CFC_SLO

Now that the transfer window is over, we can go a bit more in-depth. My take: Transfer window before the Camara deal collapsed: 9/10 After the Camara deal collapsed: 8–8.5/10 Sales: 10/10 First, just briefly on the sales, because there isn't really much to say. I don't see how you could rate a window where you sell €500M worth of deadwood anything other than a 10/10. Garnacho, Sanchez, Delap, Jackson, Tosin, Badiashile, Fofana, Sarr, Mudryk, Disasi... I wouldn't even be able to name all of them, but I think there were around 20 if I remember one of the posts correctly, half of them on loan. Garnacho is a must-buy (or will easily reach the required targets), so we're at 11/20 actually sold, and Sanchez also has an option to buy, if I'm not mistaken. I also know Chalobah and George went to Como and Everton, and of course Cucu and Enzo. As for the latter two — we've been talking about both of them leaving for about a year now, and both publicly expressed at different points of the season, and in different ways, that they wanted out. Cucu would fit this team ridiculously well, so I'll miss him. Enzo, not so much. City will probably get rid of him just as quickly as he arrived if the right club decides to come calling. Bit of a fail on his part. "I want Real Madrid, Madrid is beautiful," then City show some interest and he's immediately off to City. His quote about how he had "always wanted to play for a big club like City" only confirms to me that it's probably better he left. I don't blame him for wanting to leave, but Cucu at least isn't being a c**t about it from a distance, because there's really no need for that. Anyway, we'll survive without both of them. Overall, though, the sales are a 10/10. Absolutely brutal business. Full credit to the board. Selling that much deadwood for a profit? Respect. The incomings are a little more complicated. We've been crying for years that a goalkeeper is the #1 priority, yet it felt like Sanchez was basically cemented as the starter. Alonso comes in, watches one game and goes, "nah mate, off you go." Brilliant. Four managers and two years too late. Every Sunday-league fan could see that Sanchez wasn't good enough for this level, yet he just wouldn't f**king leave the team. Bizarre. There was clearly something going on behind the scenes, and we'll probably never know what. But it's hard for me to believe that every manager before Alonso was simply too stupid and kept playing Sanchez because they liked him. I just don't buy that at this level of football. Bringing in Martinez is TOP, 10/10 signing for me. We desperately needed a goalkeeper. Martinez is an unlikeable character, but f**k it, the guy has always been a very good goalkeeper. Let's see how he does here. Defence: we have the depth, but do we actually have the quality? I've already said that I'm still not entirely convinced we did enough defensively. Okay, Chavarria will cover for Cucurella, but it's difficult to call that a 1:1 replacement. It's a downgrade, let's be honest, but expecting us to replace Cucurella like-for-like was unrealistic anyway. Palestra is fine. Lacroix was a top signing, no complaints there. Overall, there is enough depth. My concern is still the quality, as well as the injury history of some of these players. But defence wasn't really the priority considering we had bigger problems elsewhere. Midfield: this is where I have a few more question marks. Trying to guess whether we genuinely expected Enzo to stay or not is probably pointless. If it was obvious to us that there was a 99% chance he was leaving, the club knew it 400%. I agree that it would have been stupid to throw ridiculous money at some random player on deadline day just for the sake of bringing someone in. But that's exactly why I'm saying: they had plenty of time to sort this out. Even without selling Enzo, we probably should have brought in another midfielder just for comfortable rotation. After Enzo left, even more so. And the fact that we didn't bring anyone in is, for me, a little unexpected. I'm actually disappointed. We all know the names — James, Henderson, Barco, Caicedo, Lavia — and that's fine. But when you take all the injury records into account, Caicedo's current issues, James' history, Henderson being old... we're really gambling here that everything goes our way, at least until January. In hindsight, it's almost a shame we sent Santos out, but I still think it was the right decision to take the €56M rather than keep him around purely for depth. I don't know. It's difficult to be smart about this one. It could be completely fine, or we could be one or two injuries away from being f**ked. We're going to have to put a lot of faith in Barco and hope Lavia and Caicedo stay fit. That's it. Attack: we cleared out the deadwood, brought in Palmer's buddy Rogers and suddenly Palmer looks alive again, and even Neto is somehow playing better. The attack is genuinely really fun. The first three games have been great to watch. Lethal. We're quick on the counter, we're creating a lot of chances and, so far, I really can't complain. Obviously Arsenal's defence this weekend will be a completely different test, so we'll see where we actually stand, but offensively we've looked really good. Pedro is class, Rogers has clicked immediately, Palmer looks like the old Cole again — you just keep waiting for us to explode into another attack from somewhere. I like it. Overall, I'd give the window around an 8.5/10. I like the signings of Lacroix, Rogers and Martinez. I'm sad to see Cucurella go, and to some extent Enzo as a player. I'm absolutely f**king delighted about practically every other departure and sale. Full credit for the business we've done. And since we're here, I also want to touch on the manager and the board. For the first time since the new owners came in, I genuinely feel like we're operating like a big club again. The Chelsea way. Under this ownership we've already spent ridiculous amounts of money and "won transfer windows", but even back then plenty of us were saying: okay, yes, we're buying players, but what we're actually doing doesn't really make much sense beyond spending money at completely unreasonable levels. And over the medium-to-long term, it turned out that we were right. Just look at how much deadwood accumulated. Selling it all for a profit deserves huge credit. But, just as we've been complaining about for years, we completely neglected the short-term plan. We were nowhere. The CWC is still something I don't really know how we managed to win, but whatever — at that point Tosin apparently decided to turn into prime Maldini for one game. Everything else? We were basically just surviving. We weren't anywhere close to making a serious run in the Premier League even once. We weren't winning cups. We played Champions League football once in five years. And now, finally, we've hired a manager who actually knows what he's doing. Not some Liam Who-the-f**k-are-you man-ager Rosinor, not Potter, not whoever else. A guy who has already proven something. On top of that, they finally started treating him like an actual manager. And, to be fair, it looks very much like they actually listened to him. The deadwood we've accumulated over the years was cleared out quickly. The incomings made sense. Everything finally looks like it's supposed to. Respect. This is what we've been asking for as fans for the last five years. Whether this shift in mentality was caused by the fans turning on them week after week, or by all those years of mid-table mediocrity and missing out on European football finally hitting them where it hurts most — in their wallets — who knows. I think it's probably a combination of both. They're not blind, deaf and stupid. We've made a shift in mentality, or at least it looks like we have, and I'm absolutely all for it. What finally convinced them to do it doesn't really matter. As long as it takes the club in the right direction. And while we're talking about a shift in mentality: I genuinely think this squad is good enough to get us back into the Champions League next season. A capable manager is in place. The board finally, and very obviously, seem to trust the guy they've appointed, and they've backed him in building the squad during the transfer window. We're not playing European football either, which could actually work in our favour. So yeah, I'm excited. What do you guys think?

