McCreadie

All good ideas and do-able. The other issue is trying to play a critical league game in between the 2 semi final legs of the CL (which I think, are usually only a week apart). They should just move that somewhere else altogether.

A slight tangent, but I totally hate it when commentators say, after a penalty, "he sent the keeper the wrong way". The keeper has 3 choices at a penalty; stay in the middle, dive left, dive right. He picks one option. It is right or wrong. No-one has sent anybody "the wrong way". I digress.

Brazil can do one. That is a truly abysmal decision, on their part. Punish players for not travelling to red zone countries in a global pandemic. Great idea.

Have been missing this for some years now. It seems to be a fairly strong point of his, even if his goal scoring record is not much better than “pretty good”. We are building a squad will create a lot of very different and varied problems for defences to solve.

Starting to look much like our business is done for this window, apart from a loan out or two. Not sure that we have done quite enough to close the gap completely. Not sure what happens if Lukaku gets injured. Same as last season, but without the option of Giroud I guess. Perhaps we might see a very late & unexpected ST loan. Midfield options are bare too with Kante seemingly often injured now. Kounde and Saul deals look to be off, so any of Ampadu/RLC/Barkley might end up in.

Sounds reasonable, given that there are only 5 occasions in the last 35 years that an EPL team has been able to challenge seriously for both the CL and EPL. And 2 of those 5 occasions were in the same year, but we wont talk about that!

Not too sure how he squares that off with his undying love for Utd... :-)

Quite how RLC has managed to move himself further away from the 1st team squad, is bewildering. Feels a bit like he has failed to grasp his final chance. Ampadu needs a perfect loan season or it will likely be curtains for him too...

With 3 CBs starting, I am not sure we need another 3 on the bench as well... Lukaku starts

Werner, Lukaku, Havertz are 3 very different players and hopefully will give opposition defences a lot of different problems to think about all at once...

No, I am presuming Haaland is NOT dying to come (to us, or anybody) - this summer. Whoever offers €130 or more next summer, will sign him, as Raiola and Haaland will be taking €55m of that. At that point, it does not really matter if it is us, Bayern, City or Newport County. The £££ will make the decision.

It is very difficult for me to argue with any of this. There are very few top class strikers out there at the moment. I would expect that we have asked the questions on Haaland, Lewa and Kane and have got answers we did not like. Lukaku feels like the best of the "big name" strikers that are left, but ultimately, he is the wrong fit for us. Best I can say, is that he will make us more physical (which we need) and he often looks like he is commited to putting a proper shift in. He will occupy defenders at least. I just dont see him scoring that many goals for us, which for €130m, is mindbogglingly and off-the-scale crazy. We should just wait and offer the €130m to Raiola and Haaland next summer (well less the €75m for BD, obvs). Trouble is, we quite likely will not be European Champions then, so will be less of a draw...

On Haaland, I would imagine what has happened is that we have made an offer that is big enough and Dortmund have been trying to persuade him and his agent to go to Chelsea. Haaland and Raiola would be refusing, knowing they are much better off waiting until next summer, as the difference between £130m and £65m will go directly to them, rather than Dortmund. If he stays fit and scoring, no-one is getting him for £65m next summer. It's a dangerous game, a lot can happen in 12 months...

Totally agree. I will be staggered if this happens, because of those reasons you mention. Wrong player.

Linked with West Ham... which makes sense, as he is the spit of Tony Cottee. Cottee Belotti.