Matic sold for £40m, Drinkwater for £35m.
Drinkwater is Chalobah's replacement. Bakayoko was bought to replace Matic.
Chelsea 2017/18 thread - FA Cup Champs, League chumps
- Thread starter duffer
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Drinkwater is Chalobah's replacement. Bakayoko was bought to replace Matic.
There is a clear difference in quality between both players which makes the business by Chelsea very odd.
Chalobah only played a handful of games and is a CB who can play in midfield isn't he?
Not in the least.
If we lost Lukaku, we have Martial, Rashford and Zlatan.
Pogba is more difficult but we have Herrera and Carrick at least and we can also change our system.
In no way comparable to Chelsea's thin squad.
He isn't a CB, he is a box-to-box midfielder.
Chelsea thin really? Bakayoko, fabregas, drinkwater and kante is enough for a team that plays two cm's plus luiz who can fill in every now and then. They got plenty of centerbacks Azplicueta,Cahill, luiz, rudiger and christiensen. Wing backs Moses, their new guy, alonso and azplicueta. Fowards Hazard,Pedro,willian,Morata and batshuayi
To those who thought Woody should be more like the Chelsea C.E.O where ya'll at?
If they avoid injuries in midfield or to Morata Chelsea should be fine. Hasn't been the ideal transfer window by any stretch but easy to forget they already had a very good team.
They still have a thinner squad than us. 23 senior players assuming Costa leaves but that's including Kenedy and Musonda who haven't played much recently. I think ideally Chelsea would like another player or two but they might reinforce in January.
Homegrown tax. Not that expensive IMO given Drinkwater is the player Chelsea missed with a Matic departure.
Midfield is thin in a sense, that Drinkwater is the only player who plays the holding role thus enabling midfield 2. Cesc is liability defensively in midfield 2. Kante and Bakayoko both yet to prove themselves to be able fill the holding role. Chelsea has quantity but quality wise, each of their starter out would mean a big shift in tactic, which is not ideal.
Yeah that seems like a pretty thin squad that's defending the title and competing in the CL. Even if they have the numbers, the quality in depth is lacking. Their midfield is fine (but I'm unconvinced about quality). Centerbacks - they play 3 at the back - 4 center backs is not enough in this system. If Luiz gets injured, remove him as CB and a CM. If Azplicueta gets injured, remove him as a CB and a wing back. That's thin. Forwards - Morata is the only quality striker they have.
Chelsea have significantly reduced the holes that were in their squad by adding Drinkwater and Zappacosta
Team A:
Courtois - Azpicuelta David Luiz Cahill - Moses Kante Bakayoko Alonso - Pedro Morata Hazard
Team B:
Caballero - Salter Cristiansen Rudiger
- Zappacosta Drinkwater Fabregas Kennedy - Willian Batshuyayi/Remy Musonda
Team A:
Courtois - Azpicuelta David Luiz Cahill - Moses Kante Bakayoko Alonso - Pedro Morata Hazard
Team B:
Caballero - Salter Cristiansen Rudiger
- Zappacosta Drinkwater Fabregas Kennedy - Willian Batshuyayi/Remy Musonda
Last edited:
Started out as a CB many years ago but hasn't played CB in 7-8 years. He is a proper B2B player.
He played few games only because we were not in Europe and got knocked out of LC early on. If we had deep runs into CL and LC, Matic alone would not have been able to cope.
I actually think Chelsea sort of saved themselves with Zappacosta and Drinkwater. They needed the numbers in depth.
This place is on melt down regardless of who we buy these days.....
Agreed. However Chelsea fans should be disappointed with their window, they've strengthened the squad without really making the squad strong. They needed better quality at wingback(hence the interest in Sandro).
It's not logic, it's what was reported.
I agree, but to be fair, Matic wanted to leave and join United, so it's not really Chelsea's decision.
Yeah. 30m plus 5m addons to make it £35m. How come Matic's 35+5 is not 40?
You sound confused.
You really don't believe this do you?
Saw this on sky, doesn't say anything about add-ons.
If it is with add-ons and it was badly reported. I do agree with you...