I crave for the comments from white knights telling us to stfu, be patient and trust the project. The situation was predictable years ago.

At this point I’d say we’re really lacking experience. We no longer have the Lampard/Terry/Drogba level of leadership, and instead we’re relying on James and almost Caicedo as our “most experienced” players. Back then we had a core of guys with 100+ big matches under their belt, who knew exactly what needed to be done in those moments. Then you added a player with that extra spark (like Hazard), and that was enough. This squad has an incredibly high ceiling — they’ve already shown many times that, as a collective, they can beat anyone when everything clicks. But our floor is also very low. On a bad day we can struggle against absolutely anyone. These aren’t the occasional off-days where you go to QPR and just lose — what’s worrying is that these dips happen in runs, and it’s not the first time. Last season was identical: the moment we were flirting with a title race, December came and the spiral followed. Keeping the core together and building around it will be crucial, so those experiences can actually settle in. As long as we keep cycling endless talent and 60-million hit-or-miss signings, this is what we’ll get in the league. Even now we’re a nightmare team to face in cup competitions — on the right day we can beat anyone. Yes, the players make mistakes, and yes, Maresca sometimes gets it completely wrong. But personally I wouldn’t overlook the importance of experienced leadership. These “stupid little games” are exactly the ones that end up tipping the scales over a long season. What do you guys think?

Delighted by the performance and the result, but we MUST transfer this to lesser games agains Brighton, Brentford...

We bought every Brighton player and we still can't beat them.

Old Trafford away – it’s been 12 years since our last league win there, and it’s about to be 13. Doesn’t matter how bad United are, we always find a way to mess it up. A lot of the blame is on Maresca, but for me the real turning point was Sanchez. That reckless tackle killed the game before it even started. We’ll never know how it would’ve gone without the red card. Where I do blame Maresca is after the red. The substitutions made no sense – pulling Neto and then Palmer, leaving João Pedro isolated up front with zero support. Then later bringing on George instead of our expensive new signings? It looked like we gave up and decided to play for 0-0 instead of trying to win. Even when Casemiro was sent off and it was 10v10, we never really threatened. We got it back to 2-1 with 15 minutes left, but instead of pushing, we passed the ball around like United were peak Ferguson. One shot on target all game – embarrassing. United didn’t beat us; we beat ourselves. We’re already 7 points behind Liverpool after 5 games. We’ve spent huge money, there’s clear quality in the squad, but it’s not being used properly. Defensive issues weren’t fixed, Colwill’s injury hurts, Sanchez is unreliable, and some signings (like Hato) aren’t even getting minutes. That CWC win just covered up the cracks. This team is toothless, boring, and lacking mentality. If this continues, we’re Europa League level at best. I’m not “Maresca out,” but his in-game decisions are starting to look worrying. And on top of that – still no shirt sponsor after all that PR hype. Finishing a game like this with 1 shot on target is a disgrace.

