Winter Transfer Missed Opportunities and Regrets

[selassie]

The whole Mudryk saga has been frustrating from the get go. We clearly liked him a lot as a player but were not prepared to meet Shaktar’s valuation. It is what it is. I wonder if we have any alternatives lined up? Are we going to improve other areas of the squad? Doubts are starting to creep back in now about our abilities to close deals and identify alternative targets.

[selassie]

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.

This is the bit that disappoints me which makes me question we played a big part in this deal not progressing.

I understand that we don’t have a bottomless pit of money, but I don’t understand how we couldn’t close this deal when essentially we were the only club in talks to sign him and Mudryk appeared almost desperate to join us. If it really was to do with the valuation of a player then we move on and approach our next target. If Mudryk was our number 1 target and we have nobody else lined up then it begs the question to why we didn’t do more to close the deal.

[IBK]

This is the bit that disappoints me which makes me question we played a big part in this deal not progressing.

I understand that we don’t have a bottomless pit of money, but I don’t understand how we couldn’t close this deal when essentially we were the only club in talks to sign him and Mudryk appeared almost desperate to join us. If it really was to do with the valuation of a player then we move on and approach our next target. If Mudryk was our number 1 target and we have nobody else lined up then it begs the question to why we didn’t do more to close the deal.

I'm frustrated too - but the reports were clear. Shaktar was basing Mudryk's valuation on the Anthony deal - which saw an EPL club in turmoil and desperate bidding way over the odds for a player worth half of what they paid for him. Shaktar are well known to be hardballers, and they were never going to close the deal with us while there was the possibility of a bidding war with the likes of Chelsea who are indeed desperate and don't care how much they spend - which is what came to pass. The fact that this has all played out very publicly tells us all we need to know about Shaktar's intentions.

We have all criticised the way Arsenal have made some huge signings only for them to fail and the players involved to become unsellable at their proper value. We have lamented getting a reputation for being low-balled when it comes to transfers out of the club. Well for me the same applies to incoming signings. As soon as we get a reputation for paying well over the odds for players, this will affect our ability to find value in the market. It could also affect the squad building and unity with the players that we have already. So I can understand that the long term stability of the club (which has been hard won over the last cople of seasons) comes before signing an exciting yet EPL unproven player for the kind of money Chelsea are paying for him.

I think the 'criticism' should be of the fact that we are in league competing against clubs with bottomless resources rather than the club not getting this transfer over the line.

That said, if we don't have a Plan B to strengthen what must now be regarded as a title push, then that is the worry here. There are never any guarantees, but if we bring in noone then we are starting to look at a similar situation to last year when we could narrowly lose out (on the title rather than CL places) for the sake of decisivenes in January. I don't know who is available for us in the positions we need to strenghten, but logic says that there must be someone available who fits our plans...

[Mac76]

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.

This

Yes it's a lot of money but we have a one-off chance to take advantage of the temporary difficulties of many other top six sides and finish top - we've wasted time and looked unambitious - fine to turn down Joao Felix but should have gone for this guy (although there has to be a stopping point so if Chelsea had raised again maybe that's it)

It's going to be awkward for this guy at Chelsea though, having talked so much about Arsenal

[HCZ_Reborn]

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.

But is it?

I’d argue it was naive to rely on the player showing he wanted to join us, he clearly wants to play for a bigger club than Shatkah and both Arsenal and Chelsea are that.

But not actually sure what we could have done short of paying them what they asked for.

Chelsea have including the summer paid almost £350 million on new players, apart from anything else it hasn’t done them much good….and there’s nothing there that represents a transfer strategy.

Douglas Luiz was less about the money and more about the fact that Villa were confident he’d sign a new deal (which he did)

When you look at Gabriel Martinelli right now, look at Odegaard right now….and you think of what they cost us. No I’m not the biggest fan of Arteta or Edu, but it’s clear we are getting something right.

