Blue2

I think a total squad overhaul is a good idea, but after the clownshow from last summer I wouldn't be to confident about the owners pulling it off to strenghten the squad without totally overpaying and offering disproportionately high contracts, blowing up our wage structure even more than it already is. I mean for example if the rumors are true that the club is ready to offer Kanté a new three year deal for the same wages he is on from a contract he signed in 2018 when he was one of the best players in his position and a fresh WC winner, while he will be 32 years old at the end of the season with having missed minimum half a year through injury, to me that is clearly an argument against them knowing what they're doing. No disrespect to Kanté but commiting huge wages to an incredibly injury prone player in his thirties would be madness. The fact that the club regressed that much (Tuchel overperformance aside) in the last years imo is mostly based on the lack of financial principles and bad decisions on the transfer market. I really hope with the new 'transfer specialists' in charge that there will be a significant improvement in that regard.

I won't deny him underperforming, but I think everybody should be able to understand that the problems at this club go above his head too, so I kinda fail to understand the toxicity from parts of the fanbase towards him. I mean if you support the club, then why would you want it to practically burn about 100mio, which it would mean if the owners sack him now, before the club has any chance profiting from signing him at all. Yes, the current form statistics are really bad and there is a clear negative momentum which we all can see, which he has to find solutions for to stop and to get results, but I don't see him as the culprit for the current crisis, so as long as we aren't in clear danger of relegation in this constellation, I don't think it makes strategically sense to sack him, pay him off and sign another manager just to end up midtable or even in the bottom half of the table anyway.

I voted for 'No, he should be given more time', because of some of the reasons already stated in this topic. Some of the criticism towards him I agree with also, but I disagree with the mindset of the people who want him to get sacked in this situation. I mean guys how about having some realistic expectations about the clubs situation, just because performance and resultswise Potter so far is a downgrade on Tuchel, there is no reason to think that Potter can have no positive effect on the club in the longterm. With the owners having a longterm strategy which should suit Potter's profile, how would it be beneficial to the club if he gets sacked, because of a results crisis which is clearly influenced by an injury crisis, players underperforming and a squad quality problem? Even if Potter has underperformed in some matches and probably will do so with this squad until the end of the season, I would still prefer if the owners back him and have a proper plan which they follow than act in a volatile manner.

Was my sentence grammatically wrong? I meant it like this 'Based on the lack of progression in our performances(under Potter), I see no indication that Tuchel was the problem for the bad performances (under himself) and no indication that Potter is better suited to managing this group of players than Tuchel was either.' Sorry I made a mistake, goodnight.

I am in the pro Potter camp but I answered with 'no', because objectively at this point in time there seems to be no progression in our performances which would indicate that Tuchel was 'the problem' or that Potter is better suited to manage this group of players.

I have to disagree with you on this post, I see it contrary. We signed him to be our main man in offense, this is definitely what the wages we pay him indicate, so with that comes a natural expectation that he performs to a certain standard, which in the majority of matches he doesn't do. He just seems to be coasting through matches, he isn't the only one, but he is the topearner of the squad and the player with the most playing time for us so far this season and he is offering very little on the pitch, but somehow you have the opinion that he is unfairly critized for his noshows, are you his agent or something? Based on the sample size of his performances until now, everyone should agree that the club made a massive misjudgement with signing him and putting him on a 17m annually contract for 5 years. Just 4 months into his contract and the club has to make plans about finding a way to shift him already and the worst thing about it is that it was predictable that this would happen. Like somebody else already said 'He is just this seasons Lukaku.'

I called the stupidity of this transfer out before it happened and so far in the majority of the matches he hasn't looked like an upgrade on Werner or Pulisic at all imo. He had a good start scoringwise, but since the national team break in September his performances are really poor and he looks like a player who is declining in ability as well, what were concerns about him on here too before we signed him. If you take into account the details of this transfer he definitely has the potential to be one of our worst transfers in club history. I hope that we move him on next summer, because the value for money just isn't there like with Werner, but this is probably easier said than done with his grotesque contract. And like @axman2526 I sense from his demeanor too, that he is someone with an overinflated ego.

