Winter Transfer Missed Opportunities and Regrets

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

This guy has 30 first team games in his whole career. 100m Euros for that? Chelsea can have him.

Where were you when we corrupted fotballdom and paid 12m for a 16 year old kid who hadn't finished school (the highest transfer fee at that time was 30m for Shevchenko)?

https://www.skysports.com/football/n...e-walcott-deal

https://www.goal.com/en-ng/news/man-...z1qm0lmt4cwirt

Yeah, probably loving the trajectory of where it seemed the club was going. :I miss Dein:

[Chippy]

No, a joke for being ridiculous and having hypocrites associated with the club who half heartedly spew this ridiculous garbage.

I am really angry right now, because honestly I thought we had turned the page this year i.e. decided to compete like the proper big club we are.... but this saga just shows this will probably be a fluke year and we will go back to being the "big club with a small club" mentality pretty soon.

Not to bore anyone, our final offer apparently is 95m euro, Chelsea's is 5m euro more.

We have been scouting this kid for almost a year and have turned his head to such an extent that he has repeated over and over again that he wants Arsenal(still did so yesterday), despite being clearly inimical to his interests and that of his club.

Currently he is the hottest young prospect in Europe and from what I have seen from the boy so far, he's going to be a name we are all going to remember for a long time.

More important than my assessment of the kid's talent is that the people we pay salaries to handle this sort of thing know this and agree with it, thus the reason for the protracted soap opera we have witnessed.

I have said it a thousand times over the almost 2 decades we've been on these different fora, true competition is about doing whatever it takes to win (obviously within reason) and competing with all the resources you have available (you f*cking don't hold back). Clearly anyone who thinks being successful in this sport (or any other) is about only competing on the pitch is obviously ridiculous and I will say it over and over again.

An Arsenal fan who chooses to deny our history and thinks we got to being top dawg by always doing the "right thing" or approaching things in the "right manner" is clearly a hypocrite.

Chelsea are only competing and doing what we use to do when we had people with a clear vision running the club, this season might be a write off for them (not sure that's even true, look at Man U), but they will be back where they belong as long as jokers keep filling this club.

Fucking perfect in fact.
I said earlier. I thought our club had changed. But no.

[Marc Overmars]

Bit of a balls up tbh.

[Letters]

Chelsea are only competing and doing what we use to do when we had people with a clear vision running the club

I agree with a fair amount of your post but not this part.
Having (against my better judgement) watched All or Nothing, it’s clear there’s a strategy and plan for the club. And there’s been clear improvement as a result.
It does feel like we’ve made a mess of this one though, and injuries are pretty likely to cost us if we don’t sign someone in this window.

[GP]

Imagine thinking Chelsea have a clear strategy

It's the most scattergun approach I've ever seen.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Maybe we can get Chelsea to sign Maguire if we go for him.

[Marc Overmars]

Chelsea are jokers but the fact this guy has been wetting himself over Arsenal for weeks and we still couldn’t get a deal over the line?

This is poor regardless of what you think about the money involved and his lack of experience.

This is a player we wanted, who also wanted us.

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

Imagine thinking Chelsea have a clear strategy

It's the most scattergun approach I've ever seen.

Man, I never took you for being naive or maybe you are just pretending.....anyway I'll try my best to make this short (I'll probably fail).

When Abramovich came in (and killed football according to some), he knew what he wanted i.e. success, but more importantly success as fast as possible (maybe he had a crystal ball and foresaw that Putin and Ukraine would cut short his fun...who knows ).

Anyway he did so by just cutting through the bullshit and buying the best players and staff available...I think we all agree this has been Chelsea's modus operandi ever since.

Now though Chelsea had money to spend, they didn't have the time to build or acquire the scouting network that both Man U and us had used years to perfect....so initially they were always at a disadvantage when it came to young players.

But that all changed after the Mikel Obi saga in 2005. Mikel (then supposedly the second best young player in the world after Messi) and his club had agreed a deal with Man U ,who even presented Mikel at their club, only for him to be "kidnapped" and somehow find his way holed up in some dodgy hotel in London giving press conferences that he was forced to sign for Man U and only wanted to play for Chelsea.

The rest is history we all know.

The point is Chelsea quickly learnt from the success of that debacle; that the easiest way to build their all conquering team, is not only to buy the best players available wether you need them or not (e.g Salah and De Bruyne) , but always show interest in any player your rivals are interested in and hijack the deal at the last moment if possible ,strengthening your club and weakening theirs (even Klop is partaking in these dark arts now lol).

A bit pathetic, but really really effective. Do you remember who was linked with Hazard for years originally?

I mean they've done it to us twice in January recently but let me take you further back to show you how effective it can be.

2015, Chelsea are champions of England (Jose's second coming), they spend about 65m in the transfer market for the upcoming season (stealing none of their rival's players) and proceed to have a bomb of a season (finish 10th) where they don't qualify for any european football at all (1st time in a decade).

This season also happens to be the season everyone thought we would win the league before somehow managing to come second to a well oiled Leicester.

Who remembers Chelsea's response that year? I mean who they bought just before pre season started?

Well it only happened to be the guy Arsenal had been doing all the leg work for(as usual), chasing for months to fill a big gap we had recognised for ages in our team. IIRC he was a short guy who also happened to be Leicester's fan favourite. Similarly we had turned his head and he only wanted to play for us. Oh I found a link.

https://www.teamtalk.com/news/kante-...his-preference

Yes Kante.

We showed interest only to pull out at the last stage, refusing to compete with Chelsea despite meeting his buy out clause, because we were "suspicious of payments to be made to his agents". Ah that sounds like us, I mean someone needs to be holier than the Pope! We officially pull out and identify a world beating alternative whose name would come to be known as Granit "I.Am.Better.Than.Kante" Xhaka!!

Fast forward to the end of the season, Chelsea win the league ( while breaking the record for the highest number of wins in a season) and finish runners up in the FA Cup. Kante is Chelsea's and the premier league's player of the season. Leicester trade places with Chelsea by breaking thier record and finishing 12th (i.e worst performance of a reigning champion). Oh and the mighty Arsenal, led by our "bungless" hero Xhaka, we finish 5th and start our sojourn of never qualifying for the CL again.

But at least we kept our morality!!!

Our hero ( and chief pretender) AW, would later say of Kante many years later , after he singlehandedly wins the CL for Chelsea:

"We have seen a man who is above everybody else, N'Golo Kante".

I really hope he won't be saying the same thing soon about Mudryk in a Chelsea shirt.

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

I agree with a fair amount of your post but not this part.
Having (against my better judgement) watched All or Nothing, it’s clear there’s a strategy and plan for the club. And there’s been clear improvement as a result.
It does feel like we’ve made a mess of this one though, and injuries are pretty likely to cost us if we don’t sign someone in this window.

Well I haven't gone against my better judgement to watch the piece of propaganda yet....but who knows, if this disappointment doesn't kill me and we somehow manage to win the league, I might just try to see if the club can convince me the way they have convinced you.

Though I doubt it, and honestly I just wish I could roll back time and give the club to people who care and want to win :Dein.All.Is.Forgiven:

[Ralpheroo72]

The amounts that those cunts have spent just show that the fair play rules are an absolute joke. I don’t see why clubs worry about them, because they seem to mean fuck all.