g3.7

Given no pre season, not many signings, a patchwork squad put together without any long term vision or idea and his alternative to jorginho let go without replacement... He's shouldnt be in danger of being sacked, and I read guardiola's comments about us never being a realistic option for him with interest but no surprise. The club behaves as if it can (and does) mask a lack of strategy by outspending its competition even though it cannot (and does not).

this thread has not been a pleasant read. might I suggest that what we as a fanbase should be worried about is that there is a racist section of our support and that our energy should be spent focusing on how to remove it, rather than worrying about the size of it relative to other clubs, or the way (or frequency) it is reported? there should be no space for whataboutery or equivocation on this issue.

I've just read this post, and it has reminded me that I really need to finish reading that Daniil Kharms anthology.

look- no one can be unconcerned about the way his form tapered off. we already know, even when he signed, a lot of the comment in football was that he needed more self belief, so it is a real issue and anyone who states confidently that yes, he definitely will come good, I think is being blindly optimistic. I just think he is talented, and he has all the physical attributes required. and it was a huge sum of money, on a young player on a long contract. I want to see us as a club take that investment seriously. almost with 'moral seriousness'. I don't know what it is in me that thinks spending £4.5m on zola in 1997 is acceptable, but £35m on daniel drinkwater in 2017 is not, but that is how I feel. I am almost disgusted by the transfer market. part of me wants us to stop signing players altogether, and concentrate entirely on producing our own. yes, pay the players the going rate in terms of salary, but these transfer fees totally repel me, and in the last few years (despite two amazing title seasons, under two genius coaches), I have felt less and less interested in 'football' as this big corporate concept (granted this is an almost irrelevant tangent).

I have a huge objection to us investing that money in him (in theory a conte style player), knowing the relationship with conte had gone, and then appointing a manager who clearly would have no real use for him. take the fact bakayoko had a disaster of a season aside for a second, and ask what type of player he is. I think he's hugely physically gifted, great stamina, power, change of pace. technically not that bad actually and not without some skill or decent feet. that monaco you could see played a classic 90s premier league type of football where running power was prioritised over keeping the ball, and where keeping the ball was not so important because their football was predicated on a high turnover of possession. I can see why conte might have wanted him- had he settled well and adapted you've got a player who can help compensate for us playing with a numerical disadvantage in midfield. what he doesn't appear to be a natural fit for, is the type of football sarri wants to play.he's almost antithetical to it. the club is being very poorly run on the football side of things at the moment. so yes I do have an objection to him being discarded. not with the decision to discard him by sarri, more with the way the club is being run. we need a director of football, we need that director to appoint managers and buy players who fit the same approach. what we have been doing is appointing managers reactively and signing players in an ad-hoc manner without any strategic thinking. not replacing emenalo is a huge problem, and when we do, we need to give the director more control than he had. I don't think his plan was to let de bruyne, courtois, lukaku etc reach their potential elsewhere, nor do I think he wanted the academy to be unbridged to the first team. but that is more the fault of internal pressure, probably from abramovich himself (i.e. the demand for immediate results), and the managers he appointed.

I absolutely hate this idea that you invest £60m in a player, he has a bad season and then you discard him. he's got huge confidence issues but the talent is there. I'm pleased we're still banking on him.

he's wound up chelsea supporters and atletico supporters over the move, but I'm not sure you can really make the reach you're attempting to here. what evidence do you have that any of courtois' colleagues feel this way? it is a reach, as I say. you're conflating how you feel (rightly or wrongly) with how you presume his colleagues feel. having a an option to buy in a loan contract does not mean you HAVE to spend that much if you want to sign the player. it merely gives you the knowledge that if the player is successful there is a fee at which you know you will be able to negotiate with the player to sign on a permanent basis. it isn't the same thing as a compulsory clause to buy. the way it would work is real benefit by getting his wages off their books (plus perhaps a loan fee), he would benefit from the increased opportunities to play, and we would have some assurance that if it is a mutually successful transfer, we could make it a long term arrangement. real are a bigger club than us, always were, and always will be. but we were once a better squad, a better side, and had genuine ambitions of competing with them. now we are not. going from where we were then to where we are now is the definition of decline. we've taken a big step back from that, and that is no longer even in service to a long term goal like building a new stadium. I am comfortable with that, but I'm not going to enter into any kind of self deception. the imperial phase in chelsea's history is over, it was a pleasure to witness and I'm looking forward to some fun football this season. but we are domestically an also ran and internationally a footnote. why? the point, when we loan out a player like tammy abraham to bristol city, is that the club taking him on loan could not dream of doing so on any other basis. chelsea exist in a different stratum. loaning a player like kovacic, with no assurance that we could sign him, is in no way the same. no clubs near the top of the food chain loan players of kovacic's age (unless they are intended to be squad filling back up) without some kind of option to sign them. I don't know why it is a controversial or even necessarily a negative thing to state: we have declined. most clubs do. even the absolute top clubs have their fallow phases. we were never in that group, which in part reduces our chances of returning to where we were. I don't think we will, and I'm comfortable enough with that. I don't think being a supporter of one of those mega-clubs is necessarily very nourishing for the soul, and I expect to leave the bridge giddy from some of the football I've seen maybe once a month this season. that will be good enough for me, especially after manchester city away last season, which was a game that took me close to completely and permanently falling out of love with football.

completely agree with this line. for now we've spent a huge- i'd say ridiculous- sum of money on a a poorer keeper than courtois. jorginho- great, a fine purchase, and a player of the calibre we should have signed last summer. kovacic- IF there is no option to buy, then this is a waste of time. we're not winning the league this season, so we've got ourselves in a situation whereby if he's poor then we've wasted a season's worth of first team minutes that could go towards developing our own players, and if he's good he's off to real madrid. like courtois. like eden will be. had the club given courtois a bit more money last summer and had we signed a jorginho player at the same time, we would have fought for the title and courtois and hazard may well have committed to us in the long term. and this season we'd still be looking at another title challenge. as it is, this is a clown club we're dealing with. why didn't we sell hazard this window? he'll go for less money next summer, so why not do it now? make no mistake, this is a club in decline. I'm looking forward to the season because we'll be fun to watch, and actually that is the most important thing. but if you're in this to see chelsea compete for titles and be a 'big club', sorry. those days are over.

It's a sh*t club supported exclusively by c**ts

And which is more, you'll be a man my son.

the first half of that season was good though. it was dramatic, tense; interesting and important things happened. it fizzled out and became meaningless after a couple of months of hiddink, but for a while there, it was experiential. it's only football. we're lucky that ours is usually full of texture, portent, and colour. and joy sometimes too.

conte wants him? yes please with zero reservations in that case.

he's been rubbish and was lucky to be bailed out by cahill and azpilucueta

For me there's no doubt he's slow and isn't an amazing one on one defender. But that's where my reversations end. He's got a great engine, a good left foot and adds a lot when we defend in the air. He's also a total natural at wingback. He's been an excellent buy. I do think we could improve on both him and moses in the summer, but it would be far from a disaster if we didn't.

I feel like we haven't talked about how good this guy has been enough. Yes, his final ball is erratic, but he is absolutely relentless- he gets up and down the pitch so quickly and so comfortably. Plus I can scarcely remember him being beaten all season. This season he has put in performances Ashley Cole would have been proud of on a consistent basis.