I find some of the critics he gets on here extremely harsh, I mean he loses for the first time at the tenth match into his tenure against a team which he build for the past three years and people call for him to be sacked. Why? Because he isn't Tuchel? Because he tinkers a lot? Or is it just sarcasm? It is clear that the mismanagement at this club predates Potters tenure here by far and you can see that he is a good manager, therefore I fail to understand the thought process around the negative opinions about him. What are these based on? He got an unbalanced squad six matches into the season shortly after the transfer window closed to work with, was hired as a longterm manager and his career resume to date indicates that he is a builder type of manager, but some people want him gone already because he experiments with the squad and this leads to some underperformances, please guys have some patience. Based on his profile the only way signing him in the first place makes sense, is if you give him time to build, even if it means underperformance (missing out on the CL next season) in the short term, so it's highly likely that the owners have calculated that in the decision to sign him as manager, if they have a data driven approach. I really would like to know, who the people that think his tenure here will be a failure, want to have as the manager, or explain why they disapprove him that much after not even two month of him being in charge of the team.

@Term_X I agree you have to give Napoli praise for the way they made business on the market this summer. They sold their topearner(Koulibaly) and let their other two topearners(Insigne, Mertens) plus the majority of their older players leave for free, replaced them effectively via good scouting, made a small profit on the market, lowered the cost of their squad significantly and improved as a team, kudos to them.

The youth league match against Salzburg is shown on the Chelsea homepage.

His contract at Brighton expires next summer, if Potter wants him and we can get him on a free, why not? He isn't a bad player and has played over a hundred matches for Potter, so knows his system. If he would accept moderate wages, a medium length contract and a role as a squad player, it could be worth a try.

It definitely comes from the wish of the media for an english elite manager, so it shouldn't be surprising that the media are happy when an english manager gets appointed at one of the top clubs. I can understand the appeal an english manager at a top club has to the media while no english manager has won the Premier League or the Champions League and I don't see a problem that it's this way either, I mean that the media perceives him positively. Hopefully he can change the fact that no english manager has won both of the big titles in his time here, if it isn't to much to ask of him.

The reports or media speculations out there indicate that Tuchel wasn't sacked because of our performances on the pitch, definitely not solely, but because the owners assessed him deficiencies in corporate aspects of his job, which they seem to judged that unsuited to the way they want to run the club, that they decided to sack him and the fact that they hired in Potter a manager with a similar style of football, imo emphasizes that. Of course that is speculation and it is a bold move to sack a top manager because of off pitch issues, but if they analyzed data which indicate that Potter can offer a similar system to Tuchel and an improvement on the current performances under Tuchel, plus they assess Potter to have more of a company man personality, thus is more suited to be in line with the way they want to run the club than I can understand why they made this decision, even if it's ungrateful and apaphetic towards Tuchel. Just because Potter isn't proven at the top level yet doesn't mean that he is a massive downgrade on Tuchel either, if he turns out to be a good fit for us, the club should be fine and that's what matters.

I would've liked Tuchel to stay, but simultaneously approve the fact that we have given a chance to a highly rated english manager to prove himself at top level. The fact that the owners payed his release clause and signed Potter on a five year contract should mean that they are totally convinced by him and and hopefully back him even through periods of underperformance when they occur. Even if it isn't Tuchel, I still would like us to try a longterm manager approach and profilewise Potter should be suited for that and on paper his playing system should fit our squad too, so I'm quite positive with this appointment.

I voted for Potter, because I think of the named Managers in this poll, he is by far the most interesting profilewise and the other 3 have clear red flags imo, plus he will be our new manager so I don't want to jinx him via voting for another option.

