Going for Romagnoli would just be a repeat of the Stones situation as far as I'm concerned.
A 21 year old with loads of potential but overpriced for the level he's actually reached right now. Of course Milan are entitled to ask for £40/50m, maybe more..they don't need to sell.
The question should be, is Romagnoli right for us ? For me, it would be another gamble on "potential" when we're looking for the finished article in that position. We have potential in Zouma (who is still learning) and Christensen (who I think has bags of it).

Trouble is the current market is very difficult to operate in.

No matter at what price we get the finished article in buying a player like Romagnoli will always be better "value" (again at no matter the price). thirty odd million for a player over 26/27m is not much different in a "value" situation then 40m for a 21 year old. I don't think today we can look at the price as a figure


I think we need to change what we view as potential with the market as it is.

If a player has played a certain number of games for a decent/top team I don't think we can use the "potential" tag.

Romagnoli has worked for Roma and Milan (even Sampdoria are a very good fit) two very professional clubs so his mindset will more then likely be a good fit.

Conte will have worked with players similar to him so will know what to expect.

He has already moved for "big money" and it has not affected him.

He was a important player for his team so handles pressure well.

Has moved up throughout the international levels

The only question mark I have would have is he has never left Italy

we are linked with Mario Mandzukic, Giorgio Chiellini and James Rodriguez.

Im sure thay are all 100% newspaper talk, but would you have any of them?

Yes, as usual you make a very good argument. I agree Romagnoli is further advanced than Stones and probably would be less of a gamble (ignoring his lack of experience in the EPL).
I would agree with you if we weren't in such a desperate need for a CB right now. If Zouma was fit for example. But I do think we need a tried and tested, ready to go defender at the moment.
Mind you, Koulibaly would still have been a gamble and I would have loved to see him join us. Sometimes it's just a hunch about who will work and who won't.

In a ideal world I would agree that we need a tried and tested CB BUT this situation is of our own making so we should take the outcome on the chin and not make a bad decisions because of those previous mistakes.

We need to strike a very fine balance due to today's market, We should not go down the route of the early days of Roman's time and just go out and buy players because we can or need them as we should have moved on as club since then (you could argue we have not) now should we do a Arsenal, We need to find the middle ground and a good start is putting in sensible valuations on players as dictated by the market and taking responsibility for our mistakes and accepting the consequences of them and not taking short term fix's but ensuring we don't make them 5/10 years down the line like we have done for most of Roman's time.

Koulibaly is difficult to value, Was valued at 6.5m in 2014 on a 5 year deal. Moving clubs at 25 he is going to want wages at the top end etc. Two seasons playing in Seria A is a good sign but still a difficult transfer to work out a value on.

Very difficult transfers to pull off with so little of window left.

Don't see Juventus letting another player leave without a fight and don't like fighting for transfers, They costly and can be long drawn out affairs.

but would you have any of them?

Any player who has played consistently for Bayern,Athleco,Juventus and Real has got to be worth looking at.

If the deals are logical in terms of valuation,Wages,Length of contract (two of them are in their 30's) etc they are sensible options. If the numbers are logical and make sense from what they add to the squad etc (for example if one comes in on massive wages how does that effect other members of the squad would Eden want a pay raise if they was earning more/similar to him) then all are worth looking into.

Mandzukic would be a reasonable short term option. Massive saving on getting Lukaku, but if Costa leaves next summer (which I think is very likely) we'd be going through the same business again. Would Juventus sell though ?
I've always admired Chiellini. One of the best defenders in the world in my opinion. So I think it would be great to get hold of him, even if it's only for a season or two. But he has iconic status at Juventus, I doubt that even the Conte connection would persuade him to leave.

The James Rodriguez rumour is a strange one. He was one of those headline signings Real Madrid like to make, everyone's talking about him, so they have to get him.
He's never really fitted at RM, so they really could be looking to sell if they can get their money back. But he's at his best playing as a no 10, where would he fit with us..unless Conte sees him playing on the RW ? At £60m he seems a luxury we don't need to me.

