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Summer 2024/January 2025 Transfer Thread

Ed H in Pasadena said:
He's still around? 😳 I swear the guy was playing when I first started to watch the Prem (04-05) on the newly minted Fox Soccer Channel
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Dude is only 33. When I looked to see how old he was, there a pic on his Wiki page of him when he was with Nurnberg when he was 19 or 20 ... and he looks like a grizzled vet. Turkish genes, man. He was probably wearing out a razor when he was 12.

And to VDC's point, Barca are the only team that can rival Chelsea for insane roster building. People bang on about how much money Real Madrid spend, but at least they plan their roster out season to season and don't get stuck paying huge wages to players they can't even get registered. Plus Barca use their pet press corps to freaking torture those poor guys who end up on huge contracts but fall out of favor for playing time. The amount of character assassination in their press is bananas.
 
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jeffbear said:
Speaking of the clown show at Chelsea ... now Raheem Sterling has joined Ben Chilwell in the group of 15(!) players training outside the main roster group. They're "willing" to take offers for Sterling, but seeing as how they paid 50 million pounds for him two years ago and have put him on massive wages, that's gonna be tough. Oh, and they also took away his number, which is fun. And this news comes hot on the heels of Chelsea selling Connor Gallagher off to Atletico and bringing in Joao Felix ... again ... so he can tool aimlessly around the midfield and get nothing done again, presumably. Gallagher and Chilwell both wore a captain's armband for the blues as recently as last season.

And once again ... with feeling ... what a ridiculous way to run a football club. If you or a loved one support this club, please seek help.

www.skysports.com

Raheem Sterling training away from Chelsea squad as Enzo Maresca says he prefers 'a different kind of winger'

Raheem Sterling and Ben Chilwell among group of around 15 players training away from Chelseas first-team squad; They are not working with me. I dont see them, says Enzo Maresca; summer signing Pedro Neto takes No 7 shirt off Sterling, who wants to stay in the Premier League
www.skysports.com www.skysports.com
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I find the way Chelsea & Man City operate so infuriating just because the league as a whole could be SO much more entertaining if we had all this wasted talent playing elsewhere in the EPL.

Grealish was such a blast to watch at Villa, and now we barely see him….we could basically build another top 5 team or two out of players Chelsea and Man City don’t use. Or have 6-8 more entertaining teams in the league if that wealth was spread around.


Not realistic as I realize these teams need that kind of elite squad depth to properly compete with the likes of Real Madrid & Bayern in Europe….but goddamn it’s such a shame knowing what the league could look like if all this wasted talent was actually playing for other clubs.
 
Montana said:
I find the way Chelsea & Man City operate so infuriating just because the league as a whole could be SO much more entertaining if we had all this wasted talent playing elsewhere in the EPL.

Grealish was such a blast to watch at Villa, and now we barely see him….we could basically build another top 5 team or two out of players Chelsea and Man City don’t use. Or have 6-8 more entertaining teams in the league if that wealth was spread around.


Not realistic as I realize these teams need that kind of elite squad depth to properly compete with the likes of Real Madrid & Bayern in Europe….but goddamn it’s such a shame knowing what the league could look like if all this wasted talent was actually playing for other clubs.
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Hell, even at Tottenham. Guys like Richarlison, Dragusin, Werner, Kulusevski, etc could all be locks to be in the starting XI of most EPL teams, every week.

Just crazy the amount of amazing talent that get excluded from playing in soccer, when you compare it to nearly any other major sport.
 
Montana said:
Grealish was such a blast to watch at Villa, and now we barely see him….we could basically build another top 5 team or two out of players Chelsea and Man City don’t use. Or have 6-8 more entertaining teams in the league if that wealth was spread around.
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Umm ... yeah, I do remember how fun it was to watch Jackie cook, but I also remember how Villa largely built the core of their current roster with that truck load of cash they got selling him to City. Some of their rampant over-spending and over-buying gets plowed back into the development and benefit of the other clubs, so long as management is ready to make it pay off. IMO where the cash-rich clubs do the most damage is when they sign players to unrealistically huge weekly wages, which makes it all but impossible for them to move those players along to clubs with more reasonable budgets. Chelsea have been particularly guilty of this, as the vast majority of their surplus players could easily be sold or loaned out if they were on anything like reasonable weekly wages.
 
