SwedishEntity

Its a non-question. Don't think she would accept that going from Chelsea Women to Chelsea would be a step up.

I'm here. I see you guys got a good pit of panicking going. Not quite sure exactly what you thought this last month to look like, considering the circumstances. I think the latest set of teams shows the value of long-term thinking. Took years for Arteta and Eddie Howe pretty much didn't win any of the 8 or 9 first games in Newcastle (until they had a decent transfer window). If you want long term success you have to be patient. Chelseas success depends on whether Boehly allow Chelsea fans to run the club or not. Obviously the club is doomed if he listens to your opinions, as in any football club.

It was a poor performance and some bad tactical decisions were made from GP. Such is life. Most managers suffer heavy defeats against smaller clubs at some point or another. It happened to all of the most successful PL managers. Obviously Chelsea fans are widely known to be some of the most impatient and angry fans out there and it remains to be seen if Boehly is going to run the club in a rational way or according to how fans want it (sack the manager and sell all the players after each defeat). If he's patient, everything will turn out alright with GP as the manager. You might not think that way now, but you'll realise it in time - if Boehly is a fan of time.

What a dire performance

Maybe the truth is somewhere in between the extremes: Jorginho is not going to carry this team to Premier League titles but he's not completely sh*te either. It is a good player. He got some great abilities - reading the game and connecting the defense with the midfield/attacking players. He got some less desirable qualities - not really a ball winner and lacks the physicality to deal with certain players. As long as he's in the club and there's not too many options - he will get significant amounts of game time.

Ok Yeah in any football team there are a couple of players (or other individuals such as the managers, owners or directors of football) seen as scapegoats and if it was just possible to get rid of those, we'd live in Narnia and every game would be perfect. Bit silly. But it is what it is.

Sarri, Lampard, Tuchel and Potter all played with Jorginho. I suppose there is a 50/50 chance that none of these know nothing about football and that you know everything, but I'm leaning in the other direction tbh. With Kante injured, Kovacic struggling with niggles and Gallagher sick - even the mythical manager who would have Chelsea win 38 out of 38 league games (being the first one to live up to expectations) might have played with Jorginho. He's not Gods gift to football but it is a good player.

While Thiago SIlva is old as feck, he is also pure class and if he can accept maybe getting less game time, I can easily see GP wanting to keep him for another year. Young defenders like Fofana, Cucurella and Chalobah can probably learn endless amounts of things from him. But of course he's also a little bit of a problem as a lot of times you're going to have to play three central defenders. If you have play four at the back, you need pacy defenders because your main vulnerability will be runs between the CBs and FBs - something the extra man at the back deals with. The others you mention are quite likely indeed players GP might not want around for long. Surprised to hear that Jorginho might be negotiating a new contract since I don't really think he has the mobility and physicality to be part of the mid-term plans for the club.

You looked sh*te six months ago, you looked sh*te two months ago and you kind of look sh*te now. The downside with building a squad with about a dozen 30+ players is that they're not going to get better - they're going to get worse. You can sack and hire managers all day and it won't change the fact that you get a downwards spiral if your best players are aging. Not Tuchels fault and not Potters fault, but the main reason why you've struggled: a poorly built squad. There's quite a bit of potential in it, but if you want to win sh*t today, you need players who are good today rather than yesterday or tomorrow. If you can't get that, you should go with what might be good tomorrow - and as the Aubameyang transfer signalled, its not how the club has done it up until now. Chalobah and Gallagher will be key players before this season is over, along with obvious ones such as Mount and James. Broja is the right kind of player, but is further away from being able to be the main striker in Chelsea. Havertz got potential to be a key player in a GP side, as do Pulisic who is a lot better than some people here seem to think. One trick ponys like Sterling and Aubameyang are not flexible and/or intelligent enough to be as adaptive as GP requires his players to be. Generally speaking 3-4 of the 30+ players would optimally after the next summer but it is far more difficult to sell players than to buy ones. Ziyech is the right kind of player, but if you're an immature person you're not getting old in a GP team. I imagine GP is fairly happy with the keepers and defenders, though in the long run he might want another option for James (Gallagher will most certainly play there a lot this season) to be able to move Connor into midfield. In midfield I think he wants a defensive midfielder who brings a bit more ball-winning ability than Jorginho and up front another winger option as well as a new centre forward would probably be ideal, but might be difficult as long as Aubameyang is around. Mind, I don't really know what you've got in your academy, but with GP around, the academy will be more relevant and not just you gathering players to sell or loan elsewhere. There's a lot of work to do but the potential is exciting. Just ship a few of the older players and bring in a handful of reasonably young but fully developed players and the team should be able to challenge for the Premier League title in two years. It won't go any faster than that.

Does it matter where they were before or is the quality that matters? The very established and pretty much legendary Hasselbaink was thrown out to make room for a certain striker who had played one season of top football over in the far-worse-than-PL Ligue 1. Turned out alright. Petr Cech came from a mid-table club in France; didn't have much negative impact on his quality, did it? And Di Matteo's most recent manager job before taking over Chelsea was with WBA. I have a vague memory he won a title or two for you. Of course it is natural and healthy to criticise players and managers but the argument "he was in a worse club before so he must be sh*t" is a pretty bad one.

This is correct. He's bang overrated here though - currently, that is. He has an awful lot to learn and made some very poor decisions on the pitch against Brentford. But he has the potential to become a world class player, and he is exactly the type of striker GP used in Östersund and Swansea (not as much in Brighton, because they simply didn't have a player like that available). Aubameyang is a non-GP player. He's good at what he does - putting the ball into the net - but too limited otherwise. However, for the time being, Chelsea got better chances to win games with Auba than with Broja.

Sending RLC, Mount, Sterling, Auba and Havertz to Gulag (or whatever you think should be done with them) would not improve Chelseas chances of winning football games. Well, maybe Havertz.

Patience is a virtue.

10 games in 30 days, welcome to reality.

No idea, but it won't ever be a thing with GP. If the players "slack off" after a title then the club culture is flawed. Too result based and not focused enough of eternal improvement and development.

He's not Tuchel, not going to throw the playes under the bus in public because it has no other effect than saving your own skin in front of your fans. Players will slowly lose confidence if you do that. Behind the scenes is a different fiver. But yesterday I don't think he was fuming. The first half was poor but overall the performance wasn't horrible. It was a tight game against a good opponent.

Nah you're right... after all, when was the last time we saw Kepa save the game for Chelsea..?

Nope, always full backs, wing backs or wide two-way midfielders.

In a year he is playing for England.

Chalobah

First thing I noticed when Holy Lord Potter took you over was how physically poor your boys were. A sense that something has been lacking in the sports science department. Anyway, Graham will sort it. In all of his seasons as a manager, the team has performed better results and football wise in the second half of the season compared to the first. In a year, Chelsea will be the fittest team in the PL... all without doing one single training session without the ball.

So... are you on the GP hype train yet? Starting to look like one of his teams now - but still more to come.

True that. They're also scenery.

As one of the leading grahampotterologists, I have to say that this bloke is a typical player that Graham would find underrated and with bags of unfilled potential. Think you'll see a lot of him.

We'll see if not constantly throwing the players under the bus after lost games could have a positive effect on their motivation and self-confidence.