Niall1905

Should shut a few up but it probably won’t, some won’t be happy until we see pure perfection for an entire 90 minutes. Great game of football to watch, we responded well in the second half after Wolves playing well in the first. Question it all you want, but the quality of our bench was devastating. Bringing on fresh quality when you could see their drop off was massive

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the players who have had injuries/a lot of minutes were intermittently pulled from team training for individual sessions either

Honest answer? I don't have enough of a clue about business or running a football club to know for sure. I think the level of transfer activity is unsustainable and the over expoloitation of the 'pure profit' players is concerning. But I am also aware that times change, that the way the things were done 5, 10, 20 years ago aren't necessarily the way things are done now. PSR is fairly new, clubs are still finding ways to operate within it. Only this summer we saw the first wave of 'psr deadline' duff deals being done between ourselves, villa and a few others to navigate PSR. Does the way the Blue Co operate fit with how I think a football club should be ran, based on what I have seen from football since I was a child? No. But take a look at the enviornment around us, Brighton for instance. Painted by fans and the media as a prime example of how a business should be run. They have invested heavily this summer in young players (albeit without the long contracts). Who says that over the next few years we don't see other teams begin to adopt this policy? So business wise, until we have categoric proof that it hasn't worked, I refuse to cast judgement on it. Football wise, its a similar boat. First season was awful, second season not much better but we finished 6th. Lets see where we go this year. But to circle back on my issue from my orginal post, my main gripe is the overuse of the critisism against us. You'd think we were the only club in Europe with problems. Funny how Neville and Co gloss over Uniteds failing projects with Ten Haag, which based on their opening day performace is exactly where it was when he took over, despite hundreds of millions of investment. I'm not against people critisising the club. Im against the manipluation of the same facts and the same stories, over and over and over again.

Or maybe Palace turn to Disasi if Newcastle meet the asking price for Guehi

Phew, I was starting to get withdrawal symptoms from the lack of signings over the last few days

Its media reusing already known info to just continue the agenda. If you ask any, non chelsea supporting, football fan about whats going on at Cheslea the two things that they would know are we have loads of players and we have long contracts. Its been used and used and used all summer. Getting bored of it? Well, heres a stat, Chelsea have got 200 years of player contracts on their books (shh say it quietly but its just adding up all the loads of players with their long contracts). When has the cumulative number of contract years on books ever been used as a comparison for any club ever before? I get that we've been seen as badly ran since the takeover but the agenda is wild.

Watched the presser, I actually really like him. Media constantly trying to bait him with the usual massive squad critique and pressing on raheem and conor. Thought he dealt with it well, albeit I don't think he really has any choice other than to be brutally honest, given that the decisions being made are brutal. He's going to ruffle a few feathers this year but its probably going to be what we need, given the current agenda against everything we do

Wish him all the best for the future. Certainly deserved a lot better than the circus that ended up being his transfer but I genuinely think this is the perfect move for him.

I agree completely. I also think back to when he was here and how crazy that end to the season was. It was 100% more chaotic than what we are experiencing right now. Im intrigued and almost excited to see how he will do this time.

I didn't watch any of Felix at Barca last year, so was happy to take the general concencous on here that he didn't do much for them. But then this has come across my feed on twitter. Now I know a highlight reel can make anyone look good, but can you seriously watch this and think he isn't going to give us something this year?

Or we just have enough central midfielders and don’t need a soon to be 34 year old who would top our wage structure

I’d rather swap him for 2 pints of milk and a packet of wine gums to be honest

Oh you just know he is, there isn’t a reality that exists where he doesn’t flop and get used as another stick to beat us with by the media.