What were you thinking then when we signed Cahill?
Selling Matic and paying the same money for a lesser player in Drinkwater is bizarre.
Can only imagine there's alot going on behind the scenes at Chelsea at the moment. All this rejection in the market along with the muted unhappiness of Conte (and the fat pay rise/no extension contract to keep him sweet).
All in all really strange. I'm sure we will find out what's happened when he goes.
Can only imagine there's alot going on behind the scenes at Chelsea at the moment. All this rejection in the market along with the muted unhappiness of Conte (and the fat pay rise/no extension contract to keep him sweet).
All in all really strange. I'm sure we will find out what's happened when he goes.
So gutted we didn't go for Mahrez, the board really missed a trick there. Overall happy with the window and definatly think we will still be competing for the title this year. Played well so far this season, bar the first half against Burnley, and we have the best player in the league to come back after the international break.
Easy to spin the doom and gloom narrative and I get fans might be disappointed we didn't show more ambition in the market but ultimately im more optimistic going into this year than I was last season.
Easy to spin the doom and gloom narrative and I get fans might be disappointed we didn't show more ambition in the market but ultimately im more optimistic going into this year than I was last season.
Matic wanted to leave nothing strange with letting him go. I think a lot of average players don't want to come to Chelsea like the Ox as they believe probably correctly they might not play regularly and trying to prize world class players like Sandro failed.
I was disappointed in us trying to sign Barkely as I don't rate him.
I think we will be stronger after this window yet that is not to say our competitors did not do good business, Spurs showed ambition late in the day with signing both Aurier and Llorente.
Think he is better than him, but he is not WC. Just reliable.
I don't think their squad is as thin as people keep saying, but that just makes the last minute panic scrambling around for average players even more odd.
I wouldn't want Drinkwater, Oxlade Chamberlain, Barkley, LLorente etc. at United, because they aren't good enough. Let alone to be scrambling about after on or near deadline day, as if you can't afford to be without them. They are players who end up appearing in the FA Cup 5th round when you have a CL game half a week later so can't afford to play anyone important. Either that or they end up playing regularly for you and at the end of the season you are trying to figure out why you finished in 6th place.
All really odd. Drinkwater will barely play and Barkley isn't even good enough for Everton at the moment.
I wouldn't want Drinkwater, Oxlade Chamberlain, Barkley, LLorente etc. at United, because they aren't good enough. Let alone to be scrambling about after on or near deadline day, as if you can't afford to be without them. They are players who end up appearing in the FA Cup 5th round when you have a CL game half a week later so can't afford to play anyone important. Either that or they end up playing regularly for you and at the end of the season you are trying to figure out why you finished in 6th place.
All really odd. Drinkwater will barely play and Barkley isn't even good enough for Everton at the moment.
Would love to know what's been going on at Chelsea, why so many players have rejected them. I dont buy that they are worried they wont get games, all the top clubs have strong squads with fierce competition for places but it doesnt stop others. There must be something else going on.
Are you talking about United here?
I actually am to be fair.
Fellaini and Lingard for example played in more PL games than most of the rest of our squad last year. I think these are similar categories of player...we finished 6th (or 5th...I can't even remember). If you have players of this calibre forming an important part of your first choice 11, then you are going to struggle unless your ambitions are in line with this quality of player.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think you'll finish 6th...but because barring some bizarre mismanagement, I don't think Drinkwater will form any meaningful part of your team. You already have significantly better players, even with Matic leaving. Barkley and Chamberlain, again, I'm not sure how they would have done anything other than weaken your first team.
If they are meant to be bit part cover players fair enough, but squabbling around at the last minute offering massive fees for them is strange. It's the sort of thing that could easily have been sorted out months ago, and that surely isn't really that vital to be worth panic buying on the 31st August.
Yesterday was confusing to be honest. Not just Chelsea. City with Evans and Snachez. I mean Sanchez is obviously a very good player...him playing instead of Sterling could easily make the difference between whether City win the league or not...and it was clear yesterday that Arsenal were willing to sell for a good enough offer if they had been able to bring in a replacement...so why in the feck did City wait until deadline day? Or did Arsenal just suddenly change their mind, and then chang eit back again because their £92m offer for Lemar didn't work? Why did they wait until deadline day to do that. It's really dumb.
