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Transfers The Summer Transfer Edging Thread 2025

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He's a fcuking muppet.

He said he made the choice because he didn’t want the stress and distraction when his wife was having a complicated pregnancy.

I understand that tbh. If Marinakis viewed his players as human beings, he’d have seen he was getting 60m for a player who was about to have a child and make a dream move to play CL football in a World Cup year.

But he’s a gangster who isn’t capable of that level of human empathy. Now he’s got a player who’s fire has gone out and a manager who hates him and wants to get sacked for a payout
 
You conveniently leave out wages. The simple fact is, and I don't even understand why you are disagreeing. We do not show the ambition in the market which our rivals do. It's not debatable. We target specific subset of players which fit into our tight wage structure, and fit into our transfer range, which is generally sub 60 million.

It seems Levy was willing to push the boat out for Eze as an exception, but that probably would have meant no Savinho when we needed both.

The Savinho signing would actually be a step change IMO, because it isn't the type of signing we usually make. Thing is, we haven't signed him yet, and we probably won't.

For me Woolwich are the best comparison, because we have similar revenues and they aren't a oil club etc and just look at the ambition they have shown in the market.

They signed Rice for 100 million.
They beat Liverpool to the signing of Zubimendi.
Signed Eze
Gyokores was one of the most in demand strikers in Europe, whether he's turns out any good is another matter.
They built upon the excellent foundations they had by signing some very good players like Saliba and Gabriel cheap. This has allowed them to go from top 4 to title challengers.

We have got similar foundations, but we won't kick on and do what Woolwich did by sprinkling the team with top top quality. That is where my problem is with Levy.

The players we need to kick on, the extra quality we won't do.

We simply won't get there by signing the likes of El Kannoush. It's mental to think otherwise. Woolwich didn't. Liverpool didn't, they went and signed Van Djik and Allison for huge money.

We under Levy will never do that, and subsequently we will never take that step to real challenger for the biggest trophies.

We actually have most of the team there, we have the manager in place, but Levy will leave us short and we will miss our chance. He won't give the manager the tools, like FSG did with Klopp and now Slot, like Kroenke did with Arteta.

We do not need the likes of El Kannoush, not coming in as our main man anyway, we need elite talent to push us on. Savinho is one of those.
Lol

Woolwich have been left short and still are.

What am I reading here?

What have they won exactly?

Who plays when Gokyeres gets injuried? Or Saka? Or Saliba?
 
You’re being dishonest. There’s very little difference between how much we spend and how much our rivals spend.

Over five seasons we’ve spent more than liverpool and a little less than City and Woolwich. We are getting deals done and we are spending money. That’s the truth. Cherrypicking deals is what you’re doing.

If we get Savinho then the difference spent between us and Woolwich / City will be negligible. We’ll only be about 50m behind United over a five year period which is nothing and they’re the second biggest spenders in world football over the last five years.

Chelsea are a massive outlier. They have spent 70% more than the second biggest spenders (United) in that time period. And really, what have they done in the last five years? Not enough to justify that spending.

So rather than throwing out words like “incompetence” be specific. Your claims about not spending money or getting deals done don’t align with the facts. If you have criticisms, make them. I do too. But if you have an argument, you won’t need to make shit up.
There is so much context missing from this.

We a re spending lots of money flip flopping from manage to the next, from one playing style to another.

Woolwich, Liverpool, and the rest are investing from a position of strength. They are not having to rebuild their team almost every year. They are spending money on players to strengthen them, we a spending lots of money players that are not ready for the first team, targeting players at the end of contracts to save money and bargain buys. Of course, I am not suggesting that he has done that for every player, but more often than not, they are bargains and not always the players we need, just opportunistic.

How many players have we let go on free this season? Far too many, that we have spent 10's of millions on and got no return. When we could have sold the yes at a loss, but at least we would have got something. But no, Levy just can give an inch and we end up getting nothing.

