He is an absolute baller. By the time they sign Caicedo, the PL will see him in full flow.
Enzo 'Terry' Fernandez | Vice-Captain of Chelsea
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Was sold on him the first time I saw play 90 minutes.
That being said, at that point I didn't think we had a hope in hell of actually getting him, his type of player is usually reserved for Real, Barca or Pep managed teams.
That being said, at that point I didn't think we had a hope in hell of actually getting him, his type of player is usually reserved for Real, Barca or Pep managed teams.
He wasn’t totally overlooked, Ragnick wanted to sign him when he was available for £20 mill and Woodward had other ideas.
all the other big boys have a hole in midfield that he'd fill
One of the few to be worth every penny of their exorbitant fee. With Caicedo, Chelsea will be very very hard to beat.
Brilliant player. Was obvious even in a tumescent Chelsea side last season
Will dictate games with his technique and agility. Should have stayed in Portugal till this summer. He'll be at city now.
Looks class
He's a class act. Awareness, touch, pin point passing, just pulls all the strings. Exactly the sort of midfielder you want in your team.
The World Cup probably made a massive difference though, it certainly did for me. I only saw him a few times playing for River, not at Benfica, but lots of players flatter to deceive in Portugal even if they are in CL (Nuñez, for starters).
The way he sorted out Argentina's midfield under immense pressure after their debut loss is the sort of test that separates the truly world class from flavour of the month talents.
I'm afraid we have to be more willing to pay the exorbitant cash required to get these types of players going forward, the market has gone mad and a player as good as him wont go any lower than that.
Shame Chelsea snatched him, he'll be a gamechanger for them.
Shame Chelsea snatched him, he'll be a gamechanger for them.
Rolls Royce of a player. Reminds me of Kroos without the ball striking. Him and Caicedo is about as good of a platform as you can ask for to build off of.
If Rice and Caicedo are £100m+ players, which though both are top quality....neither are, the Fernandez is worth every penny of that fee.
He has got absolutely everything, he and Bellingham ability wise are above all the other young cn for me, one of the very fe Chelsea players I actually love to watch playing....majority of there big players have been quite dislikable as a neutral on the pitch personality wise
He has got absolutely everything, he and Bellingham ability wise are above all the other young cn for me, one of the very fe Chelsea players I actually love to watch playing....majority of there big players have been quite dislikable as a neutral on the pitch personality wise
I'm still surprised he agreed to a Chelsea move. Would have thought he'd end up at Real or Barca.
He probably will eventually.
I think he'd be an excellent Kroos replacement.
He’s on an 8 year contract so I doubt it. Barca definitely wouldn't be able to afford him with their FFP issues. And with his length of contract he’d cost Real Madrid who knows what.
£300M bid in a couple of years ought to do it.
If he is anything like Kroos he would just be entering his prime in 8 yrs and leave with 1 yr to go. And then have 8 more world class years at Madrid aswell.
Kinky
He’s a quality player. Benfica really missed him when he left last season, especially in Europe but in their performances across the board in the second half of the season
There's levels to it if you watch the Portuguese league regularly. Enzo was by far and away the best player in the league having just arrived from Argentina aged 21. Nunez was never even the best striker in the league; anyone who tried to convince you otherwise had no idea what they were talking about. Enzo, on the other hand, was miles above everyone comparable to a greater extent than even Bruno and Luis Diaz were.
Yeah the idea people were kneejerking off a world cup never stood up to scrutiny, and even if they were he came into a team in real danger of a group stage elimination that ended up winning it.
Even before he broke through at River he helped do the equivalent of winning Bournemouth the Europa League.
Like I said in another thread, this is what you do when you have an incredible midfield talent, you pair him up with another young talent to compliment his skillset!
We bought Pogba and made him play with McFred and a tired Matic for years. Just imagine how much better United would have been had we signed Fabinho in 2017 instead of Matic....
We bought Pogba and made him play with McFred and a tired Matic for years. Just imagine how much better United would have been had we signed Fabinho in 2017 instead of Matic....
Lukako £173.7m
Case and FDJ is what we’d need if they bring in Caicedo
Knew he was good, but today he took it to that world class level. Not surprised that Pochettino will be the one to bring the best out of him. It will be scary to see him alongside a natural destroyer and perhaps a ball carrier like lavia. Lavia has great long range passing as well, so that may get in the way of Enzo abilities.
Oh ffs 
Not gonna con on here and wax lyrical, but the thinking at the time was twofold: if he made it to Summer Chelsea wouldn’t have won the race for him, and in very short order his fee won’t look as massive as it seemed.
I k ew the first one was true, and I think they are being proven correct on the second.
I k ew the first one was true, and I think they are being proven correct on the second.
