Polarboy

She seems like a nice sensible girl. If she's happy he'll be happy, so long may it continue.

Anyone else feel like giving Ashworth a hug. "As for Dan Ashworth, it’s thought our sporting director has also played a key role and benefitted from his pre-existing relationship with Paul Winstanley; Chelsea’s head of global talent and transfers. The pair worked together at Brighton – where Winstanley worked as their head of recruitment – and it’s believed both have played central roles during negotiations over the past week. Not only that, Ashworth is well aware of Hall’s capabilities and, like Howe, is a huge admirer of the England youth international, whose represented the Young Lions at U15, U16, U18 and U19 level."

Callum Wilson on Chelsea's spending spree: "How many midfielders do they want? Let’s put this into context. Caicedo, I have not really seen much of him in midfield. We played against Brighton and he played at right-back against us. But for the price that he’s cost, you could get Tonali AND Guimaraes AND me!"

The amount of people who don't know what obligation to buy is on twitter is depressing.

Maybe they're just repeating what the other journalist has said, but you'd think they'd do their own checking before reporting.

Chicken Nonce is going on the lash tonight if this is accurate 😂 Anyway who gives a fuck as long as Hall is on his way and will officially become our player eventually. And what a fucking deal to pull off, as I said the other day when speculating that we might do a loan to buy. Ashworth and co have obviously managed to take advantage of Chelsea's desperation to keep their books from disintegrating under the weight of their spending.

How dare you besmirch the good name of Bruce Forsyth

Yes but Chicken too shite could say, look, I told you they couldn't afford 30m which is why they had to do a loan to buy deal. In any case Edwards has already been ridiculously off the mark on our overall budget, and obviously he was the one who said Barella was pretty much done and dusted.

If it turns out to be a loan with an obligation he'll be insufferable, after all the stick I'm sure he's currently getting. But as people have been saying multiple sources have quoted a transfer fee and haven't mentioned loan to buy being part of it. There was all that talk of us having to be clever given a lack of funds though. Maybe that was just Ashworth and Howe pleading poverty as a negotiating tactic.

Apparently the Chicken Nonce video for the BBC was literally this morning, just before the news of the bid broke on Sky Sports News 😂

Chicken nonce strikes again 😂Finger on the pulse this guy. Shame that we've bid 30m and it's almost done.

There's rumours that Fraser might head up to Celtic. Or at least there was unless that collapsed.

This FPL guy is usually reliable, so that's another Brucie bonus ahead of the Citeh game added to their Super Cup exertions. Edit. Seen some people that were sceptical in the comments, because it doesn't seen likely that Stones would have had time to have had a training session given they were travelling back from Greece. So we'll see I guess, but apparently the guy who gives Ross his Man City team news has come through with news on multiple occasions before. Pure speculation from my part obviously, but perhaps there was a sprints plus warm down session on the pitch after the match, and that's where Stones pulled his hamstring.

Yeah his dad is from Newcastle and him and his brother, who's also a footballer, grew up supporting the club.

I have to keep reminding myself that Hall is still only 18. 18 and he's more than capable of starting week in week out in the Premier League. Give him a year or two under Howe's coaching and he'll be in the England senior squad.

Ben Parkinson I think.

Just thinking that with all this inverted full back craic both Livramento and especially Hall can push into midfield given their ability on the ball. That switch between positions when you're in and out of possession seems like the major new thing when it comes to tactics.

Have you looked at what Citeh have spent on their defence lately under Pep? If buying Botman, Livramento and Hall, plus another young defender to take over from Schar, costs us in the region of 130-150m that will be seen as very cheap, given how long our defence could potentially be sorted for.

😂 I mean I do comment on things other than transfers often, or at least often when I'm actually on here. I even comment when the transfer windows are closed which kind of refutes your theory, but the players we have on the pitch is obviously very important. Not that I place talking about transfers above all else. So in short I don't believe your premise is accurate to begin with, and you'd basically need to be a mind reader to state otherwise.

If we get Hall our transfer window has been a 9 out of 10. 10 out of 10 would have been a RCB of similar quality to Botman in addition to Hall and the rest, but that might have to wait until January or next summer.

Just watched the second half of the Super Cup there. Citeh had basically the first team out in what was supposedly sweltering heat over in Greece. They didn't make any subs until the 80th either, and only brought on Alvarez when they did iirc. You would think it bodes well for them not being at their best for Saturday. Then again maybe it will just be extra fitness given it's the start of the season.

Reading the comments under the Chelsea news account there's a bit of debate as to how reliable the guy is, understandably, but apparently he did have the news of how bad Nkunku's injury was early among other things. Of course he could have just got a lucky guess on the injury. But we'll see, there does seem to be some momentum behind Hall making a move.

Forest, Bournemouth, Brentford if they sell Henry or even as cover for him, Palace now that Hall isn't looking likely for them etc. There's plenty of teams that would be more than happy to have his experience in the PL and professionalism in their squad's. 10m in this market would be more than fair for a player of his profile, and it's a price that most teams in the PL can afford. He's never going to pull up any trees, but he's a 6.5/7 out of 10 consistently.

Surely we could get at least ten million for Targett, and that would be the FFP sorted for a year and a bit over the length of Hall's contract.