So who do you suggest a club like Chelsea should aim for to strengthen the squad? If the likes of Oxlade-Chamberlain think they're too good to sit on the bench and demand to play only in midfield, how do you build a deep and competitive squad filled with quality? The market is crazy nowadays, when a not so rich club like Everton can spend £45m on someone like Sigurdsson, it's mental. Of course Chelsea could secure those 'bit players' earlier, but like most clubs they were probably going through their list of targets, and those bit players were probably closer to the bottom and the asking price was way too high so the thinking must have been:let's wait because he's clearly available and we can get him for a bit less than they demand at the end of the window. Back in mid-2000s we could throw money around because there was no FFP, but nowadays the club has to be very careful and smart with their spending.
Ideally, we would just buy top class footballers and upgrade positions where we have good, but not great players. Well, we were chasing Alex Sandro for a while but Juve refused to sell, supposedly even for around £60m. £60m for a fullback. Few years ago people would call you nuts even for suggesting something like that, now it's the norm.
Now I'm not saying Chelsea board/Granovskaya/Emenalo etc couldn't do a better job but we don't know the financial limits they have to work within and million other things only people who are personally involved in transfer negotiations know about. Even Mourinho mentioned recently how crazy the transfer market has become and he's in a fairly priviledged position given United's ample financial resources.
Last edited:
We're playing well and apart from that craziness at Burnley (2 red cards ffs..) i've seen nothing massively worrying. We were looking pretty thin squad wise, and now we've added 2 decent players to help us through the congestion. Feeling pretty good all things considered.
Definitely, we've added a hell of a lot of pace too whilst keeping strength within the team, Christensen and Rudiger both a lot quicker than Cahill. Morata and Baka both a lot quicker than the players they replaced.
Not that, that necessarily means anything but when you look across the team we do have a lot of pace and considering we are so lethal on the counter.
I think a front 3 of Pedro Hazard and Morata can play quality football.
Im optimistic about this season but we will see.....
I'm super excited to see those three playing together. If it clicks it should be absolutely lethal.
I don't think £35m for Drinkwater, £40m for Chamberlain or Barkley, makes sense under any circumstances. I can't recall too many instances of teams with title winning ambitions, signing this calibre of player, and it actually working to their advantage. If you sign squad players, what you tend to end up with is squad players playing in your first team, and the quality of the team and therefore results, dropping off. Whenever United have tried it, this has happened. You've done it in the past (notably when Jose whinged about it when he was there the first time around, and then walked out).
If a player isn't good enough to be in the first team, generally it means they are not good enough. If you play them 40 times a season, that's 40 times you are picking a player who isn't good enough. If you play them 10 times a season, that's still 10 times you are playing a player who isn't good enough. The team might get the result anyway...but the more you're picking players who are at a lower level, the more chances of you not getting the result you want/expect in games. The more of these players you have, the more likely you are to pick them.
Yeah you have to balance between having enough players, and having a good enough team, as you're not going to get 22 players who are all top quality and happy to sit around on the bench half the time. When you try to buy 3 or 4 of them in the last couple of days of the transfer window though, I just find this strange. You have a decent enough squad to not have to do that, from what I can see. You won't not win the league this season because you failed to sign Ross Barkley and play him instead of someone better than him.
I mean we're not talking about players who we don't really know much about. We all know exactly what these players can and can't do. It's the same with Evans and City...I don't get it. This is a player who wasn't good enough for United when our best defender was Chris Smalling and we were struggling for a top four place.
For me re uniting Kante with Drinkwater was a very wise decision.
Personally I felt they needed actual competition at wing back rather than better quality. Because IMO Alonso and Moses under Conte's coaching can only get better going by how well they performed last term. But last season they had zero cover.
Title-winning duo
I wish United signed Drinkwater for backup, but then again we have Herrera too who we need to keep happy. Drinkwater would have been great though I wont lie.