theGreenBaron

I can't speak to the quality of indaviduale he is, I don't know him and I'm not around the club. On a playing level i never wanted him, always saw him as a flat track bully, the kind of player who would do well in an on top team with some seriously speciale players around him, but never the one to be that driver to bring the others up to a higher standered. And on a personal level, well I ccan't feel to sorry for him: Liverpool's Raheem Sterling on strike: ‘He’s getting a reputation’ says Jamie Carragher - Eurosport

very much so and easily jumps to spanish as well, clearly a guy with a talent for both lagnauges and expression.

I think poch started out ok, no complaints etc. Loosing to city with so many caviats is one thing, but if by the time we play liverpool on October 19th we arn't hovering around the top 4 area it's hard to believe he will continue to put his own neck on the line with out apportioning blame

Wait for it.... if things start to fall appart and he's in the firing line all the usual lines will be pushed out

Surley not.... i mean, this lot lost 0-6 to bael. .... i mean anything is possible I guess... imagine that though, we have this huge squad and 60% of them because irellevent over night

Some of that is very out of context, The Arsenal loss came of the back of a really tough semifinal defeat, no palmer available and its clear the maturity of the squad was not ready to bounce back so easily, Its actually to his credit that he managed to right the ship after that and go on the run we did. The cup final against kids is a redtop media fallacy. We started that game with a lower average age then by some way, Liverpool had Bradley, that was it. Elliott has 3 seasons of premier league football under his belt, everyone else was an experienced international. He wasn't perfect but we were going in the right direction. But we move on. I'll say this, someone at this club is either a complete geniuses and when it all comes together it will click in the most amazing way or almost criminal levels of incompetence ... right now it looks like the latter

I think it can be easy to forget that Colwill is only 21 and he's not coming through playing with Marcel or Frank. Could have done with more exposher to Tiago befoe he left but they are going to have to very much learn on the Job Forfana him self is only 23 and hasn't really played football for almost 2 years. They are actually one of my plus points from the sh!t show of the way we our being run as a club because you can see the nucleas of a defensive partnership for the next 8 years. But pretty much agree with everything else you say. Mudryk gets alot of heat, I'm not sure we can say that Enzo has showen anything more in the time he has been here. Based on what I have seen and assuming the dream of Conor comming back in to the fold is dead. The best way forward would be to bring Palmer inside to play that 8/10 role, Noni who really has pushed on (still not conviced but he deserves the chance) and Enzo to the bench - Lavia was very impressive and Caicedo is a must

Not just that - In reality we could easily afford to lose sterling and still be well stocked in the area. Even with are bloated schedule i dont see how you get game time for by my count 6 Widewide players / Inside forwards as they call them.

So a few things here, On performances for Chelsea, that Pure Profit has produced far better on the pitch than the other center mid options we have. From what I understand, that's it for the FFP in its current format, and now it's a salary-based thing? So if we already balanced the books for June, why do we need to sell? And this is not really a challenge on your post, but how much better would it be if FFP was geared towards development, i.e., for every academy-produced player who has more than 50% of the available Premier League minutes, there is a credit applied, e.g., £10 million (the number is arbitrary). Rational thinking will never be part of the football fan's makeup. Days after hearing Gullit had been sacked, I was still in denial. It didn't change with Jose. I believed until the last moment Mount would never go to United and had the same hope with Conor.

This will all soon change, all clubs know they have another year to survive and then the rules change to focus on salaries, which it feels like we have been going in right direction with

I'm honestly in disbelife, I go back 20 years (feck 20 years) and we are parting ways with Claudio, the bookies had us linked with Lipi, Cappelo. Dechamp who had just taken Monoco to a CL final and spanked us on the way, and we ended up getting the best manager in the world bar non at that time. Now its a toss up between championship managers, and a brighton blow out... Scott Parker has a few promotions under his belt, why don't we just grab him. Dean Richards got villa promoted.. absalout shock... the thing about Klopp when he came in is he was an undoubted success at every club he'd been at. It wasn't just about a young manager for the sake of a young manager.

This may be true, I do think that he has demonstrated some adjustments in games. More and more details of the Jose era is now coming out and apparently he would only focus on tactics for the really big games. Most of the time he would let the team focus on them selves. I think next season will be a better mesure of a lot of these factors

I'm not sure how fair it is to say that Poch is tactically unaware (not that you said that, perhaps, but I'll put words in your mouth). One could argue that Pep isn't a master tactician but has a very unique style of play that is drilled into his players. Spurs fans I know could clearly articulate how Poch set them up and the style of play he implemented. Is that not considered a tactic? For what it's worth, I think he's fulfilled his remit this season under exceptionally difficult circumstances. In the last 2-3 weeks, we've seen the difference that depth on the bench can make. Personally, I believe we are seeing progress and I don't know who would do a better job right now. I'm fascinated to see what he can do with a second season. Arteta finished 8th in his first season with 56 points (he took over in December). He finished 8th in his second season with 61 points - he had far less to deal with than Poch. Pep finished 3rd with 78 points with an all-conquering City side, and Klopp finished 4th with 76 points but had more than half a season by that point, finishing 8th with 60 points. I'm not sure any of them would have done much better this season given the circumstances.

I think a lot of the setpiece things comes down to the fact we don't really have a lot of elite headers of the ball, at our best, JT, Ballack, Drogba, Cahill, Galas in his time.. Its not just about hight or power but timing and technique, out side of Tiago I don't really see another in the squad.

