It's a gridlock until someone folds.
Jules Koundé | Signs for Barcelona
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Chelsea still waiting for their reply 
Doesn’t he know he’s competing with FDJ for a place in the team?
According to Spanish press, Kounde has been assured that he is first choice.
Always take Barca media with a pinch of salt, their bias is through the roof. Interesting that all the reportedly top Sevilla sources insist nothing at all with Barca, only Chelsea
You are setting yourself up for disappointment.
With Araujo and Koundé we would have an extremely solid defense. It is said is a matter of a day or two. It seems Barca, the most broke club, will have the best transfer window in Europe.
Kounde is not going to be first choice, unless they lied to AC. Your news was talking about how Xavi was going to switch to a back 3. As with contracts, Barca lies to players, nothing new.
I think we should up our offer to 65 m pounds, mostly cash up front. Not because we want him that bad, but just force you a little deeper into that grave trying to get “close enough”.
City had the best window in Europe. Just by getting Haaland really. You overpaid for a 35 yr old striker, two fairly suspect defenders , and a decent winger.
Nobody that had to use payday loan establishments to make their basic bills then used half the money for pot can see themselves as “winning”
How very Charlie Sheen of Barca
You may think this is hyperbolic, but the lead is getting buried here. Barca claims they are cruising like they are strong as ever… but would Barca have had to promise a 23 yr old la Liga defender he’d be “first choice” back in the day? Not that he would get plenty of chances, or lots of minutes and opportunities … but “first choice”?
Araujo is very solid in right back as well. Last two clásicos he played there and totally blocked Vinicius Jr from doing anything in that flank.
So it's possible to play Araujo, Koundé and Christensen without playing a 3 centre back formation.
Lewa turns 34 next month. He is old but don't exaggerate. I've seen Juve paying a lot more for 33 year old Cristiano and United paying a transfer and massive wage for the same player but 3 years older.
If Lewa can play 3 good seasons it would be a fantastic deal. A good season for him equals 40-50 goals.
As for Halland he is great and all but I rather get 5 good players than 1 great one. I learned from having Messi in Barca that it's very risky to focus your game in one player even if he is the GOAT.
Oh i fully expect barca to take him. I just dislike the bias from catalan media. I get it in a way, but its so overboard
Not only getting Haaland, but they got their deals done early. They got every transfer done by June, before their preseason started so that they can integrate the new players into Pep's system (and we've all seen that it takes time for the players to learn Pep's system). Their DOF said that they will wrap up their transfers done before the preseason and he delivered.
This kind of brutal efficiency is something our board needs to figure out how to emulate.
So you would have liked it even more if Messi never played for Barcelona?
If you made me choose between never having Xavi, Iniesta, Busques, Puyol and Alves or not having Messi. I would clearly choose not having Messi.
Messi with those monsters was great. But after 2018, I mean his last three years when most of the teammates weren't that good he was still doing great but the team started to be humillated very frequently.
Don't think he is that great really, think the likes of Araujo and Militai are a lot better.
Feel sorry for Araujo, Christensen, Pique and Garcia who have to sit on the bench all season while Frenkie and Kounde tear it up.
There are very few CB better than Araujo. The guy is a total beast. But he does need a partner with a decent level by his side.
He's insane, Barcelona's pull is just crazy. He'd earn so much more elsewhere.
Maybe holding TOO long to the GOAT, which was def an issue… BUT:
If I told you right now, same money, you could have a lewandowski now, Raphinia , AC, and Kounde…
… or a 20 year old Messi …. You wouldn’t take Messi?
Your mistake was giving him contracts you couldn’t afford into his later years, desperately trying to hold on. Lewas contract isnt paralyzing like the one Messi had… but in a way it is exactly the same mistake you made before,
Do other teams take these risks?Would Chelsea? Yes. But they can afford to carry dead money if the older player gets injured.
They are literally trying to buy the left back from Brighton so no they haven’t got their transfers wrapped up.
We also had transfer seasons where we completed transfers before preseason and City completed their transfers during season. Not every window is same. People just are too much involved in our transfers for obvious reasons.
2021-22
Grealish - Aug 5th. After preseason and before season started. That's their only first team signing
2020-21
Ruben dias - after season started.
2019-20
Cancelo - After preseason and just before season started .
It’s the same situation as when only one club comes in with an offer. If the club doesn’t like it, they reject it.
To be fair whoever they buy is only coming in as a backup for depth. Cancelo will always be first choice.
So basically Chelsea have been blocked on
WhatsApp for now while Barca have got 2 blue ticks.
ManCity and Liverpool are in different level, they have their team more or less set, they have managers who are there for 6 years, so it's easy to plan everything well in advance. At max, they have 2-3 positions and most of them are not even first choice.
Agree. We can’t compare ourselves to city and Liverpool business this summer anyway. They’ve signed players who they have pinpointed months in advance. We’ve literally just got a new manager. This window was always going to be a challenging one for us with us needing so many new players.
At this point.. Barca are trolling all of us. 
Oh well. Over to the Gvardiol thread we go.
The thing is teams need to be well balanced. I wouldn't choose having prime Messi if I couldn't surround him with good enough players. Every body saw Messi's last seasons here. He was still scoring a lot but we were getting trashed by every big team we faced.
In modern football is just not possible to carry an average team to succcess. It doesn't matter how good you are. It's not Maradona's time anymore.
With this signing Barca’s current back-up CB will have to leave.
Feels like he never had any intention of going to Chelsea and just used them to get Barcelona to act. Will be interested to see the fee when it's announced.
He nearly had a meltdown when the transfer fell through last summer, so clearly he wanted to come here. This summer though, once Barca showed their interest it became very difficult for Chelsea. We should not try to compete for a player with them ever again.
What's with the Barca v Chelsea beef?
Nicked all our targets (but really it was just Raphinha and now seemingly Kounde).
Good, I'm glad, and I am glad Barca is getting them. Now Chelsea can feck off and find targets that aren't United's.
I’m currently going through the ‘well I didn’t want them anyway’ stage. Bear with me. I will head over and camp out in the De Jong thread shortly
Yea, but I'm saying that this summer it seemed that Barca was where he was wanting to go and that was that. Chelsea's continued interest proved useful to him and his agent.
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