I want to say that I share the overall sentiment of the majority of the fanbase towards his sacking and my reaction to reading the news was like: "WTF, NO! This must be one of the most ridiculous sackings of all time, this is even more ruthless than Roman." I really liked Tuchel as our manager and think he did an overall great job in his tenure at Chelsea and even if our performances this season were quite bad from a football quality pov, I don't think the results were that bad, that it would've warranted such a ridiculously early sacking, based on the results during his 18 months here before. Just seven competitive matches into the season and not even a week after the transfer window closed, while almost half of the outfield players of our squad are new to the squad and I don't know how many of our transfers just signed because of Tuchel's recommendation in the first place. I mean if this was really preplanned by Boehly, why would've we signed Aubameyang, who basically came here based on his relationship to Tuchel? Why have we sold/loaned some players because the manager didn't want them or because they wanted to flee from him, when they could've been fancied by the next manager if Boehly knew this was gonna happen? Such planning and decisionmaking seems schizophrenic crazy to me and I would even call it treacherous towards Tuchel, if he wasn't inaugurated about his sacking beforehand. Towards the players that would've been very sneaky as well, if they came to work under Tuchel. If nothing significant happened recently and the new owners really led him on to think he was their manager, so he bridges the start of the season period just to get stabbed in the back and schockingly sacked, these owners act like scumbags and this should be pointed out. I would've trusted Tuchel to overcome this period and stabilize our performances, because he is a top manager and the negative patterns weren't something to bad that couldn't be recovered imo, but now the decision has been made and I hope the next manager will be a good fit. I wish Tuchel the best and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if he ends up at one of our domestic rivals next, or even at Real Madrid after Carlo retires.

I am not sure if I'm in a minority with this opinion, but imo the ref made the right decision, i think it was a clear foul from Bowen on Mendy, because the contact was diliberately initiated by Bowen and if you don't judge the situation as if Mendy acted hurt after the contact was made, which one can basically just assume, the ref has to judge it as that Mendy got kicked and taken out of play and it happened before Cornet had the shooting opportunity, which makes it a foul. I would say the only reason there is any controversy is because pundits acting like it was a horrendous call. If you then see the match today between United and Arsenal with the 'foul' on Eriksen being enough to disallow a goal over VAR review in favor of United, there really is no argument to act as if the call to give the foul on Mendy is an outrageous decision. I would judge the controversial ref decisions this matchday like this, van Dijk red card foul(wrong), Coutinho goal disallowed(wrong), Newcastle goal disallowed(wrong), Leeds penalty appeal(should be a freekick), Arsenal goal disallowed(50:50), West Ham goal disallowed(right).

I fully agree with this part, it seems as if we as a club have no principle for the way we act on the market and that is the reason why we waste so much money on bad transfer dealings. I don't see how Casadei, Carney and Zakharyan should have a higher value than Gilmour at this point in their careers, Gilmour is two years older than the others but is clearly more proven, has over 2000 minutes premier league experience was given MotM awards for us in two matches against Liverpool and Everton and one time for Scotland against England if I remember right, is a scottish international, but for some reason we sell him for a lesser prize than we signed Casadei and Carney for and are offering for Zakharyan, on the same contract length with Casadei and Zakharyan at the point of the transfers too, Carney's contract was even shorter, but somehow he is worth double the amount of money as Billy on the market? If we really sell Gilmour for such a small fee, I hope we will have at least a rebuy option and a fifty percent sell on clause or something, otherwise I think we are absolute idiots for selling him that cheap, because I think based on potential he could be a top player in the right system.

I like Tuchel and think he deserves to be backed based on his overall results for us in the 20 months he's been here, when he came here nobody thought we would be challenging for the Champions League in this season, but he and his staff revitalised our team and made us win the title on merit. Last year we had an overall good league campaign with the circumstances in mind, won the Super Cup & CWC, reached both national cup finals, where unlucky to lose both on penalties, imo we should've won the league cup on merit but didn't because of bad refereeing & our incapability to take our chances, plus in the Champions League we were eliminated because of individual mistakes. I am critical of him too and think that he has to improve certain aspects of his management, like player assessment, mental preparation of the players, ingame management, player selections, squad management and our playing style. In his time here so far he has proven that he can make us a competitive team, I don't think sacking him because we have a bad phase at the moment would solve our problems at all and am glad to see that the majority here think so too.

