Dwmh

Injury prone and not playing far forward to use his real skills - it is RLC again. At least easy to see parallels.

Interesting. But it does seem the club is still generating players more than good enough for the Prem.

Who says there has been no contract offer? We only know that none has been signed and announced. Connor may have rejected 3 offers already. My sympathies are with Conor not the club, and I reckon he is better off with a big 4 year contract elsewhere than a smaller 8 year contract here. Also better off in a club that wants to play him CM rather than doing all the pressing. Comparisons with Mount btw are a bit odd. There is only 14m aged difference and Conor is nowhere near the level that Mount was over 2020-22 - except in our hearts.

I doubt it does now. Trossard Bisouma and Cucurella were sold over a year ago, and typically deals are done half up front half a year later so a lot of that £70m (which was leant to replace bank debt) will have been covered by now. + compensation for er Potter. Then Brighton sold MacCallister, Sanchez and Caicedo summer 2023, so a chunk of that will have been paid already. He could well have started taking cash out now. And Brighton's ability to fund new purchases must be enormous right now. 15/16. OK one year.

I don't want him here (mind I think next year is no better than this year, so my sympathies are for him, others maybe more optimistic). I'm just going through Poch's choices. Does anyone think we can buy Tarkowski for next season? Is that an option the club might offer Poch or next Poch. TT, poTTer, poTTerino, PisspoTTerino?

Well if you want all youth you are certainly at the right club. I suspect Poch wants some experience there.

Funny that is precisely the same interview quoted in the Mirror piece I linked to. He is quite determined NOT to hint what will happen. Some hack just decides to write the headline one way all the same, and some readers choose to read the headline and not follow the text. Last season an extension was announced in February. Pretty sure it won't be any earlier this season so we will find out in the next month. (Sorry, I know that uncertainty is the enemy of the "football expert". That is why all these newspaper stories and Spotrac are there. Punters have less uncertainty to deal with making it easier for us all to pretend we know what is going on. Doesn't make predictions any more accurate, but it makes us a lot more certain we are right!)

unfortunately 100% is no better than 50/50 from any of your sources, Max. Well quite. When a player has made 25 starts by md Feb he usually can count on another season. And it is not as if his wife has already gone off to Brazil with the kids.

I dunno. Was that the club talking, his missus or one of the "more reliable" twitterati? If it is from this story https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/thiago-silva-chelsea-future-contract-31956530 then it sounds like he is doing his absolute best to avoid giving a hint while the media are doing their best to read something into it.

I recall a city joke from the 1980s when Americans were trying to get a toehold in London Banking How do you buy a small Merchant Bank? Buy a Big Merchant Bank and wait.

True. Which in turn makes it even more likely he'll be back next season!

Not sure but he has started 26 out of 33 games (22/24 PL) and quite a few of teh games missed were non-PL oppo. Colwill has not been sub much but Badiashile has been a PL sub 8 tmes though rarely used - perhaps not 100% fit (plenty of room on the bench). Certainly Silva was rested a lot more last year but then there were plenty of adults in the room last year. Azpi and Koulibaly for starters.

So once breaks for injury or non-selections are considered, Disasi (22 PL starts todate) will have almost a full season in the Prem by next year, Badiashile(16) Just over half a season, Fofana (48) just over a season if he returns, Colwill (31) about 1 season, with presumably Chalobah (35) gone. Not much actual PL experience there. I guess that is why Poch keeps picking Silva.

Oh yes - they came to quite the wrong club for the apparent plan.

Well I'd have said Brighton and Strasbourg are great models to follow. You can do exactly the same as has been done with Chelsea and save your self almost £2billion upfront investment at the same time. Starting with a 74 point team and promising more success was where they went wrong.