fkas

He seems in favour Awoniyi has barely played, is he injured or out of favour?

They paid somewhere between £500k and a mil in the summer. Southampton probably insisted on a sell on fee so Leyton Orient will want a decent amount for him. Guesstimate at least £3m. Unless we are unloading players, feels unlikely we'll have cash to spend. Montpellier had to pay for Maupay. Not sure they'll let him go for free so again likely we'll have to sell before we can reinvest unless they'll agree a six month loan to just get him out the club.

He's not had a full season starting anywhere. He's going to be learning as he goes. Not point expecting to promote a young keeper that's always been a squad option and then asking why he's not the finished article. This season he'll learn and grow. I'd expect him to have until at least January probably until next summer to try and own the 1 jersey going forward. We don't have the funds to go and purchase a starting quality keeper and a loan just kicks the can down the road. Stol has the potential to be a big, commanding keeper with good shot stopping. Distribution and shot deflection are work ons.

Maybe Bamford will be desperate enough for a pay as you play deal as he's still without a club and we are short of a goal scoring number 9.

We probably couldn't move on enough players to free up the required cash to make a move for him. Two goalkeepers on frees and three loan deals doesn't seem like we generated the required profit.

He's gone to Shalke.

He's got a lot of tricks but can vanish at times.

Kante went because he'd completed football in England. He was ready to ease into a well paid pre-retirement role after his injury issues.

https://youtu.be/SEW77C7cCmI?si=m4ylKwtQbtBHSMGr

Yeah I suspect we entered negotiations but he held on to see if a starting offer would materialise before joining as our back up.

Don't recall him ever letting us down. Solid squad man. Useful to have someone like that around the squad when operating on a budget.

Sounds like a squad player. Big and commanding shot stopper who has issues with distribution. You get away with that at Championship level, at Prem level probably not so much. Solid back up signing and on a free.

If things are tough at home you won't be in a good mood. Seen it plenty of times with staff that were good at what they do but were struggling under the mental strain. Happens.

See where we are in Jan. I think we did fairly well at moving on some of the players that wanted to go. Faes and Daka would be ideal candidates to find new challenges but the rest of the squad I'd largely keep as is. January is a tough month to do business unless we have a desperate need then I'd focus on keeping our best talents and then looking at getting things agreed with players who will be out of contract in the summer.

Dunno, teams get desperate in January and nobody wants to lose their starting striker but desperate teams looking for goals then either pay over the odds or take a punt. Someone might be desperate enough to take a punt on Daka.

I think they've started the season in serie A well and they don't have a particularly big stadium so not sure how available tickets are. I know someone said only €25k a week but I bet that's just the basic and there's bonuses layered on top of that. Appearance and goals money etc.

We can still sign free agents right...?

There's worse cities to end up living in, he still gets some European football and as it's a Chelsea affiliate presumably there's an agreement on his salary to keep him happy.

I can only presume Betis are really low balling us with the offer and it's late in the window so we don't have chance to get another forward over the line.

If it's another loan with an option to buy that could be good business.

If this lad wants to come in and then convince his brother to follow on as well wouldn't be a bad thing.

and Chelsea with their massive squad doesn't have anybody that can play the 10 role bar Palmer?

If you got offered a pay rise by another company would you be open to having that conversation? Happens and a young lad may well have had his head turned by the promises or agents. Not a bad idea to leave him out until he moves or it all blows over and he can refocus.

Is still young enough that he could have a breakout year and become more prolific. Some strikers thrive more in certain systems as well. Mitrovic being a great example, couldn't seem to score for Newcastle goes to Fulham and can't stop. If Marti reckons he can do the job and he's a cheap punt then take the risk.

Or he's got some underlying injury issue whereby he's struggling and only just fit enough to sit on the bench. In terms of priorities this would be well down the list for me. Let Jakub develop with game time, he won't be a finished article straight away but he's doing ok so far. We desperately need a striker first and foremost.