jeffbear said:
Umm ... yeah, I do remember how fun it was to watch Jackie cook, but I also remember how Villa largely built the core of their current roster with that truck load of cash they got selling him to City. Some of their rampant over-spending and over-buying gets plowed back into the development and benefit of the other clubs, so long as management is ready to make it pay off. IMO where the cash-rich clubs do the most damage is when they sign players to unrealistically huge weekly wages, which makes it all but impossible for them to move those players along to clubs with more reasonable budgets. Chelsea have been particularly guilty of this, as the vast majority of their surplus players could easily be sold or loaned out if they were on anything like reasonable weekly wages.
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That’s a very good point…..I started to bring up the bastardization of wage bills, but then deleted it since I’d already bloviated enough on something that won’t ever change. 😆

That is a great point though about how much teams are able to do with the money they get selling these players….and there is a EPL tax when these teams come calling, especially if it’s for a homegrown. But still…..sucks how often it leads to us barely seeing these guys play.


And yeah Chelsea is the worst….i think I read Raheem is making like $325k a week or something?

I don’t know if Tottenham have a single player making $200k a week….maybe Sonny on his last deal, but that’d be it. (edit: £190k for Son, lol)
 
Chelsea's other top earner according to capology is Lukaku, so... Reece James and Ben Chillwell are also in their top five earners. At least with City, the money is on the field for the most part. United are the only team really close to Chelsea when it comes to having a bunch of horrible contracts at the top of their paysheet with Casemiro, Sancho, Mount, Antony, Maguire, Eriksen and Lindelof all in their top eleven of wages.
 
Yeah, City's roster is a bit bloated but it's basically just their match day squad (and bench). They mess around with a development tier as well, but that's less problematic, unless you're a young American goaltender looking to get your career derailed. City are deep, but not ridiculously so, and they tend to move young guys like Jesus and Alvarez out before they absolutely rot on the vine. But the wage creep does kick in with their guys too, pretty much guaranteeing that anybody who's ever come through their roster will be over-paid and VERY difficult to move. To be fair, that happens to some degree with all the higher end English teams to one degree or another.
 
Arsenal signed midfielder Mikel Merino from Real Sociedad for €33.5 million plus €5 million in variable costs. He should fill the left side #8 which allows Declan Rice to move to his preferred #6. Kai Havertz was brought in last year to be the left side 8 but has proven more effective leading the line.
 
VinatieriDefinesClutch said:
Is he preferred to be a number six? Arsenal looked their worst last year when he was playing there, because in possession, he just isn't a six.
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Yes, he’s a 6. At his best, he’s just ahead of the back four, almost in a 4-1-2-3. The problem was that didn’t have a proper left side 8. I’d rather Rice at the 6 than Jorginho or Partey.
 
He doesn't really have the passing necessary to facilitate as a deep lying playmaker though. He's much better at carrying the ball to attack, plus he's a really good box crasher. Arsenal kind of had the issue when he was at the six of not being able to break down defenses, because he just kind of makes safe lateral passes from that role and defenses got to just hold their shape and never really got threatened.
 
Yeah, it's a tricky midfield in general, the way Arteta prefers to run possession. Beautiful stuff when it all comes together, but a big old mess when it doesn't.
 
Technically this is non-transfer news, but US midfielder Weston McKinnie has signed an extension with Juventus and will be staying after having been shopped all summer and excluded from first team training early in camp. Bonkers. This is the second time that this same sort of thing has happened since McKinnie went to Juve in 2020. He was loaned to Leeds and shut out from training upon his return in 2023 only to end up in their first 11 by Christmas.
 
Yeah, turns out you can't try the same trick with a player two seasons in a row. He called their bluff the first time, why on earth wouldn't he call their bluff a second when he had even less time left on his deal? What a horribly run organization and good on him for knowing his worth.
 
Porto have acquired midfielder Fabio Vieira on loan from Arsenal. He started his career at Porto and joined Arsenal in 2022 for about €40 million. He only played 15 matches last season and a total of 57 minutes across 3 matches after returning from injury in February.
 
VinatieriDefinesClutch said:
Yeah, turns out you can't try the same trick with a player two seasons in a row. He called their bluff the first time, why on earth wouldn't he call their bluff a second when he had even less time left on his deal? What a horribly run organization and good on him for knowing his worth.
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For me the crazy part is the extension. I get trying to encourage a guy to seek another job if you aren't sold on him, but if it was just that his wage was too high, why not try negotiating that down with an extension first before the public shaming ritual?
 
Do you think his extension is lower? I'd assume it's actually higher. I assumed they realized that he was just going to play out the last year of his contract and walk with them getting nothing in return for him. He doesn't appear to be on that high of wages, capology has him at around 60k a week.
 
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