Great day for Chelsea. A drug cheat has his ban cut short and all their cheating from the Abramovich days amounted to a £10m fine and a slap on the wrists.
Who ever said cheaters don’t prosper.
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This is a wind-up, right?
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Because that’s the current narrative. Wharton couldn’t get in the England squad, MacAllister is a World Cup winner and runner up in the last four years.
Wharton is a good player, but our midfield isn’t the biggest squad issue at the moment.
We have Gravenberch, MacAllister, Jones, Szoboszlai, Endo and Nyoni for two places?
Say Wirtz and Elliot vie for the ten spot, behind Isak, then we are well equipped with two from those six in any starting line-up.
We need a right back, a centre half amd a winger.
If we sign Wharton, well and good, but other areas require addressing before that.
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Why is him being a World Cup winner relevant?
It´s a non-point. He was good 4 years ago. Now he isn´t.
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Yeah hearing Iraola talk about Wirtz as a 10 brings the midfield depth into focus a bit. It frames that 3rd midfielder as more of a forward than a mid with the back ups to Wirtz likely coming from a group including Elliott, Hugo when fit, or even Barcola, and leaving only 2 orthdox midfield roles to fill. Even accounting for the possibility of using Dom as the alternative to Wirtz, it still leaves Grav, Maca, Jones, Endo and Trey, and maybe McConnell or Baj as well.
I get people seeing room for improvement, but as you say it seems down on the list of priorities unless something is happening with Curtis and or Maca, which I wouldnt entirely rule out.
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Which is fair, that the wing, CB and probably RB are higher priorities in terms of not having anything at all there.
I´d be making room by selling one or two midfielders rather than keeping what we have and adding one without selling anybody though.
If you are using other metrics to measure Whartons value, then this relevant.
MacAllister was a good, very good player when we won the league. His form slipped dramatically last season, and he was very good in the Wotld Cup.
He has the ability to regain his form, I wouldn’t write him off in order to sign someone for crazy money.
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Which other metrics? And again, the original point applies.
He was decent in the world cup. Got absolutely outplayed in midfield during the final even with 11 men. Didn´t exactly impose himself against England´s mediocre midfield until they sat back
He was pretty good when we won the league although it helped to have Trent doing a lot of the midfield´s job.
I’d rather keep Mac and Jones and add Wharton. We seem averse to having a big squad. Didn’t do Arsenal any harm last season.
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You’re the one wanting to sign Wharton, so you are basing his value on something?
Wharto would be a decent shout, at half the price and if we needed a midfielder.
And as for MacAllister not imposing himself against a mediocre England midfield?
So mediocre and still no place for Wharton in the squad? The man you want brought in whilst Macca is sold?
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I´m basing wanting to sign him based on his performances over the last few seasons. His valuation? Judgement call. We do need a midfielder. We have numbers, not quality.
Yes I don´t base my judgement on players on whether the England manager who didn´t win anything deems them good enough. Is Trent not very good then since he didn´t get selected?
We have quality.
Szoboszlai, Gravenberch, Jones and MacAllister are PL winners. Wharton is a good player, but to denigrate our own as not quality, based on a miserable season is frankly disrespectful .
You keep using the same logic. PL winners, WC winners. Being part of a squad that (previously) won something doesn´t mean you are now (years later) good enough to be a key player in a key position, especially as the rest of that squad looks very different.
I could also argue that they were 5th place comers.
Salah was the best player in a title winning squad and now he leaves on a free…
and I can handle being ´disrespectful´ by not rating footballers on a forum.
So is whether Tuchel rates a player definitive on how good they are, or not?
For our midfield I think it depends if we feel any of Nyoni or McConnell are close to be able to step up as squad players and what we are hearing from Jones and Mac Allister about signing new contracts. With Endo’s injury, I expect he’ll be with us for this year before leaving when his contract runs out next summer.
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PL winners a year ago. And they all didn’t fall off the cliff you suggested.
Regarding Tuchel, I really couldn’t give a flying fuck who he picks, to be honest.
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PL winners with a squad that had the best winger in the world, the best cb in the world, the best GK in the world and the best rb in the world that could do their passing job for them. They have none of that now.
So why on earth were you rambling on about Wharton not making the England Squad? 
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Our midfield lacks someone with elite passing. This did not affect our title run thanks to Trent who did all the passing for us. After Trent left, however, we were exposed.
Right now, Wharton is the best passer in the league.
Exactly. Bingo.
it doesn´t have to be Wharton exactly but we need that type of player as much as we need somebody defensively solid. For all the reasons above.
Long term, I’d like to pair Wharton with Nyoni.
I think that is a very complimentary pair.
Whether Nyoni will be good enough, who knows, but I like how he sits in and reads the game very well from what I have seen. Would allow Wharton to get forward too a little bit at times.
For me, the best version of a passing midfielder is Modric, who can get forward with the ball as well as break the lines with a pass. And that often needs somebody to sit in and cover. If Thiago didn´t get injured so much I think him and Fabinho was a great pairing.