They’d be clowns if they did to be fair. Argue he’s better than what we have all you like, we have no room and wouldn’t be able to shift anyone this late on

There we go then, penultimate signing of the summer I’d imagine, maybe last if we can’t get a proper forward sorted. Genuinely just glad it’s coming to an end and hope he can do well. Another that im sure will pay the price for the players he’s perceived to have replaced/enabled to leave by some fans, let’s hope he can prove them wrong

So, if I have this right, you think the best way forward and out of the current sh*t show that the owners, not the players or the manager, have put us in is for the players to show passion by taking a shot in anger? We are sh*t. We have been for some time. We are beyond the point of passion saving us. We showed passion last season, we finished 6th. People still moaned and complained. Our new manager, wether you agree with his hiring or not, has a system and way of playing that involves being patient. Its pretty embarrasing to boo and moan and groan at us passing the ball between defenders in the first game of the season when we are losing by 1 goal to the best team in the world. Even Gary Neville who takes every possible chance to sh*t on the club and the owners said he was impressed that we kept our composure and didn't get baited into playing with emotion, which is exactly what city want when they take the lead. I've said it a million times and ill keep saying it. Moan at the owners, protest, sing about Roman and 'the good old days' all you want, thats fine. But theres zero point booing the team and manager at the start of a new season, its pathetic.

No, but people will make the same mistake in comparing. Lampard and Gerrard could have played together, heck they might have for us if things had gone differently. Could they play together as the 2 centre mids in a 4-4-2 like England tried? No. But would they have been able to in a 3 with a competent deeper sitting player, absolutely. I genuinely think that this Enzo - Caicedo narrative will be gone by Christmas. When they are both the ‘pivot’ the problems present because Enzos defensive awareness is exposed by Caicedos pressing and vice versa. However, you invert the fullback in alongside Caicedo and allow Enzo freedom (not to play as a 10, just freedom) and they both look way better The ‘problem’ we have, is that Lavia looks better than both at the moment and doesn’t deserve to be dropped to allow the above to happen

I think Maresca fell into the mindset of wanting to not get overrun in midfield today against City, especially after the pre season game with the inverting fullback. So rather than play with a more attacking 8/10 like Nkunku (like we saw in pre season with the inverting fullback), he stacked the midfield with 3 more natural central players and deployed the fullbacks as normal. I agree, Enzo being tasked with playing further forward is a mistake, but potentially the only option at the moment for this circumstance. I still belive he will work better in coming weeks against weaker opposition, where an Nkunku drops in and acts as a 10, Enzo will have more freedom as an 8 and one of Lavia and Caicedo will be deeper. It just whether we have the balls to stick with that in bigger games against the like of City, as its clear to see he struggles further forward.

The meltdown is genuinely mad, I must have been watching a different game to half the fanbase as I thought we were alright, uninspiring but not awful. Fairly scrappy Haaland chance and a Sanchez howler cost us. We wasted multiple very good goalscoring situations. There was about a combined 10cm in 2 situations away from us being 1-0 up at half time.

Its the managers first game. I made a post elsewhere previously about needing to be careful with how quickly this season turns toxic. If there is ANY chance of this working, Maresca deserves at least a little patience. By all means demonstrate against the owners. But groaning at a backwards pass when we are 1-0 down to the best team in England for the past decade is obsurd when its a managers first competitive game and, for the most part, we held our own. Even if this version of holding our own is less chaotic than that chaos ball Poch had us playing last year.

That was uninspiring, City were comfortable but we had chances to win that. Many predicted we would get battered, we didn’t. Even if Coty weren’t at full strength, we knew that going in. People still thought they’d do us 4/5-0. Our season isn’t going to be defined by today, but Thursday needs to show a big improvement to get things moving. There were groans and moans from the stadium already today.

Yikes, just one normal day at this club is all I ask! Whatever your thoughts on Sterling, the Chilwell, Chalobah, Gallagher situations set the precedent for us being very cut throat on outgoings.

I think it’s probably a case of it would have been better for Chelsea this season to keep him but it’s better for big les (and Chelsea long term) if he goes out and gets some decent minutes

I have to admit, my only real issue with this is how publically Maresca has done it. Does nothing to strengthen our negotiations with clubs and does nothing for the player if we end up not being able to sell him. I think he’s been a good player for us and deserves better than that. But as mentioned above, we are going to have to be cut throat with decisions over the next 2 weeks. I don’t agree with the sentiment that we should find a way to bring Chilwell into the side. I wonder if Bayern ends up being an option considering Davies is supposedly running down his deal

Yeah that’s right, 4 point deduction for transfers outside your allotted! you got the right attitude though, best way to learn is just give it a go and try things out! You’ll do much better than the likes of me overthinking everything!