What are the chances

[BigbadBillyMcKinley]

T K will do a decent thing and try and get chambers in on a permanent? Would be cracking in the championship.

[Statto]

Doesn't make sense IMO. At CB he was no better than Ream or Odoi. In DM he was barely an upgrade on McDonald and Norwood. You can buy the likes of Ream, Odoi, McDonald and Norwood for £2m-3m each. If we can get Chambers for £2m-3m then fine, but having played for Arsenal and England, I suspect they'd want £20m+. A ridiculous price for what he brings.

[filham]

Chambers made it clear a while ago that his target for next season is to establish a place in the Arsenal team, think we have to forget all about him.

[grandad]

Chambers was one of our few stand out players. A huge improvement on Odoi, McDonald , Johansen & Norwood. Unlikely we would get him back.

[ffc73]

It is an indictment of the 18/19 season that Chambers is regarded so highly.

He was brought in as a CB. He was an abject failure for us there & one reason we did not have a defence good enough for the PL

He is not good enough to be first choice defensive centre mid-fielder yet he has performed better than all our specialists in that position

Arsenal wanted £20m+ for him last summer. No-one would pay it. He signed a new contract with them & was sent to us on loan.  We need to find someone better for less money.

[Milo]

Doesn't make sense IMO. At CB he was no better than Ream or Odoi. In DM he was barely an upgrade on McDonald and Norwood. You can buy the likes of Ream, Odoi, McDonald and Norwood for £2m-3m each. If we can get Chambers for £2m-3m then fine, but having played for Arsenal and England, I suspect they'd want £20m+. A ridiculous price for what he brings.

Rarely happens, but really disagree with this.

At DM he has been MOTM, or a strong contender, countless times. This being his first ever season a) playing regular Premiership football b) playing a new DM position and c) playing in a struggling team.

Now air-drop that into a lower standard league where battling DMs will be worth their weight in gold..

I think £20m is a steal personally!

[AnOldBrownie]

Doesn't make sense IMO. At CB he was no better than Ream or Odoi. In DM he was barely an upgrade on McDonald and Norwood. You can buy the likes of Ream, Odoi, McDonald and Norwood for £2m-3m each. If we can get Chambers for £2m-3m then fine, but having played for Arsenal and England, I suspect they'd want £20m+. A ridiculous price for what he brings.

Rarely happens, but really disagree with this.

At DM he has been MOTM, or a strong contender, countless times. This being his first ever season a) playing regular Premiership football b) playing a new DM position and c) playing in a struggling team.

Now air-drop that into a lower standard league where battling DMs will be worth their weight in gold..

I think £20m is a steal personally!

I agree that it can be argued that at DM Chambers was one of the top 3 players on the squad this year.

Personally, I'd love to have him back, but I'm thinking Johanson will be the other midfielder on our squad next season when he comes back from West Brom.

Chambers will probably go on loan to a premier league side, not a championship side.

[Statto]

At DM he has been MOTM, or a strong contender, countless times. This being his first ever season a) playing regular Premiership football b) playing a new DM position and c) playing in a struggling team.

Hmmm... He has 3 MotMs, which is decent but the same as Bettinelli and only one more than Anguissa. Mitrovic and Rico, in contrast, have 7 each. So Chambers has hardly excelled even under that metric. Personally I think it a flawed measure in any case, because fans tend to disproportionately value things like effort and bravery over more important, useful talents.

Dealing with your other points, (a) he's a 24-year-old England International with over 100 PL appearances, not some raw teenager, (b) he was played in a new position because be was astronomically woeful in his regular position, and (c) I suspect that playing in a struggling team has made him look far better, as the best of a bad bunch, than he'd have looked in a team of quality players.

I sympathise with the OP a little and to some extent, rating players is subjective and posters just have to agree to disagree, but if you honestly believe he'd be good value at a sum that could buy an entire team (including subs) of McDonalds or Odois (the latter of whom was, BTW, preferred at CB over Chambers by all 3 managers this year) then I'm sorry but you must be on a different planet.

For the sake of argument I could accept he may be a mild upgrade on Mcdonald/Norwood but even that is debatable IMO.