As said, I didn't see him at Benfica, but -if anything- what you describe would have been a first -very brief- confirmation that there was substance beyond the huge potential at River. The WC was yet another level.
I'm talking about maturity, imposing yourself on a game, being unfazed by high stakes... the sort of intangibles that ultimately make all the difference but we can't today say for a fact that Garnacho has, for example.
You could spot Enzo at River for 20M, or at Benfica later thinking he would soon be upwards of 50M, but it is only after the World Cup that anyone could be remotely optimistic paying twice that.
A lot of times teams pick up 15-20M young players looking as good as Enzo did at River and all that never materialises. It's not just "talent spotting"/"get X, Y, Zs scout network".
Definitely. So if you bought 5 Enzos for 20m each and say only 1 becomes a star, you're spending 100m in any case due to the inherent developmental risks. Of course you'd recover a decent chunk by selling the other 4, at the cost of using club resources.
"Spotting" talent isn't going to be the main problem from now on IMO, persuading the Government to issue a visa allowing them to come and play in the UK is, unless some of the rules change.
I'm not totally convinced that Garnacho would get a visa to play here if he was starting out now, nor Enzo if he'd been coming here from South America, Brexit and the changes tom the visa system may prove problematic at times IMO
I sort of, low key, love the commitment to this bit. When I am reading a thread and a post like this pops up out of nowhere, it still gets a chuckle.
Why would visas for South American football players be any different under Brexit? If they are changing that it's completely idiotic.
I'm not a fan of that logic really. You very rarely have five spots for said players to play with any regularity so chances are you ruin them by design. I would only occasionally take 1-2 punts.
In Enzo's case we could have got him early and easily given him a run in our midfield instead of McFred. He could realistically play even if Casemiro still joined later.
It would still be a punt though and the right priority signing for us was Casemiro to address a clear weakness, rather than taking the opportunity of having mediocre midfielders to play roulette on some bargain talent panning out.
In fact, we signed Pellistri for 10M (USD) even before Sancho, or Antony, and hardly ever used him anyway. We could/should have tried sign Julián Álvarez as well... only to send him to the Championship on loan.
We are pretty shite at taking the risks that developing players entail so I'm not at all averse to instead spend more on players when they will immediately become starters in roles needing an upgrade.
That's the point of the multi-club model currently being implemented at Chelsea, and to a lesser extent the 'loan army' model of the previous regime.
Lesley Ugochukwu
Ângelo
Andrey Santos
Casadei
Chukwuemeka
Gabriel Slonina
David Datro Fofana
Deivid Washington
All players signed since last summer at an average of roughly 12-15m. Only two of them will be at the club by the end of the window and I would anticipate one or two more such signings to come. Some of these, namely Fofana, Santos and Casadei are already worth at least double the outlay. It's of course much better to be hit or miss on a player costing 12m than a player costing 60, but you need to have the facility and recruitment in place to minimise your risk.
The list above excludes the players signed and still to sign in this window for Strasbourg who fit the same model - 18-20 years old and ready to take the crucial next step.
Same has been done for decades under different guises with little success. You cocked up the genuine superstars in Salah and De Bruyne and, in a different way, cocked up Lukaku since he hardly ever did much for you and you keep buying him back for more stupid money than you were paid in the first place.
Owning the feeder clubs gives you more control over development and playing time but ultimately you will find very few, if any, make the step up and are considered for the first club first team.
Look at City, they also have various clubs and their academy players typically drop off to the feeders, not the other way around. The setup ends up working well for that, e.g. instead of selling Iqbal for 1M we could get him to play and develop his way at a shopwindow club to being maybe 10M, which he wouldn't stuck in our reserves.
You can't really replicate Benfica's or Brighton's bargain gem-finding without taking risks with the first team side and I'd argue none of the Top 4 or top 4 challengers should be all that bothered about that.
Because a lot of South American players have dual nationality, Argentina/Spain and Brazil/Portugal from colonial days, and in pre-Brexit days some of those players didn't require a visa, now they do
Well, the entire point of taking the risk is to improve upon what has been done before. City's model is not comparable in terms of its function or scale. I understand your latter point but the entire structure, as proposed and so far shown, is almost exactly taking Brighton's 'gem-finding' without taking risks with the main club. Salah and KDB cases are not really relevant but were also not failures of a very different, older system - it was simply poor management and lack of structure after the groundwork had been laid. If in 2/3 years Casadei wants to leave for triple his initial value, it's not a failure even if he goes on to be a superstar. De Bruyne was bought for 6.7m and Chelsea more than tripled that (sale + sell-on clause).
Yeah, sure, but that's for the European passport element then.
Italy is a big one, I have the entire maternal family (>100 people) with Italian passports because my great grandfather came from there 150 years ago.