Woudl you take Ramsdale... he's availble and I thought was excellent last season

Thought experiment for a moment, let's assume that Gallagher doesn't sign whatever might be on the table right now. The club then try and sell him, and he says "Nah" I'm going to hang around, he's playing etc. The club after all cannot force him to move. He then surely holds the cards, because you would rather lump an extra 50k on the offer than lose him for free. I'm making some assumptions here: That the existing offer is about 90k. That he will struggle to get more than 150k elsewhere, even on a free. Correct the spelling: The club need to be looking at it like this, if we could pick Conor up on a free how much would we pay him in salary? Slightly off topic but I do think that for every academy player that plays more than 50% of the Premier League minutes in a season there should be a relief in FFP, so like maybe 10 million per player for example. This perhaps would go some way to counter the pure profit point of view, develop more academy products and actually create a more financially viable model in an organic manner.

Moratta, for all his talent, would have gone into protective custody long before there was a chance to nod one in at the back post. He had a stinker, but showed up when it mattered. He has everything required to be a top player, needs some love and some time to mature. Noni, who many were ready to anoint as the new Robben last week, was far worse in my opinion. If we could access the old CSR archives I'm 99% sure that we would have seen very similar comments around drogba and these day's I watch more You tube clips of the great man then I care to admit. I'm not saying Jackson becomes drogba or even close, but If i'd offered you 14 goals (17 in all competitions) and counting at the start of the season for a 22 year old with very little top flight expirence you'd have snapped my hand off. Anelka's best haul for us was 19 btw.... "oh but he doesn't score big goals" **cough cough spluter JFH**

Agreed with the main premis, but is it just me that doesn't remember Ramires as fondly as that? The goal at Barcelona not withstanding I never quite took to him like the others. Also, will there ever be another pure makelele

I largely agree, most of all with the last sentence. I was at the game at their place, sat with their fans but upper tier behind the goal, and had an amazing view of the tactics on display. It was suicide, and had they done that against a team flying higher than we were at the time, it could have been 8-0. That said, my point is it's one season; they lost Kane and might finish 5th. This is not a bad return when you consider where we are and United. Historically, that 4th spot tends to come down to who can mess it up the least. I do fully expect to be above them next season, but then again, I thought we would be looking at top 4 this year, so what do I know?

Think he's getting some unfair stick, Pep was in a struggle for top 4 in his first season, if rumors are to be believed he told Roman we would need 12 new players to play his way, he's done a fairly decent job considering they have perhaps the best striker on the planet. On the poch element I'm very much Poch in for now, he's made some mistakes this season for sure (especially around the defence) but has been up against it since day one. In terms of players who have really done it at the top level and we know are proven quality he has had: Tiago, Chilwell, James, Sterling. Personally have never rated Sterling and then we have barely seen the world-class full back. Everyone else is a guessing game quite honestly. Add to that an injury list that would cripple any team. And despite this, I see players that are clearly still playing for the manager and patterns of play developing. Add to that we aren't really in a position to attract a top manager right now, the best person for the job next year is Poch again. That said, if by December next year the top 4 race is well out of reach again, I'd say it's time to roll the dice

A couple of months ago I saw very little to be excited about from Noni, another head down speed mearchant who takes you up dead end allies and actually with a very predicatable cut in. Last few weeks seen a very differnt player, started to go both ways, better decision making. There is hope

One might argue that Havertz has has many more career games then Jackson as a striker (if you play false 9 you play up top) who was a winger for at least part of his career. Havertz had 3 full seasons prior to this one in the premier league, he is 2 years older and is playing in a team that with two games to go is in very real contetnion for the title, 1 goal in it if your comparing the two is really not a bad return. I for one hope we go again with Jackson, but that said I'd agree we do need competition up top.

No need to go back so far.... He is awful, But I can't say I’m any more impressed by Disasi, neither seem to have anything close to what it takes to be a top center back, read the game terribly, crazy lapses in concentration, in Disasi's case a real lack of pace and what absolutely baffles me is both are terribly in the air, how is that even possible, its like defending 101, head the ball, be dominant. In general I think one of our major issues is we lack dominant headers of of the ball but for another post. Right now those two are at best a mid-table defensive unit and that’s were we are. We saw with Arsenal until they got their backline right they couldn't crack the top 4. Liverpool when VVD had his recovery season, they Struggled, we will do nothing till we this right, All hopes rest with Colwill and Forfana

Yes and No, I don't think Drogba was the most natural finisher, Always remember his first season, he was frustrating in one on one scenario’s, for some reason a CL game is screaming out to me (still better the Jackson). My issue here is that it doesn't look like he's working on any of this in any way, you run that drill over and over in training and when you go through on goal that training kicks in and you convert, not everyone can be Cole Palmer, some people need to practice a bit. Comes back to the idea of standards and who’s driving them at the club now

Ahh I remember the days when matches lacked such Jeopardy, the question was would we win by 1 or more. Now day's the only certainty is I will shout profanities at the TV, then look back at the kids and tell them its acceptable and they could never understand (they haven’t taken to caring about sport to much, and there only interest in Chelsea winning is their farther remaining in a relatively decent mood) I digress... It is out right impossible to have an opinion about this team and how poch as a manager is performing. When all players are fit and firing, That whole defense doesn't start, (although Gusto is an excellent find) We have zero cover in center mid because everyone is broken. Chukwameka looks like he might have something about him but breaks down after every goal. Lavia never been seen, and so on and so forth. What in my opinion is clear, Is a number of players aren’t going to make the grade, Noni to call out one, but he's not alone. It feels like we used to have players who couldn’t rise to the level of the squad, Sidwell, Geremi, Boula, some did better then others but ultimately never came close to locking down a firm place in the team. Now we have a team who can't reach the level of a few. Of the group that took the pitch yesterday. Petrovich, Palmer, Jackson, Gusto, Conner are the only players that I can say have really delivered for us this season. The rest range between i can see what they could be and please please just leave. But these are the players who seem to have that all most important quality, not being made from glass. I feel better now..