[Milo]

I hear what you say and concede some ground on the a) to c), but still feel they're important points. He would have had to break into a top 4 first team to get regular game time at Arsenal and the reality is that sitting in the reserves all season will take its toll. Most important is the position change. We can't really compare CB Chambers to DM Chambers. It would be like valuing CF Dembele Mk1 and CM Dembele. Lastly, playing well in a bad team probably does flatter you in goal as you're called into action more.. it's probably borderline in midfield I would think? Nit-picking, surely?

Further, I made a point of going back and editing the MOTM comments to say "..or a strong contender" as I remember at least 1-2 games where I felt eg Cairney took the award when Chambers was equally as good.

Ultimately, the words "a steal" that I used were clearly over-egging it. I think £20m would be a fair price - especially when you compare the sums of Anguissa and Seri.

Regards opportunity cost on the £20m, I am not sure how many Macdonalds we would get for that these days after a few years of further inflated transfer fees. Perhaps 3? Using the Bryan transfer as a rough guide (ie top player at Bristol, £6m). I agree it's worth weighing up definitely. However we need to learn our lessons that too many Championship quality players in a promoted team leaves you needing to make big upheavals in the transfer window before the Premiership kicks off. Chambers is here, he's "low risk" (dare I say it), and has shown he can step up.

[Mince n Tatties]

Doesn't make sense IMO. At CB he was no better than Ream or Odoi. In DM he was barely an upgrade on McDonald and Norwood. You can buy the likes of Ream, Odoi, McDonald and Norwood for £2m-3m each. If we can get Chambers for £2m-3m then fine, but having played for Arsenal and England, I suspect they'd want £20m+. A ridiculous price for what he brings.

Rarely happens, but really disagree with this.

At DM he has been MOTM, or a strong contender, countless times. This being his first ever season a) playing regular Premiership football b) playing a new DM position and c) playing in a struggling team.

Now air-drop that into a lower standard league where battling DMs will be worth their weight in gold..

I think £20m is a steal personally!

Correct.
Player of the season by a country mile.

[The Rational Fan]

Doesn't make sense IMO. At CB he was no better than Ream or Odoi. In DM he was barely an upgrade on McDonald and Norwood. You can buy the likes of Ream, Odoi, McDonald and Norwood for £2m-3m each. If we can get Chambers for £2m-3m then fine, but having played for Arsenal and England, I suspect they'd want £20m+. A ridiculous price for what he brings.

Rarely happens, but really disagree with this.

At DM he has been MOTM, or a strong contender, countless times. This being his first ever season a) playing regular Premiership football b) playing a new DM position and c) playing in a struggling team.

Now air-drop that into a lower standard league where battling DMs will be worth their weight in gold..

I think £20m is a steal personally!

He was great this season, but i'd prefer to spend big money up front (Right Wing, Backup Striker and Sessegnons Successor) and the rest of the money beefing up defense next season. Although, he might be worth having on loan for the first half of next season, in order to smooth the transition of the team, but it terms of buying players Nordveidt at a fifth of the price seems better value at DM/CB role.

[colinwhite]

Chambers has been our most consistent performer this season despite a shaky start. Would be a great signing,but cant see it happening.Always gave everything and did an excellent job at Dm as he would at CB given the right players around him.

[Holders]

I'd love him but he's too good to step down a division at this point in his career. It's not as if he were one of our contracted players who has to take the hit with us.

[Statto]

I think £20m would be a fair price - especially when you compare the sums of Anguissa and Seri.

Regards opportunity cost on the £20m, I am not sure how many Macdonalds we would get for that these days after a few years of further inflated transfer fees. Perhaps 3? Using the Bryan transfer as a rough guide (ie top player at Bristol, £6m). I agree it's worth weighing up definitely.

Again, a lot of this stuff is opinion on which neither of us can say the other is wrong, but just considering the numbers...

I accept Championship fees have inflated in the last 3 years but not by 500%, which is what it would take to only get 3 KMacs for £20m. Even with inflation, I don't think a good price for a player like him would be much more than £2m. That's also what Sheffield United paid for Norwood a few months ago.

The Championship record for a defensive player is about £8m, unless you count Ruben Neves as a DM. He cost £16m but surely we can agree he's in a totally different league to Chambers.

I agree £20m for Chambers sounds fair when compared to what we paid for Anguissa but only because we had our trousers pulled down there. A fair price for Anguissa would have been perhaps £5m-£6m and I don't see anyone bidding more than that for him this summer.