All your doing is looking at the sum numbers with zero context. We have spent almost the same as Woolwich, but we have wasted so so so so much on players that were never a good fit for us.
 
You conveniently leave out wages. The simple fact is, and I don't even understand why you are disagreeing. We do not show the ambition in the market which our rivals do. It's not debatable. We target specific subset of players which fit into our tight wage structure, and fit into our transfer range, which is generally sub 60 million.

It seems Levy was willing to push the boat out for Eze as an exception, but that probably would have meant no Savinho when we needed both.

The Savinho signing would actually be a step change IMO, because it isn't the type of signing we usually make. Thing is, we haven't signed him yet, and we probably won't.

For me Woolwich are the best comparison, because we have similar revenues and they aren't a oil club etc and just look at the ambition they have shown in the market.

They signed Rice for 100 million.
They beat Liverpool to the signing of Zubimendi.
Signed Eze
Gyokores was one of the most in demand strikers in Europe, whether he's turns out any good is another matter.
They built upon the excellent foundations they had by signing some very good players like Saliba and Gabriel cheap. This has allowed them to go from top 4 to title challengers.

We have got similar foundations, but we won't kick on and do what Woolwich did by sprinkling the team with top top quality. That is where my problem is with Levy.

The players we need to kick on, the extra quality we won't do.

We simply won't get there by signing the likes of El Kannoush. It's mental to think otherwise. Woolwich didn't. Liverpool didn't, they went and signed Van Djik and Allison for huge money.

We under Levy will never do that, and subsequently we will never take that step to real challenger for the biggest trophies.

We actually have most of the team there, we have the manager in place, but Levy will leave us short and we will miss our chance. He won't give the manager the tools, like FSG did with Klopp and now Slot, like Kroenke did with Arteta.

We do not need the likes of El Kannoush, not coming in as our main man anyway, we need elite talent to push us on. Savinho is one of those.
You have come to the view that we don’t spend based on feelings.

You raise 60m as the magic figure but Woolwich have only ever spent that three times.

Rice
Pepe
Havertz

One great. One terrible. One decent but not worth the money. You think those have been the game changers for Woolwich ?

The other signings are well within our budget as we have shown with three offers for above 60m this summer (MGW, Eze and Savinho).

Gyokeres is a flat track bully and a huge risk. If he turns out like Darwin Nunez (who had made much more of an impact on the CL than Gyokeres) then he’ll be a flop.

Now look at our best eleven or so players over the past decade:

Lloris
Walker
Alderweirald
Vertonghen
Romero
Spence or Rose
Dembele
Eriksen
Alli
Son
Kane

How many of those came for big money? Maybe Romero ??

Spending 60m on a player will get you quality. You can find incredible players in the 40-60m range.
 
This one annoys me more than Eze still

Would have been great for us

And I can’t help feeling that we let Forest bully us and MGW into playing the good guy.

Sounds like we stopped contacting MGW and then just found out he was signing a contract. What the player needed was us in his ear saying don’t worry about any legal crap, we’ll take care of that, hand in a transfer request and we will cover any bonuses you lose.

But instead we want passive and he probably figured we didn’t want him enough for the stress to be worth it.
 
Don’t you guys get bored discussing the exact same thing regarding Levy and transfers and net spend?

Bill Murray Well Its Groundhog Day Again GIF


None of you are saying anything new that the guys on the counter argument side haven’t heard a million times and won’t change their mind and vice versa.
No.

It’s fun.
 
From Trix SC;
We want 2 in, and we have a finite amount of money at our disposal. Hugely over paying on one to "get it done" means massively compromising on the other, to the point it isn't worth doing it. We need to be patient with this because it's key to the second player we definitely need.
It's messages like this, from their ITK oracles, that generates their income. How gullible, naïve and stupid many Spurs fans are. Soon enough, some of them will awaken and leave SC...and join the TFC :cool:
 
There is so much context missing from this.

