boast a stronger hand with every passing week.
Roy Hodgson tried to sign him for Liverpool so he must be shit.
@farmerinthecity - Being reported that the Salah deal is done- 10m. Not sure how accurate that is tho… I imagine there isn’t too much more money available so the back may have to be sacrificed for a holding midfield player…Ryan McLaughlin has gone on loan to Barnsley which is great news- He is potentially the franchise right full for the next 10 years.
The right honourable Mr Balague just tweeted the following:
Check out @GuillemBalague’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/GuillemBalague/status/426062696216539136
What will become of Kagawa? Will he return to Dortmund?
He must be sorry he ever left. His career has been halted since joining Utd.
20M profit for Chelsea on Mata, more excellent business.
Rumours flying around Chelsea have come in for Salah , be a laugh if true and would serve Liverpool right for arsing around over a mill or two… They were stung during the summer over the same thing with the Armenian lad.
Ah for fuck sake!!
Hard to know what’s going on, but all reports indicated Liverpool and Basle had reached an agreement then Chelsea matched it, which leaves the decision up to the player. I don’t know much about the player bar the one game I saw, but he would surely find himself in the same position of Mata and behind Hazard, Oscar , Willian and even Schurrle… Chelsea also have Piazon, Traore, Atsu, T Hazard and two loanees to return- Moses, Marin- all pushing for those positions too… Obviously the player would back his own ability and the lure of London and more than likely champions league will probably be too much but he would almost be guaranteed a starting role with Liverpool and get to play along side one of the greatest players in the world right now. He would also get to play with Suarez who is up there with Sturridge.
Like I siad, could be all internet bullshit- but they have dragged the deal out over 2 weeks, like previous transfers, and again run the risk of being blown out of it instead of wrapping the deal up ASAP. If he truely is the clubs No.1 target, then 1-2m shouldn’t matter.
More internet shite… it really is spoofers paradise this transfer window lark… but Shaqiri is being linked with a move/loan to Liverpool.
I’d gladly take him over Salah.
[quote=“Mark Renton, post: 891849, member: 1796”]More internet shite… it really is spoofers paradise this transfer window lark… but Shaqiri is being linked with a move/loan to Liverpool.
I’d gladly take him over Salah.[/quote]
Pique’s missus?
This is supposedly a very reliable source…
Joseph Musker @Musker_LFC 2m
Wow. I’ve just been told Liverpool had agreed a fee with Basle, THEN decided to lowball them and negotiations restarted. Incredible.
Chelsea have all but sealed the deal now.