Was watching the game on local TV and comentator in my country said "We're watching some brilliant football match here". I dissagreed. How was this brilliant? Our long balls almost never landed, Bayern didn't show much apart from last 30 minutes when we looked like we've run out of breath....and I was then wondering, is this just the state of football these days? Because I remember much, much better football games with better passes, more dribbling, tons of shots on target, brilliant saves from the keeper etc. Is it just me, or..? Nevertheless, we were just not up for the occasion yesterday, those are the games that show the real picture of where we are "football wise". And I wouldn't say that this is even that good of a Bayern side!

Do you remember when Vitesse was basically a Chelsea subsidiary? Everyone called them “Chelsea B” back then, because Roman Abramovich was pulling the strings in the background. Officially, the owner was Merab Jordania, later Valery Oyf, but the money was always flowing through Abramovich’s channels. All kinds of Chelsea talents started moving to Vitesse… It looked like a perfect deal – Vitesse got players they could never afford themselves, and Chelsea had a safe place to develop their youngsters. On the pitch, that era was the most successful in the club’s history. In 2017 they won the KNVB Cup – their first ever major trophy in 125 years. They regularly played in Europe, and in the league they were consistently finishing around 4th–6th. For a club that used to be a “perennial mid-table side,” it was like a dream rebirth. But all of it stood on shaky foundations. The club didn’t live off sponsors, ticket sales, or normal business operations – it was fueled by Abramovich’s loans and “gifts” routed through offshore companies. Everything was wrapped in secrecy, with official denials that Roman had anything to do with the club. But later, journalists uncovered that over €100 million had been funneled into Vitesse from his funds. Without that money, they could never have afforded the players they had in their squad. When the war in Ukraine broke out and Abramovich got hit by sanctions, the money tap was shut off overnight. The club was left with practically no income, debts started piling up, and the KNVB launched investigations. That led to a points deduction which cost them their place in the Eredivisie – their first relegation in over 30 years. In the end, the club even lost its license and was on the verge of bankruptcy. Recently they’ve managed to get some kind of license back, but when that was approved they only had 9 registered players – right now Transfermarkt shows exactly 11. For the fans, it’s bittersweet. On one hand they witnessed the greatest moments in the club’s history – a trophy and European football. On the other hand, they now see it was all built on the artificial money of one man. And when that man fell out of favour, the whole construction collapsed. So if you sum it up – Roman took Vitesse higher than they ever could have gone on their own, but when he left, the fall was lower than anyone thought possible. Today the club is trying to recover from a brutal crash, and it’s an open question whether they’ll ever play an important role again like they did in the Abramovich era. Why i posted this in the Todd Boehly topic? I actually started digging into Vitesse’s story again after seeing that our directors tried to buy into Brazilian side Santos (just like they have a part in Strasbourg) – but apparently they got flat-out rejected.

Joao Pedro looks like a top signing so far, but I’d still hold off on calling him “the most complete striker” just yet. Hard to put him ahead of Haaland, Isak, etc. at this point. As for sales – we absolutely smashed the British record. We brought in over £300m from sales and loans. Players leaving include Noni, Nkunku, Felix, Petrovic, Ugochukwu, KDH, Veiga, Broja, Chukwuemeka, Jackson, Amougu, Humphreys, Kepa, Bettinelli, Gilchrist, plus a few others on loan. The biggest positive of this window is definitely Jackson’s departure. The biggest negative has to be Sterling – looks like we won’t be able to shift him easily. No club showed serious interest, even though TM values him at around £10m. The problem is his wages – £320–340k per week – and he’ll likely see out his contract until 2027. He also refuses moves to Turkey or Saudi. Regarding arrivals – Pedro, Delap, Hato?, Estevão all look promising. Gittens, Sarr and Páez are a bit more unknown to me, and Garnacho was a complete shock. I don’t get the priorities here – we went for him before signing a goalkeeper, another defender, or Simons, who we were chasing for two months. Honestly, I’m a bit worried about our attack. It’s rare to sign two strikers in one window, so on paper that looks great, but we’re heading into a Champions League season with just Guiu and Pedro as our main options. When Delap got injured and Palmer was benched, the team already looked shaky. These things are hard to predict, but if Pedro picks up a knock while Delap is still out, we could be in real trouble. Overall, I’d rate this transfer window as good – maybe solid – but definitely not excellent. Liverpool easily “won” the market this summer. If they manage to quickly harmonize the squad and integrate all their new signings, they’ll be dangerous this season already – and certainly next year. Arsenal only gotten stronger.