We a re spending lots of money flip flopping from manage to the next, from one playing style to another.

Woolwich, Liverpool, and the rest are investing from a position of strength. They are not having to rebuild their team almost every year. They are spending money on players to strengthen them, we a spending lots of money players that are not ready for the first team, targeting players at the end of contracts to save money and bargain buys. Of course, I am not suggesting that he has done that for every player, but more often than not, they are bargains and not always the players we need, just opportunistic.

How many players have we let go on free this season? Far too many, that we have spent 10's of millions on and got no return. When we could have sold the yes at a loss, but at least we would have got something. But no, Levy just can give an inch and we end up getting nothing.

All you’re doing is looking at the sum numbers with zero context. We have spent almost the same as Woolwich, but we have wasted so so so so much on players that were never a good fit for us.
I agree with you on the manager point. Weve made a series of poor appointments and that has affected our squad building and performance on the pitch. That is primarily Levy’s fault.

Clubs like City, Woolwich and Liverpool have had much more stability with their manager and it shows.
 
Club simply needs to decide what it is.

Post Poch was the stupidest period at the club since Sugar’s austerity. We hired Jose, Nuno and Conte. Two of them major cheque book managers but we lacked the cheque book (Conte/Jose), two of them playing the most boring football on earth (Jose/Nuno). Hiring these guys without the ability to build an elite squad instantly is just foolish despite Conte being a good manager. Chelsea have had £5bn invested by Abramovich and Bolhey. They can change direction and teams on a dime, we can’t, copying Chelsea is just not workable, as unless we get big investors like Chelsea we just end up the pound shop version. Only City and maybe United can do this and United are so bad at spending money, even worse than Chelsea.

Brighton is also not the right model. They have brilliant scouting but they are a much smaller club built on growing players and selling them. We are not a selling club, infact we are terrible at it.

Liverpool and Woolwich are the best model for us. Put aside the hatred, we have similar revenue, a large fanbase, big stadium. They operate on targeting elite players but not at the quantity of Chelsea, it’s gradual so within budget. They also stick with their manager or in the case of Liverpool replace one manager with a similar manager style wise. It’s a clear plan.

Frank appears, early days and all to fit us, he is tactically flexible so can deal with square pegs round holes, has a record of player development and getting the team to punch above its weight. The right manager and a few good transfers windows and it’s possible we can fix things up quickly. If Levy wants to buy via opportunity then it’s obvious he needs a coach like Frank who is flexible not a coach like Ange who isn’t.

In short club needs to accept what it is under this ownership model and maximise where it is strong not lean into what it is weak at. We cannot be Chelsea with fund injections, we can however do similar to Liverpool.
 
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Lol

Woolwich have been left short and still are.

What am I reading here?

What have they won exactly?

Who plays when Gokyeres gets injuried? Or Saka? Or Saliba?

How on earth have Woolwich been left short? They have the strongest squad they have had in decades.

They have an embarassment of riches in attack. Gyokeres, Jesus, Martinelli, Saka, Eze, Trossard, Havertz, Madueke, Gwaneri, you can even add fucking Dowman who looks like a wonderkid.

How on earth is that left short?

Dudu you routinely say the most ridiculous things on here honestly.
 
How on earth have Woolwich been left short? They have the strongest squad they have had in decades.

They have an embarassment of riches in attack. Gyokeres, Jesus, Martinelli, Saka, Eze, Trossard, Havertz, Madueke, Gwaneri, you can even add fucking Dowman who looks like a wonderkid.

How on earth is that left short?

Dudu you routinely say the most ridiculous things on here honestly.

Really weird that you consider Madueke, Dowman, Trossard, Jesus and Gwaneri as ‘riches’

🤣
 
How many games until 1st Jan? If we had a professional football operation that were willing to sort players ahead of the window in an efficient manner, I wouldn’t be against making panic buys now but clearly we aren’t
 
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