I think it's safe to assume we are all going to be pretty pissed off next Wednesday night. We've been looking for defenders for so long and still haven't signed any, it's almost certain that we'll only see panic signings from here.........

With the pitiful way it's going I'll be relieved if deadline day passes without Aina and Kenedy being loaned out too.

Match report

A win's a win even it is only by one goal again, and this time against League One opposition at home. Question marks defensively and not just the defence. Nice to see Moses working hard for the team, providing chances for team mates and scoring. There was a lad on this thread who said he wasn't good enough for the club. I don't want to take a turn to negative street at this point, but that is out of order, bang out of order.

Batshuayi is looking a real deal as well.

Hopefully we will get a match report from a Chelsea supporter later on.
Any of the lads on here go to the game ?
No streams anywhere on this one.

Didn't see any of it, and I've not found any serious reports either. So I don't know where our mutual friend is getting his information.
Some of the guys on another forum had watched it on some dodgy streaming site (Periscope?) but it was very poor coverage. From what I can gather Moses and Batshuayi had good games, but they were the goal scorers so I don't know how much you can read into that.
I heard Ola Aina was injured though ? If that's true we're down to just the four at the back..crazy times.

I watched it on a Periscope stream thanks to a couple of people at the ground who streamed it on their phones!

Not the ideal way to watch a match, but in these days where we are used to watching every game online, it was a lot better than nothing.

Didn't watch live either, but there's some brief highlights here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOVzlUev01Y

You don't really learn much from these sorts of games against lower league clubs though. Saying that, it's good that Batshuayi scored another couple of goals. He seems to be settling in well.

RLC is worrying me, Once again he did not look like he is fit enough to handle football at this level. He is not a lazy player far from it but something is missing big time. Aina did OK in places but made some mistakes which is understandable but also made some bad decisions which is less so in our current situation.

3 games played 3 games won BUT also 3 games we done it by the skin of our teeth and while after last season we have to accept that but it's also not a great place to be.

Every time we lose the ball teams just run at us and we seem unable to deal with that.

Don't blink when Channel 5 show our highlights or you will miss it! - It's a 70 minute programme, that's about 55 mins without the adds. They have 25 matches to show. Include the analysis as well and that leaves less than 2 minutes per game on average.

Considering the players we brought on as subs it's safe to assume we didn't play well.
Read a few bits that suggest Matic was terrible again, so.....

Yes, but weren't we trying to play 4-2-4 with Fabregas and Matic in midfield ? Doesn't work in my opinion. I don't know if Matic was terrible, just average most people were saying.
I'd like to stay with a 4-3-3. If Matic is just not good enough give Chalobah a chance, or revert to Mikel. Kante is nailed on so that just leaves a choice between Fabregas and Oscar. I think it's too late to worry about getting another midfield player.
Up front Hazard has to play, but I don't see why we need to have genuine wingers. We could still use Batshuayi and Costa. All three could interchange, Barca's front three just run at teams from all angles..yes, I know, they're in a different class altogether.

I'd like to see Costa and Batshuayi starting games together. The only snag with that is we'd almost certainly then need another striker for the subs bench to bring on and freshen things up when required. Is Remy crocked again?

I think Conte has been saying he see's RLC future as a striker

Interesting... Haven't seen much of him, but doesn't look like a natural one to me!

Haven't seen anything so far that really convinces me that RLC will make the grade with us. A spell out on loan would probably be a good idea at this stage, as I can't see him getting that many opportunities this season other than the occasional cup game.

I don't know about Remy, he appears to have been forgotten.
To be honest, I was just trying to get around the idea that we can't play with two strikers (or even three if they're different types) in a 4-3-3. I suppose if Costa or Batshuayi were injured/suspended you'd go back to Willan, Moses or Pedro. Conte appears to like RLC as a striker, so that's another option.
I was just trying to get away from that winger-centre forward- winger mindset.
The drawback would be width. We would need a couple of attacking full backs to really make it work. But attacking full backs who can also defend..I basically want everything.