OFFTOPIC RANT: Liverpool finally pulled off the Isak deal for £130M and broke the English transfer record, unreal. They keep trolling us about “spending a billion,” but they’ve just splashed €500M this summer alone. Of course for them the excuse “we also sold players” is valid, while Chelsea apparently can’t use that line… :) And then there’s the Jackson saga, classic Chelsea soap opera. If we really had an offer of €15M + option to buy (and apparently Bayern were even open to an obligation), I’d have taken that in a heartbeat. I also read we contacted Sunderland and are even thinking about recalling Guiu from loan. Total chaos again, no logic at this club. And let’s not forget Jackson actually wanted to stay and fight for his place – the club were the ones constantly pushing him out. No wonder he’s pissed off. After the international break, coming back to the Bridge is gonna be super toxic. Honestly I don’t see Jackson taking it like a man, keeping his head up and fighting like Chalobah is doing right now. Maybe he surprises us though (doubt).

The refereeing in our match was poor, let’s be honest. For me, excuses like “finally refereeing in our favor” don’t cut it. I can’t even imagine the chaos on the forum if the exact same refereeing went against us – total meltdown. Pedro looks like a fantastic signing so far, while I really don’t get Gittens – nothing special. The man management with George yesterday, plus playing him out of position, was at the very least laughable, if not worse. Delap got injured and will be out for at least 2 months, which is a shame, but stopping Jackson in the middle of Munich, a player who doesn’t even want to be here anymore, and trying to drag him back to the Bridge by force… that’s incompetence of the highest order. It was obvious we were one injury away from mild panic in terms of strikers, yet we did nothing about it. And now, on deadline day, we’re stuck dealing with bloody Jackson and whether or not we’ll actually force him back. We prioritized Garnacho, didn’t properly address the CB situation, and Sanchez is still the goalkeeper. On paper, the transfer window looked good, but when you take a step back, it was chaotic, messy – I can’t even find the right word.

The boys gave everything.

Tonight feels like a bit of a “make-up exam.” I just hope West Ham won’t be too fired up after their humiliation in the first round — and of course, it’s also a London derby. What worries me is that they have Potter now, and I’m sure "his players will give everything".

He deleted all Chelsea-related posts. Over three seasons he played fewer than 30 matches for us, around 2,500 minutes in total, yet we paid £68.5m for him. I was hoping he’d be back from injury this year and make his return, but it’s clear he already knows he’s not in our plans (I assume), which he has now hinted at on social media. Or maybe we're just looking too much into it, time will tell.

United supposedly value Garnacho at £50m, which is way too much – at least double. They want to offload him, he wants out, and only to us, so we clearly have the upper hand. Maybe that’s why talks are dragging – our side doesn’t want to pay up. Best move would be a £20–25m bid on deadline day, or even a loan with United covering part of his wages. Truth is, we don’t even need him that badly. Nkunku was linked with Bayern (they wanted a loan, we want a sale), now Leipzig are reportedly interested. Simmons deal is stuck until we move Nkunku and Jackson. Honestly, just sell – Newcastle might panic-buy Jackson for £50m, which would be a huge profit after getting him for £32m. After Colwill’s injury, haven’t seen any concrete links with new defenders – have you?

Long-time supporter and forum reader here, finally decided to share a few thoughts of my own. The performance today wasn’t great. What worries me most is how slowly we reacted — it was obvious from the first minutes that Palace had prepared for us, but we couldn’t adjust in time. In the Premier League, that’s a must if you want to be champions. The result isn’t ideal, but it’s not a disaster either. Still, it’s another reminder of the problems with Maresca’s system: too slow, attackers left isolated, and little creativity against a compact defence. That has to change if we’re going to succeed.

