meta4man

Colwill, Hato, Acheampong ---keeping
Adarabioyo, Fofana -----probably keeping
Sarr, Anselmino, --- out on loans
Chalobah, Disasi, Badiashile ----being sold

Stones would be a better addition than LaCroix imho

Best mates with Palmer apparently so we can finally move Tosin on.

Reggie Walsh is the future for the Chelsea midfield alongside Caicedo.

Mistake.

We saw Dave after his last game for the club, it happened randomly. A couple of hours after our/his last game of the season at the bridge we had been for a munch and a few beers the streets were almost clear still a few fans here and there and he came along in a lovely Bentley. Everyone immediately recognised him and started singing Azpelaquta (excuse the spelling I just called him Dave)we want you to stay, he opened his window and was literally in tears saying I wish I could but it’s time to go home. For me he is a club legend.

Yeah it's not a coincidence. No leadership means no accountability, but we also have an inexperienced management who do not want leadership because it threatens their ill-gotten authority. The club has the culture of an American frat-boy start-up, not a serious or competitive sporting institution. Were this mob in charge in the early 2000s, they would have continued with Jody Morris as their poster boy and sent the careers of Terry, Lampard and Gudjohnsen down with his in the toilet.

Hato had 100+ games for A**x before he came, not comparable to Acheampong. Josh was hardly afforded a chance last season, perhaps we would have fared better if we started him over cabbages like Gusto.

Garnacho's signing is evidence of what @Bob stark has pointed out, that the only "data" that actually matters to our Five Fools are wages and ages. The idea that this club engages some sort of sophisicated scouting or 'moneyball' approach is an utter lie.
Garnacho was statistically a bad fit. Even putting aside his actual output, which could be excused because of his age and Man U's poor overall performances, the SDs knew that Maresca's system needed wingers who could win 1vs1 for it to work. Garnacho was statistically one of the worst in Europe at this particularly metric. He is very good at one particular thing, which is running on to through-balls off the shoulder or on the counter-attack, but Maresca's system did not play that way. The comments earlier in this thread show that this is far from hindsight.
What the Five Fools did see was:
A young player coming from a big club, with both CL and PL experience
Relatively low wages
Exploitable contract situation ie. player wanted out, so limited fee
In other words, they were looking purely at his resale value. I would bet my last dollar that every analyst at the club would have been knocking down Winstanley's door, only to be told that it would be "taken under advisement".
What they didn't seen coming was Gittens and/or Neto being so abysmal that Garnacho needed to be the first choice for that position, meaning all his weaknesses were completely exposed and the team suffered. The plan would have been to see him average 10 G/A over a couple of seasons then hock him off at age 23, where he was young enough to be considered potential but would come with bags of PL experience. In essence he was another Madueke gambit, a squad player bought for around 30-40m who gets sold with a premium (in this case, being English + PL experience).
I don't really hold any enmity for Garnacho, because what everyone said would happen did happen. The limited player performed exactly within his limitations, I can't blame him for that. It was Chelsea who decided to knowingly sign him.

Actions have consequences - unless you're a sporting director at Chelsea, I suppose.

I think over the seasons, many a CFC supporter would have had an irrational dislike of certain Chelsea players. Sometimes it just can't be helped. Could be they're not very good, perhaps keeping one of your favourite players out of the team. Previously played for a hated club. Maybe just a stupid haircut. Whatever.
Now we have this current crop of players and there are just. way too many to choose from. But since Sterling left, I think that Gusto has become No.1 for me. I just cannot see the point of him. He offers nothing. Keeps Josh out of the side AND he has a f**king stupid haircut. Yes, there are plenty of contenders who wind me up for various reasons but Gusto - f**k I want to see him gone.

Genuinely think that Mhueka is a better choice, regardless of his young age.

At least a manager with Aura and record on the field and touchline, compares to the last guy we had ☹️ It's progress, now make it real by giving him some real power, instead of trusting the 5 snake oil salesmen SD

Get Stones or Senesi on a free.
Get Goretzka on a free.
Have Jackson compete with Pedro.
Give Quenda a good run at LW, have Gittens + Derry as options.
See if at all Real would be interested in an Enzo/Tchouameni swap deal.
Van Hecke or Antonio Silva as a priority CB.
Get a competent GK to compete with Sanchez.

Like there is just so much reasonable things we can to get this club at the very least competitive again without breaking the bank.

Makes me laugh people holding up the WCC as some kind of all in triumph for Maresca, completely ignoring the complete cluster f**k in the Flamengo game, how sh*te we were v Palmeiras until Cole Palmer decided to completely ignore his pathetic tactics, struggling past Fluminense thanks to 2 stunners from Pedro.
We beat PSG and he deserves credit for that game for changing his tactics to surprise them, but then decided to just ignore how well that worked and revert back to his tedious and cowardly nonsense as soon as the league season started.

It’s actually mainly on that odious little c**t Chris Bryant who bought it to Parliament to seize all Sir Romans assets.

But it was Boris Johnson the PM when the government seized Chelsea from him, if I remember correctly.

The US specifically told the UK government leave Roman alone as he’s mediating between Ukraine and Russia but the one time you want that 🤡 Boris to actually not follow local pressure he does.
This is all on the clown Boris and his Tory party.

Before I kicked the radio across the room, at least 2 callers to TalkSport said our owners WILL get it right. They both gave the same reason why it's an inevitably.
"Those guys are very wealthy, you don't get that rich if you don know what you're doing"
AND this is an explanation of why people think that way.....
Psychological Biases
The Halo Effect: This is a cognitive bias where our overall impression of a person (e.g., "they are rich") influences how we perceive their other traits, such as intelligence or character. If someone is successful in business, we automatically, though incorrectly, assume they are competent in other areas like personal finance, relationships, or politics.

Just World Fallacy: People often believe the world is fair and that outcomes are deserved. Therefore, they assume that someone with high wealth must have gathered it through superior skill, hard work, and "knowing what they are doing," rather than luck, inheritance, or exploitation.

Xavi and Xabi Alonso were never in contention, just like Fermin Lopez was never being considered.
They already know who they're getting, it's all media smokescreens to keep the fans in check.

Billionaires are generally the most fragile skinned people you will ever meet in your life. They sh*t on people because they have thin skins. They would rather pay off politicians and subvert functional society than face criticism. It is why they invest in suppressing protest and unionisation across the world, because reputation is the one thing that money can't easily buy. American tech venture capitalists are an even more hypersensitive subset of the above.
If you look up their history, their strategy is essentially riding the luck of being in the right place at the right time. They buy 'distressed' assets. They were one of the PE vultures that bought up cheap & failing companies during the GFC then sold them at a profit at the first sign of upturn. In other words, they profited off the back of the American taxpayer bailouts.
They don't have a demonstrated history of 'new strategy' bringing up a firm as they claim to be doing with football.

More protests planned.

As a footballing lawyer once said .. "I arrive for meetings in a black cab ... the player arrives in a Ferrari ... and his agent arrives in a helicopter ... 😎

That was him, there was a young Italian striker too, Borini maybe?

This is the most spineless Chelsea team I've seen in my lifetime.
And you know we won't see Jesse Derry for a while now.
We don't buy or reward performance or effort we pick players based who who the SD's want to play.
That's the reason the likes of Gusto, Garnacho, Enzo, Neto keep getting picked regardless of how badly they perform.
Players like Josh, Derry, Sarr, Hato etc.. have little chance of ever succeeding here when the team selection isn't even fair.

Van Anholt?