Deino

JT gives a tactics lesson. Hmm . .

Talk about minerals, nothing like talking tactics in a room full of trophies.

Absolute nonsense.
Lahm, Alaba, and Kimmich are generational outliers, not templates. Bayern didn’t “convert defenders into midfielders every three years” because the roles are interchangeable; they did it because those players had elite midfield traits long before the positional switch. Lahm was basically a midfielder in disguise and is the smartest player he's ever coached, per Guardiola. Alaba played everywhere growing up. Kimmich was a 6 before he was a full‑back.
A CB in a high line still plays with the entire game in front of him. That’s not midfield, and it’s nowhere close to operating as a midfielder. Pretending those roles overlap is just ignoring the fundamentals. Midfield success depends on things you can’t shortcut. Anticipation, tempo control, technical ability, constant scanning, and the intelligence to solve pressure in tight spaces. These aren’t traits any defender can “pick up”. They’re core midfield behaviours that defenders simply don’t develop by default, and your example of 3 generational players proves as much.
Acting like a CB can step into midfield and replicate that because of modern positioning is, frankly, farcical. You’re treating one of the most cognitively demanding roles on the pitch as if it’s a plug and play skill set. It isn’t, and no amount of tactical buzzwords makes it so. If you were even remotely right, Van Dijk would already be a world-class #6, Pep would have kept Stones at DM permanently, and the TAA in midfield experiment wouldn't have been abandoned the very moment it started.

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?

As far as I am concerned, Enzo has now moved on and is no longer our issue. Ultimately I think we got a good price for him. It will be interesting to see how his City career goes. He is surrounded by good players there but they have to deal with the post-Pep era and I think that may prove to be challenging. I reckon ultimately he still wants to move to La Liga.

If the player didn't want to come, he wouldn't have bothered to do a last minute medical

More along the lines of 4 steps forward and a stepped on a Lego moment

Even when it had nothing to do with them, they still want the spotlight

Even when it had nothing to do with them, they still want the spotlight

I agree that our midfield is weaker than last season. Barco and Henderson looked like great signings when they were squad players that raised the overall floor, but we will go into this season without any of our first-choice midfielders from the last two seasons. However, I don't think that Alonso or the board should be let off so lightly by the 'squad not good enough' approach. We scarcely have a game a week for most of this season. We should be competitive for the title and comfortable for 3rd, anything else is a sideways step at best.
We do have enough quality in James, Lavia and the others to maintain good performances at least until January. Only Santos is a real loss. Fernandez has no role in Alonso's system, he is unwilling to play as a deeper midfielder and insists on playing as a second striker. His role is usurped entirely by Rogers, Palmer and Estevao.

I am more worried about striker. Pedro has been crucial to our system and it's unclear whether Welbeck will offer even a similar reference point for the attack. Welbeck also has a shaky injury history himself so it's likely we are going to see Rogers, Estevao or Neto as a false 9 at some part of the season because Emegha is not the answer.

He had 3 years to prove himself, the club had punted better players for less

I think he'll be a good striker, just not with us

He's like a Lavia clone, had a lot of injuries too iirc

Forest will sacrifice Gibbs-White for the greater good. Alessandro Delapiero has to play.

He's like a Lavia clone, had a lot of injuries too iirc

He's like a Lavia clone, had a lot of injuries too iirc

We really need 2 midfield signings, CMs that can press, tackle and win 2nd balls to recycle our waves of attack.

He's on the short side, as are Barco and Caicedo. I'd like to see some big lumps of granite in the midfield.

And the Best news is I don’t believe he got any traffic citations driving to Stamford Bridge

Was at a beer festival with mates today but thankfully the game was on so managed to watch the majority of it. Can't see us having too many 0-0's this season!
Great 3 points. Brighton are a decent side and will beat a lot of teams this season so a win is a win, but disappointing to hang on like we did, when the result could have been a lot more comfortable.
But very happy with how things are looking. Biggest positives:
Front 3. So exciting to watch and we will cause anyone problems.
Martinez. He won't be happy to have conceded 3 on his debut but he did well and will stop me from having a heart attack a few times every game. So long Sanchez...................
We have some good squad options. Bench looks a lot stronger now with the likes of Welbeck and Barco and it was great to see Josh get on again.
Things are nicely set up for the Arsenal game next week. Sure, we will need to defend a lot better but we can hurt them.
Happy Days!

I was at the game. Was a real cracker but boy do we lose concentration. Win is a win that is most important. The first half hour or so was magnificent and then we got sloppy. I am slightly worried though. It seems Alonso is not focused on possession which is fine but both games in league so far seems to be based on us outscoring opposition which is exciting to watch but if we play a better team then god knows what could happen. It is quite relief that Mitoma, Minteh, Hinshelwood and Rutter were all injured because they were really wasteful, as were we.
To the game itself, Pedro defo MOTM. I thought Palmer, apart from his goal was really bad. He was getting caught out defensively and had no way near the same influence he did on Monday night. But we got the win so I am happy. Let's pray that Caicedo is ok for next week because that is our real challenge now and will tell a lot of where we currently are at.

At today's game.

Let’s be honest, Honest is honestly a great player. He won’t displace Lacroix, but if he plays honestly, he’ll get there. Honestly.

JP is a fantastic baller

His highlights showed really good stuff. Total package, if he translates that to the Prem, we may have a Fabinho+Kante hybrid