[HCZ_Reborn]

I'm frustrated too - but the reports were clear. Shaktar was basing Mudryk's valuation on the Anthony deal - which saw an EPL club in turmoil and desperate bidding way over the odds for a player worth half of what they paid for him. Shaktar are well known to be hardballers, and they were never going to close the deal with us while there was the possibility of a bidding war with the likes of Chelsea who are indeed desperate and don't care how much they spend - which is what came to pass. The fact that this has all played out very publicly tells us all we need to know about Shaktar's intentions.

We have all criticised the way Arsenal have made some huge signings only for them to fail and the players involved to become unsellable at their proper value. We have lamented getting a reputation for being low-balled when it comes to transfers out of the club. Well for me the same applies to incoming signings. As soon as we get a reputation for paying well over the odds for players, this will affect our ability to find value in the market. It could also affect the squad building and unity with the players that we have already. So I can understand that the long term stability of the club (which has been hard won over the last cople of seasons) comes before signing an exciting yet EPL unproven player for the kind of money Chelsea are paying for him.

I think the 'criticism' should be of the fact that we are in league competing against clubs with bottomless resources rather than the club not getting this transfer over the line.

That said, if we don't have a Plan B to strengthen what must now be regarded as a title push, then that is the worry here. There are never any guarantees, but if we bring in noone then we are starting to look at a similar situation to last year when we could narrowly lose out (on the title rather than CL places) for the sake of decisivenes in January. I don't know who is available for us in the positions we need to strenghten, but logic says that there must be someone available who fits our plans...

This

[selassie]

I'm frustrated too - but the reports were clear. Shaktar was basing Mudryk's valuation on the Anthony deal - which saw an EPL club in turmoil and desperate bidding way over the odds for a player worth half of what they paid for him. Shaktar are well known to be hardballers, and they were never going to close the deal with us while there was the possibility of a bidding war with the likes of Chelsea who are indeed desperate and don't care how much they spend - which is what came to pass. The fact that this has all played out very publicly tells us all we need to know about Shaktar's intentions.

We have all criticised the way Arsenal have made some huge signings only for them to fail and the players involved to become unsellable at their proper value. We have lamented getting a reputation for being low-balled when it comes to transfers out of the club. Well for me the same applies to incoming signings. As soon as we get a reputation for paying well over the odds for players, this will affect our ability to find value in the market. It could also affect the squad building and unity with the players that we have already. So I can understand that the long term stability of the club (which has been hard won over the last cople of seasons) comes before signing an exciting yet EPL unproven player for the kind of money Chelsea are paying for him.

I think the 'criticism' should be of the fact that we are in league competing against clubs with bottomless resources rather than the club not getting this transfer over the line.

That said, if we don't have a Plan B to strengthen what must now be regarded as a title push, then that is the worry here. There are never any guarantees, but if we bring in noone then we are starting to look at a similar situation to last year when we could narrowly lose out (on the title rather than CL places) for the sake of decisivenes in January. I don't know who is available for us in the positions we need to strenghten, but logic says that there must be someone available who fits our plans...

Yeah I hear you IBK.

If it was to do with valuation and that we always knew we were not prepared to meet it, and that Shaktar were standing firm on their valuation, then we should have walked away weeks ago and made progress on alternative targets?

The reality of the situation is that we are a Saka or Martinelli injury away from our season collapsing, as we are with our options or lack of them in Central Midfield if Partey or dare I say even Xhaka breaks down.

If it's not Mudryk, then it needs to be someone else, we desperately need adding quality to the squad ASAP.

P.S. Been reading this morning we have gone back in for Raphinha, apparently Barca want rid.

[dostoy]

Ferran Torres is who I would go for.

Young and ex Man City as well.

[GP]

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.

That's a lot of words to say nothing but cry a lot.

[selassie]

Ferran Torres is who I would go for.

Young and ex Man City as well.

I'd take any of those wide guys Barca are apparently listening to offers for....in the following order

Rapinha (Based on him knowing the league)

Ferran Torres (Based on him knowing the league)

Fati (He has the biggest potential of all them IMO, though has stalled on his development due to injuries)