He’s been on break all season long. :-/ . Nketiah is not an option. It’s been tough for everyone - we haven’t been cutting breaks for, for example Saka and Gabriel and Tierney when they’ve been fit and they are actually being productive, or at least consistently trying to be. We are playing Brighton. If he can’t find himself a goal here, he should just retire. Fluke a cross with your left foot into the top corner or whatever. Just contribute positively. Who has time for all this coddling in 2020?

goon wrote:

Providing this blip in Auba’s goal scoring is over, his goals will be invaluable to us. People asked last year what we would look like without his goals, well we got a glimpse of it this season. We need him.

If it continues until the summer is it still a blip? Outside of his goals he doesn't really offer anything so once they go, it becomes difficult keeping him on for 340k a week. The question is how long you wait for him to turn it around.

And selling Pepe for £25m, with a £15m chunk, say, from the budget gives us £75m to find a new striker.

This is not accounting for Pepe's unpaid wages (total of £16m across 3 years). Or getting rid of Lacazette for a decent fee, and a year of his 182k a week contract (£9.5m) which runs out summer 2022, anyway.

(Just for fun- factoring all that, it would add to a £105-110m transfer fee and 200k a week salary for a new striker)

Clrnc wrote:

The ever reliable cfbayern account says Chelsea will appoint Tuchel as manager if Lampard loses more games this month. Sounds like his time is up soon.

Had a feeling Chelsea would be in for him. There's no way they'd let Lampard off the hook given the amount of investment they put in this summer.

Definitely worrying for us, given Arteta has yet to demonstrate that he is anything but a total gamble by the club.

Chelsea’s superpower is Elon Musk money. They won’t let Lampard negate that for too long. He’s far adrift of Liverpool. Not good enough.

If you can get 25 million or more for Pepe than you take the deal. All this talk about keeping him as a backup is not ambitious. An ambitious club recognises that you have two super talents, and still looks to add another to challenge or to even displace those talents. We know Pepe is not going to displace Saka and Martinelli, so you let him go and you sign someone who can. That's how you build a competitive squad.

Wenger broke our transfer record by signing Reyes, even though we have Pires, Henry and Bergkamp playing in his position. That's ambition.

We can’t carry deadweight. We need to understand the market for Pépé and the plan for the right flank.

Nelson is the new Waldo.

Nelson must be off in January.

72m for Pépé instead of Zaha has got to be one of the worst mistakes we've made, and to his credit Emery wanted Zaha.

Apparently we were offered Zaha this summer on loan for a modest fee, and we went with Willian instead. Things like this is why we deserve to be exactly where we're at. You can change the sporting director, change the manager, but if you keep bringing in more idiots to replace them nothing is ever going to change.

Not a big fan of Zaha, but a loan would've been perfect. He's better than Willian and we wouldn't be stuck with him. After this season we'd send him back and Saka, Nelson and Martinelli would all be a year older and more ready.

Zaha went from overrated to underrated when everyone shit on him to boost our Pepe signing last summer, and now is back to being in favour.

Have to say he really look good when he is motivated

I wanted Zaha when 98% of this forum was all about Nico. Honestly, neither are that good in the end, but we need to move on to new names. Rehashing old stories is the Athletic's game, not the Tolly's.

Zaha is and always has been massively overrated.

Either way, the idea that Palace wanted to randomly loan out one of their better players is one that will have to be explained to me.

goon wrote:

Zaha is and always has been massively overrated.

Either way, the idea that Palace wanted to randomly loan out one of their better players is one that will have to be explained to me.

Why have one Pépé when you can have 2?

Clrnc wrote:

The ever reliable cfbayern account says Chelsea will appoint Tuchel as manager if Lampard loses more games this month. Sounds like his time is up soon.

Well today was the last match of this month for chelsea and they draw . Still, it is clear that his position may be untenable soon.

Personally, I think Arteta has to go. The win of the last game does not mean a significant change in the grand scheme of things. But well, maybe now he wins 4-5 games in a row and proves me wrong. In any case, his man management has been very poor and no top club should tolerate that.

pepe turning out to be a doofus bum doesn't make zaha look any better. both are not what we need, but pepe had the advantage of distance.

Klaus wrote:

Apparently we were offered Zaha this summer on loan for a modest fee, and we went with Willian instead. Things like this is why we deserve to be exactly where we're at. You can change the sporting director, change the manager, but if you keep bringing in more idiots to replace them nothing is ever going to change.

I think we were offered Zaha but it was well after we had signed Willian in our defence. I could understand us going for the free option if it freed up funds for other players. Our summer spending was modest at best.

goon wrote:

Zaha is and always has been massively overrated.

Either way, the idea that Palace wanted to randomly loan out one of their better players is one that will have to be explained to me.

Squad harmony? Zaha clearly wasn't happy Palace had denied him his move and they probably thought no point keeping an unhappy player there.

Clrnc wrote:

The ever reliable cfbayern account says Chelsea will appoint Tuchel as manager if Lampard loses more games this month. Sounds like his time is up soon.

I suspect that will be more likely than him joining us - just hope he does not become another that 'got away', and Arteta can justify the faith in him.

Lampard always felt 'wrong' as an appointment at a club with CFC's expectations - perhaps the end game was always for Lampard to keep the seat warm for Tuchel who was originally out of contract last summer before PSG activated the 1 season extension, and to acclimatise their expensively assembled squad to the PL ready for Tuchel to hit the ground running next season.