Incredible is a stretch. It needs a third top quality creative talent to make that work. Otherwise it’s all armour and no weapons. I like both players, and as I said it’s very good but for the price underwhelming. Also re Caicedo, he’s a top talent but still think he has a ways to go, he’s got one season under his belt. Some cause for caution there.
Moises Caicedo | Chelsea agree £115M fee | signed for Chelsea
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They have nkunku at 10, enzo at 8 and caiceido at 6. Thats a formidable midfield with ten years ahead of them.
And Mydryk as left winger too. This new Cheslea team is very young.
It is impossible to tell if this midfield will click or not. Can't just buy 3 young players with high potential and assume they're all gonna be world class players with high functionality.
Nkunku even regressed this season, and even Sancho had better stats than him.
Only time will tell.
That depends. Poch might not use a midfield 3 system. Seems to me he’ll go with 4231 with a (hopefully) Caicedo/Enzo pivot. That would leave room for Nkunku in the hole/10 in front of them and Mudryk/Madueke/Sterling on the either flank and, for now, Jackson/Broja down the middle.
You can make the same arguement of bellingham, tchuameni, camavinga. As a club all you can do is try to get a trio of passer/creator/destroyer together and hope they meet your expectations or exceed them.
Teams have moved on from the double pivot system though. That's what you get appointing Poch.
He was injured like 3 months wasn’t he?
Yeh, if it works out for them, they will mature at a similar age, hit their prime years at a similar age. Which could mean many many trophies potentially.
Modern football has moved on from describing formations as being this static. All the best modern teams are using some variation of a 3-2-5 or a 2-3-5 in possession and either 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 when pressing. Doesn't really matter how a team is listed or if they have a single versus double pivot, what matters is how you form those two 5 man units in a way that doesn't leave huge gaps for the opposition to exploit.
Yep its all about the "box midfield", a new football term that seems to have croppwd up over past season or two.
Blame Tuchel! This tweak was at the core of the 3-4-3 Chelsea played under him when we were at our best - with Werner up top, CBs couldn't follow Mount / Havertz when they dropped into midfield so we inevitably had an extra man there, and against a single holding midfielder there was always room to exploit between the lines.
I didn't know that, but that explains his lack of game time. It's going to be exciting to see him here, but I have doubts about him. That might just be me being a United fan and all, having been disappointed way too often by players from Bundesliga
I think Brighton have Chelsea over a barrel. They might not get 100m but it will be at least 90m.
Chelsea have built a team that really needs a dominant ball winning 6 and Caicedo is by far the best available option. Are they really going to hand the position to a 19-year-old Lavia or a newcomer to the PL like Kephren Thuram? That would be a massive gamble.
Chelsea have built a team that really needs a dominant ball winning 6 and Caicedo is by far the best available option. Are they really going to hand the position to a 19-year-old Lavia or a newcomer to the PL like Kephren Thuram? That would be a massive gamble.
Nailed it.
Yeah he got hurt in the French NT's camp pre-World Cup and had to drop out of the squad, then missed a further couple of months. Still managed a goal or assist every ~95 minutes in the league though, but you are right that that was worse than two years ago when he did so every ~83 minutes.
Yep it's very much Caicedo or bust at this point, especially with Uguarte off the table. An Ecuadorian journalist said a couple days ago that we offered £75m+£10m in bonuses; feels to me like £85m+£10m may be the end result.
Yeah, its similar to what happened to us with Rice. It was obvious that the player was central to all our plans going forward and that we weren't going to walk away.
I think in these situations you just bite the bullet and pay the price. If the player works out like you hope, nobody will care at all if he cost 75+10 or 85+10 in the long run.
Nkunku is a player with 5 assists in 29 matches in the BL and domestic cups last season. Not someone you’d recognise as a creative force. I think he played further up for them, because he has 19 goals, so maybe his goal tally will go down and assists go up, but a midfield three of Enzo, Moises and Nkunku is very workmanlike and not very creative. Also between them 18mos of PL experience. That’s also now a 270m midfield, I’m guessing the most expensive in the world by some distance, and while young, there are a lot of question marks, and it’s relatively unproven.
Not saying it’s not going to work. Not at all. All these signings have loads of potential, and are young, but to the left of them you have a 100m winger with 6mos PL experience who has struggled badly. To the right another 50m winger with 6mos PL experience and a lot to prove. Up front another young striker just coming to England for the first time, and a youth player. The only proven player still in his prime for those positions, is Sterling.
I’m not sure if this strategy will end up being brilliant or disastrous. Whichever one, I think it’s going to take time for it all to gel. Chelsea are going to be interesting to watch this season.
With the greatest of respect I think you are overlooking a crucial factor, which is that last year Nkunku was playing next to Toaster Toes Timo Werner. If you look at the underlying numbers, Nkunku averaged 0.25 expected assists per 90 minutes, which puts him in the 97th percentile of forwards. In terms of shot creating actions, he averaged 4.28 per 90, which is 94th percentile. It's extremely harsh to say a player isn't creative based on a stat that is driven in large part by the finishing of their teammates - by more or less any metric that strips those variables away to the extent that it is possible, Nkunku is a creative force:
https://fbref.com/en/players/7c56da38/scout/365_m1/Christopher-Nkunku-Scouting-Report
Yep - feels like your team has built up a lot of insurance to absorb the types of backline injuries that derailed your season last year. White can play CB if Saliba gets hurt now that you have Timber, Rice can drop in there in an emergency, if Zinchenko is out Timber can be the fullback to step into midfield, etc.
