Summer 2016 Transfer Thread

andyt said:

I follow a twitter site called Premier League Zone. They tweeted earlier this morning that Chelsea have 38 players out on loan. That's just ridiculous. For the most part, though, the players are either in the Football League or another country's top league. But they have 1 player in the Isthmian League, level 7 on the English pyramid, 1 player in the National League and 2 in South America.

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Chelsea have been exceptionally slow to allow players who clearly aren't going to progress in their senior club plans to move along for other opportunities. I think it's down to the owner being paranoid of turning players like Lukaku loose in the world when it can come back to bite them. I think it SHOULD serve as a cautionary tale for young starlets being offered spots in Chelsea's academy, but sadly it doesn't.

jeffbear said:

Me too. I've seen my fill of Sissoko loping around the pitch not giving a crap for Newcastle to think he's going to be any real help to anyone in the long run. Character matters and that guy has none.

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Reeked of desperation on the part of Spurs when Isco decided to stay at Madrid. They seem to view him as desperately needed backup to Dembele, but he seems a lot like Adebayor, only in the part of the field where his attitude is more damaging. I'm hopeful he does enough positive stuff where they can sell him on after a year.

jeffbear said:

Chelsea have been exceptionally slow to allow players who clearly aren't going to progress in their senior club plans to move along for other opportunities. I think it's down to the owner being paranoid of turning players like Lukaku loose in the world when it can come back to bite them. I think it SHOULD serve as a cautionary tale for young starlets being offered spots in Chelsea's academy, but sadly it doesn't.

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Some, like Cuadrado and Remy clearly don't fit that mold. But it's a fair point. Taking Patrick Bamford as an example, Chelsea signed him in the January 2012 window as a 19 year old. He still hasn't made a senior team appearance for Chelsea, having been loaned out to MKDons, Derby County, Middlesbrough, Crystal Palace, Norwich and now Burnley. My fear is that the same will happen to Matt Miazga, who at least made 2 appearances for Chelsea last year but was loaned to Vitesse in the Dutch League this year. For the guys playing first division football, they're probably still developing (as long as they're playing) but for the guys at places like Crawley Town or Crewe Alexander or Aldershot Town, are they really developing into useful first team players?

jeffbear said:

Me too. I've seen my fill of Sissoko loping around the pitch not giving a crap for Newcastle to think he's going to be any real help to anyone in the long run. Character matters and that guy has none.

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Doubly true if the reports about him refusing Koeman's phone call yesterday are true. He clearly never wanted to move to Everton but figured it was his only out until Spurs came calling.

jeffbear said:

Chelsea have been exceptionally slow to allow players who clearly aren't going to progress in their senior club plans to move along for other opportunities.

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Its a business model for Chelsea with the younger players. Partly designed as a way to get into the black with FFP. They sign the player for a low amount, loan him out for 2 or 3 years (collecting loan fees each year and paying no wages). By that point the player is either ready to move into the first team as effectively a free since his transfer has been covered by loan fees or the player can be sold on for a profit.

Lukaku and Courtois are the 2 perfect examples of how they want the system to work.

Lukaku signed for £17 million, went on loan twice (guessing Chelsea got something close to 4mill in fees) and then sold him on for £28 million. Making about £15 mill in profit on a player somebody else paid the wages for and developed for them.

Courtois was signed for £7 mill but after loan fees his actual transfer cost for Chelsea was only about £2mill. And again somebody else was paying his wages for 3 years and giving him the best development possible.


Sure those are 2 extreme examples but there are plenty of other players who probably ended up providing Chelsea with a few mill in profit.

andyt said:

Some, like Cuadrado and Remy clearly don't fit that mold. But it's a fair point. Taking Patrick Bamford as an example, Chelsea signed him in the January 2012 window as a 19 year old. He still hasn't made a senior team appearance for Chelsea, having been loaned out to MKDons, Derby County, Middlesbrough, Crystal Palace, Norwich and now Burnley. My fear is that the same will happen to Matt Miazga, who at least made 2 appearances for Chelsea last year but was loaned to Vitesse in the Dutch League this year. For the guys playing first division football, they're probably still developing (as long as they're playing) but for the guys at places like Crawley Town or Crewe Alexander or Aldershot Town, are they really developing into useful first team players?

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Two guys I had clearly in mind when I made that comment. I think their treatment of Bamford has been shabby at best. A kid who has proven he can make a difference at the Championship level but is still wasting away in loanland for no apparent reason. Uness somebody honestly believes that when they eventually tire of Costa's nonsense that they'll give Bamford a shot ... even in training. Be kind to the kid and give him the freedom of a move to somebody who actually wants hm before he wastes his youth entirely in vain. I fear the same will end up being true for Miazga. A kid who got his head turned by an offer from a big club at a stage in his development when he could never even hope to crack the big roster. They gave him what? 2 games? Deemed him too green (no duh) and now he's in limbo, where if others can serve as a guide he might well remain for 2-3 years before Chelsea deem it financially prudent to sell him at a profit. In which time he's likely to have been bounced around from loan pillar to loan post in Holland and God knows where else. Heck, he'd have been better off sticking with Red Bulls until he could get a legit shot with a smaller team in Europe. I know he chose Chelsea of his own free will, but he did so too early IMO and is unlikely to benefit in the near term. Meanwhile, what do you bet that Chelsea buy in 5 or 6 more senior players before they let him go play somewhere? I'd call it even money since they've already bought in 2 and it would have been 3 if Stones had moved last January.