Eventhough I rate Cucurella, I must say I agree that the numbers look bad from a financial pov. Add-ons included this will be a transfer record for a fullback and we let Brighton quadruple the price they paid just last summer for him, after a good but not great season. Honestly I think the initially reported 50m valuation was fair and generous of us to let Brighton triple their initial investment for him after one season, plus a replacement will probably cost them max around half of that, so without a doubt it should have been possible to negotiate a fee in this pricerange. If the numbers are true, it kinda looks like Boehly just pays whatever fee the other club wants, if we want their player, so i could see us pay the 80m Leicester are reported to want for Fofana next. If this happens we could be at expenditure of around £240m with having almost no income made on the transfer market and then maybe are still not done either, it would be kinda wild if we break our own transfer record in the first transfer window under the new ownership. What do you guys think will we break it?

I would pay Frenkie the sum Barca owes him(17m€?) to convince him to join us, because I don't think he'd leave them without getting payed that and I rate him as a top player who I think would fit our system and Barca's situation aside Frenkie has a longterm contract there and his market value at the website transfermarkt is estimated at 60m€. How much could we get for Azpi & Alonso realistically anyway in the last years of their contracts with them wishing for a move to Barca? In this aspect I would just respect the wishes of one club legend and another good player for us and rate the overall transfer fee players included for Frenkie at something like 80m€, plus we would get a good attacker in Depay for free, who I could see functioning in our system as a squad player. I can understand that maybe the 50m€ cash fee to Barca is kinda high, but realistically at what number would they accept a fee and we would get a good deal out of it? Their situation aside, I don't think that Barca would sell one of their highest valued players without getting some good cash out of it.

@HazardousChoice If you aren't trolling, can you maybe explain to me why do you think this would be a negative deal from our pov?

Maybe we could offer something like this: 50M€ + Azpi & Alonso + we pay de Jong's deferred wages for de Jong and Depay If we could convince Frenkie to join I think this would be a deal which suits all parties, Barca apparently negotiates with Depay to let him go for free and he would probably do that if he could join another top club, Azpi & Alonso want to go there, we search for a striker and have the need for a quality central midfielder with the contracts of Jorginho & Kanté expiring next summer and Barca gets needed cash, two players they are interested in, plus two players of the books which helps them registrate their new players. Antipathy for Barca aside, what do you guys think, would you do this deal?

With Alonso wanting to leave and Chilwell returning from a big injury, there is a clear need for us to sign someone for the position and like I said Cucurella is qualitywise probably the best player available for us to realistically get for the position in this window, he is 24, played a good season in the Premier League, has good versatility and looks like a stylistic fit to our system, yes we pay premium like we often do for transfers, but from the clubs pov we pay premium for a potential improvement to our squad, like with Sterling and Koulibaly. I do think with our league campaign last season in mind, it is necessary for us to have enough cover for our wingback positions if we want to challenge for the title. Of course we could sign someone cheaper, but if Cucurella is our top option for LWB and the player Tuchel wants, should we really skimp over 30% overpay on the fee if we assume 40m the sum City priced him at would be his market value? From a sporting pov I find it good to see that Boehly backs Tuchel in the market, at least until now I don't think we had a big error of judgement in the market this window.

I think Cucurella would be a good signing, because like Koulibaly he is qualitywise probably the best player we could realistically sign for his position(LB,LWB) this window and with Alonso wanting to leave and questionmarks about Chilwell fitnesswise it is definitely a position we need to strengthen, even if the price is premium, but maybe his wages aren't to crazy, plus with his versatility he should be a good fit for our system. As long as we get a moderate buyback clause for Colwill into his transfer to Brighton, 40m(20m net) sounds definitely like a good price if he evolves as expected, this sounds like a good deal for all parties involved. With Koulibaly/Emerson/Cucurella for LCB and Cucurella/Chilwell/Emerson and maybe Kenedy for LWB, our left side defensively should be set for the season.