Makes a lot of sense on paper - also smart of you lot to get it done ASAP before preseason.
Hope Brighton hold form and Chelsea move on from him.
Same here.
You’ve obviously looked into him far more than I have, so I’ll take a knee here; but I’ll do so with the caveat that any and all BL numbers need to be taken with a large dose of salt. The rest of my post and point about the unproven nature of these players, stands.
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Feck me, could you imagine, the Cnuts announce a sale tomorrow, Sheik swoops in and steals Caicedo from the renties. Caicedo, Mount, keeper and forward all in one summer.
I wouldnt hold my breath to be honest.
Not without some very hard drugs
Wonder if Chelsea will just allow them to sign Colwill to get it done. Liverpool have been linked too though.
Unimaginable. Caicedo isn’t worth losing Colwill over.
To be fair, you have a history of selling your own young players. In fact, you just sold another one yesterday!
Colwill is hardly going to be first choice this season. You have taken bigger hits than that before and it’s also more pure profit for FFP.
Colwill is hardly going to be first choice this season. You have taken bigger hits than that before and it’s also more pure profit for FFP.
Yeah but Colwill is different. I’m saying to me Caicedo isn’t worth it if it’s gonna cost us Colwill.
Also if we produce more PL ready academy players, it stands to reason we’ll let go of more than most. You’re essentially rewarding clubs for not producing many PL ready players by criticising Chelsea for over producing them and then not being to keep them all. We still have 6 academy players, potentially 7, likely to be part of the first team next season, despite losing Mount and RLC. Tell me another team that has this many of them? Maybe United and Brighton? Can’t think of many more.
I don’t see it that way. A number could have been of use in the squad. It’s always been a Chelsea thing to look for a new toy and it’s going into overdrive now.
James can’t stay fit, Colwill won’t play, Gallagher could still be sold and after rejecting a £50 million bid at one stage, Hudson-Odoi’s career has completely stalled.
Chelsea don’t do a good job having these players take that final step into the first team.
The starting 11 next season will be…
Kepa, James, Silva, Fofana, Chilwell, Caicedo, Enzo, Nkunku, Sterling, Madueke, Jackson.
One youth player, who will probably play about 20 games at a push. For such a great youth system, it’s not a great result translating them to the Chelsea first team.
I know what you are saying about the numbers produced, but there is still an issue there. If it were handled better, it would give the club so much more heart.
It would be great if Poch were able to turn that around and Colwill, Hall, Gallagher finished the season in the first team, but it’s been a poor record up until this point, and Mount’s sale compounds the idea that they don’t feel valued at the club.
They don’t have to be starters. If that’s your barometer, then that’s too high. Colwill could very well be a starter next season, considering Badiashile is injured the first 2 months of the season and we’ve sold Koulibaly.
Of course the ones we’ve sold could have been of use, they’re all good players, but they’re also human beings who can decide to leave if they think they can be starters elsewhere rather than be rotational pieces at Chelsea. Chalobah is now facing the same decision.
You’ve named a starting line up. I’d be willing to bet if they’re fit and ready both Colwill and Gallagher start GW1.
Last season we had 4 academy players play at least 30 games (5 if James wasn’t injured) plus Hall who clocked in nearly 1000 minutes at 18. The two seasons before that likely shows a similar level of academy involvement in the first team. If that is a poor record then other clubs must be terrifyingly atrocious because I don’t think a single club in the league comes close to that Brighton and United aside, but even them I doubt it.
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Considering that i preffered Rice to Caceido (as did pep, ten hag & arteta) - im happy that one 100mil player wasnt shafted for another & we went looking for a cheaper option in amrabat or jaoa neves.
What's this about Liverpool being interested and him posting a photo wearing a Liverpool shirt? Surely you're not going to entertain that one either.
How do you mean regarding ETH preferring Rice? I never saw any serious links from us. Arteta tried to sign Caicedo last January. Both good players though.
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Yep it's a worthwhile point. That said, his numbers in the CL are also excellent.
I would argue that the current trend in football actually uses two double pivot points, one as usual in defensive midfield and one higher up the pitch. The box has replaced the triangle.
For me it comes down to how we want to approach this next season, do we want Mount to be the second player in attacking midfield and move one of our defenders into defensive midfield, or do we need a second defensive midfielder because our defenders can't play that role.
Moving a defender into defensive midfield gives you the advantage of being able to defend in a 442 if your press fails and you have to defend deep, which is basically how City, Arsenal and Brighton operate these days.
Brighton had at least 16 under 23 players getting on the pitch last season for first XI games. https://www.espn.co.uk/football/team/squad/_/id/331/brighton-hove-albion Regular choices were Caceido (over 30 games). Occasional (over 1000 mins) were Enciso, Ferguson, Lamptezy Colwill, Buonanotte, Gilmour, Sarmiento.=8.
nkunku didn't regress. He had an injury during the season and was out for about 2-3 month, and still won the golden boot.- Status