Hello after a long time. I've been reading regularly but I am not posting as much. Sorry for my english mistakes in advance, it is not my primary language ? And I hope i write this in the right topic.. So my prediction for the following season: KEEPER: Kepa, obviously. DEFENSE: To the left I would give Emerson the advantage over Alonso, but it's nice to have some width in this position. On CB the main man is Luiz, with the unknown long absence of Rudiger, it is likely Christiansen to take his place. How much will Zouma play? The question is - I did not fully follow the previous preparatory games ... Did he play and how? To the right Azpi will be burned-out again, Zappacosta can play cups and get minutes towards the end of the already determined matches in PL and CL. ATTACK: I deliberately skipped the middle, because I have most concerns / combinations there. To the left Pedro and Willian will interchange, the right wing is probably reserved for Pulisic. I would try (at least from the start) with Abraham, replacing him into the classic 65'-70 'with Giroud. How much playtime will Lampard give to Michy if any at all? MIDDLE: If Kante is healthy, he is clearly cemented in the first position. I liked Lampard's first press conference when he laughed and told the journalist that he certainly knows where Kante will play :D Now comes the interesting part. Lampard obviously counts on Kovacic to play regularly next to Kante. He spoke very nicely of him for the past few days and I have the feeling that he can get "cemented" in the first line. Now, how about playing Jorghio behind the striker ?? Or vice versa, Kova?i? behind the striker and Jorghinh next to Kante. Then there is the question where Barkley comes into the equation? Mount is another choice, but I do not think that he will get real chances except for maybe cups and possibly a few minutes in PL and CL. This is how I would do it: Kova?i? near Kante, Jorginho / Barkley behind the striker. Our "creative" Italian with two goals and no assist in the previous season might even work well this way. Similarly, Barkley (because he is too slow in my opinin for the CDM) could be useful in front because he has a good shot from a distance. What do you think? The combination in these positions is really huge, so I really wonder how Lampard will do it. It is true that Kante is not perfectly fit, so from the beginning of the season we can probably expect Kovacic and Jorginho on CDM and Barkley behind the striker.

Say what you want, I think that we should get more than a draw out of this!! We were sooo boring and static today IT'S SAD! I'm not happy, regarding being away at Scousers. We are at the moment THE DEAL and really should've won today! Fabregas should start sinc minute 1 from now on, because when he enters, we actually start to play a little! And even Pedro over Hazard, who's been really poor in recent games!!!

Besides winning, getting massive 3 points and whole lot of self-esteem, I want to see a win, just so Spuds won't have a reason to publish another DVD titled: "How we've stopped Europe TOP side on a winning streak." P.S. Sry for bad english =)

So, we are expecring a win today. No jinx. It's just how it is, we must win this poor Stoke side at home no matter what, good or bad daily form. Plus, what a huge game LIV-MANC is, for us as well. Our win + maybe a draw there and we're 8 and 9 points clear going in the 2nd half of the season. On top of that, EVERY other team has less time to prepare to the next fixture. We play today and on wednesday, Liverpool today and again on monday! Arsenal very similar. So, extra point dropping from competitors are expected, so next 2 good results may be worth more than 6 points. Plus, breaking 4rsenals rekord of 14 wins wold be just a REALLY early 2017 Christmas present. :-) Again, no jinx.

Next is at HOME v Stoke and City plays Liverpool. Our win and a draw there would be fantastic for us!

Good reply, yet i still find this kind of quoting unnecessary. Comming out with #conteout isn't really keeping credibility and keeping the correct approach to a discussion, is it? :) I'm sure the majority of us expected Bat from the start, yet it seems he still isn't quite prepared to be alone up front. This is rather disappointing, he's been around for a while now. Nevertheless, hope we win this one today! Boxing day mirracles had happened before tho..MASSIVE 3 POINTER TODAY!

I hate those people, quoting others stating "You clearly know more that Conte who is with the players all the time and has 11 game winning streak". It's a bloody forum, people are alowed to state their mind. And nobody here is for #ConteOut, stop being childis, FFS.

Well this was a hell of a long wait =) Bournemouth as said before are no pushovers..will be glad to see any kind of win, yet i'm sure 1-0 won't do it today. Hope Michy starts, but we will need a moment of brilliance from let's say Pedro as we needed agains Tottenham to turn it around. This one is massive, despite Bournemouth being the opposite team. I sure hope for no Boxing Day miracles, we sure don't need that today.

So what is going on with his fella? Surely our defense is not near close to being rock solid and stable as it used to be, but that is why we have a "suppose to be" WC goalkeeper on goal line in the first place! I used to laugh at moments when Mignolet saved nearly impossible, and 10 minutes later conceed from an "easy-to-save" situation. But damn, Courtois is not far from the same problem! Truly unbelivable what is happening. I was always very calm when Cech was still in the blue shirt, now i know we are going to conceed every single game! Most possibly from a stupid not even the most sufisticsted playaction of the opposed team! And sry for my english, got a bit rusty through years :-)