venom2011

Wouldn't be surprised if it's Maignan and Petrovic vying for 1 and 2. Penders to go on loan. That's an improvement at least.

I honestly think he's been misprofiled for a while. Not only is he played as a winger but under Maresca that means touchline all day. Palmer was the best RW in the league last season, under this system he would have struggled. I think of Juan Mata initially playing as a RW. Imagine if he struggled and pundits were similarly questioning why he wasn't effective on the outside. Sancho has the acceleration of minibus. Why would you expect such a player to be taking on PL fullbacks. Play him as a 10 where his options are maximised or change the system.

And he's just about the only one who has that quality aside from maybe Colwill. He's a square peg in a round hole, the hole being a suitable position relative to the league. He's technically suited to playing deep but horrible defensively and in transition. He also doesn't have the dynamism and control need to play as a 10. Trade for a top winger or some like Julian Alvarez would be the best solution.

That second half performance was utterly brilliant. We need to tie him down for 10+3 years minimum.

Quite correct. It happens and will happen again. Mistakes aren't as much of an issue (given the squad profile) as us not having the quality to cover for it. Someone like Trent has made a career out of doing some things very well and being surrounded by quality cover for his inevitable gaffes.

Every player has a price (which I've said above), not every player is viewed as sellable from a club's perspective. Thick or just a troll?

People seem to be using the phrase 'pure profit' without understanding what it actually means and the context, because it's landed as mainstream buzz words. Selling an academy player or senior in their second contract phase as pure profit is a mechanism for some clubs to improve the squad or a particular position. There is no better RB in the game than Reece, so while he may be sold, pure profit won't be the driver. His injury issues leading to perhaps declining ability would be a far bigger consideration. I also have no issue with clubs forcing players out. Players have the option and take it all the time so why should clubs be held to a higher standard?

Can't disagree. But you can also pick either one of Sanchez or Jorgensen this season and accurately claim he's our best goalkeeper this season - it doesn't mean anything. Our best and only top players are Palmer, Caicedo, and Reece. Everyone else is sellable and should be.

I think this touches on something we all know about Guardiola's teams, he's had the (deserved) fortune of having quality options at his disposal. Would he be able to do much more than Maresca with this squad? I doubt it. They gave him two 1v1 demons in Doku and Savinho when he needed them. Here, with Lavia and Fofana injured, the defense would still be making the same mistakes and the midfield would be porous in transition. You have 2 wide forwards ill-suited for there positions, and a forward line that can't win duels to save their lives. I've liked some of what I've seen from Maresca and I'll wait another season to have a fuller picture of what he's able to achieve. I expect the holes in midfield to be plugged by Santos and Essugo, and the squad strengthened at both ends of the pitch. We should not be reliant on the fitness and form of Lavia, James, Fofana, and Jackson.

Well said. As short-lived as it was due to an insane amount of injuries, Tuchel developed the best implementation of a back 5/WB system I've ever seen. It could have dominated football for a few seasons under reasonable circumstances. But wouldn't have been nearly as effective without Kante, James, Silva, and a core who were absolute workhorses.

So my statement: there has been zero precedence for them selling our best players - referencing the talent of Reece, and your counterpoints are to mention Gallagher, Chalobah, and Ben Chilwell? Why not throw Mount in there as well. You've clearly paid attention for the past 3 years but I'm not sure it's helped much...

Why would you be crossing your fingers if there has been zero precedence for them selling our best players? If Hazard and Ronaldo had prices, everyone does.

Most of the squad have been sh*t during the same period. And he's being misused as a touchline winger. For the price, keep him.

Firstly, it depends on your definition of 'extract wealth' - How? When? I believe the consortium are simply here to be successful i.e. trophies, profitability, structurally etc with a view to increasing the club's value. Any dividend payouts will be a natural consequence of them hitting their targets but that is not their modus. Clearlake's responsibility to its investors is to increase asset value first and foremost. Chelsea are arguably, right now, worth more than the sum of what the ownership have spent on acquisition and transfers. The squad is probably more valuable than it's ever been. In 10 years, ceteris paribus, the club could be worth 2 to 3x what it is today. At that point they could sell up and walk away happy - which is typically what they'd do. I have no problem with that either. Chelsea was less of a football business than it was an Oligarch's toy. And even then the value of the club increased significantly. Under normal operating circumstances Roman would have made a decent profit on the sale of the club. I could care less about the motivations of Clearlake's investors. I care about what Clearlake i.e. Eghbali, Feliciano and the rest of the consortium do. They may, and probably do, have motivations that extend beyond traditional business practices.

Personally, I'm not wanting to see a massive upgrade. There are no massive upgrades in 99% of the top European clubs. What I'm looking for is a class above at a similar profile. Nkunku is a better footballer than Jackson - better finisher, better with his body in duels etc, but he's the wrong profile for the position. Find me those same attributes but in a striker who can do what Maresca wants or... stick with Jackson.

If only we had purely altruistic owners like so many other clubs... All I care about is goal alignment. Clearlake win in the long term if Chelsea wins, and the fans are happy. The club is not in a position to be bled dry without big investment - it's not Man Utd. And you don't sign Caicedo @ 100m if your only mandate is to extract wealth. You would do a 1:1 copy of Brighton's model and call it a day. Instead, what we're seeing is something of a Madrid-Brighton hybrid and if they manage to take another step forward it will be a fantastic achievement.

And some of those fans will still question why an experienced manager like Poch, who saw him train daily, chose to use him in forward areas instead of at LB... If, in the supremely unlikely event, he starts at LB for us next season...we're one foot in the hole.

So saying that Poch is underachieving means your time-frame for appraisal is 'now'. And if any manager wanted to see results 'now', Chelsea's squad would be near last on that list. United, West Ham, Villa in particular have a good amount of experience in their squads. If you gave Poch one of those teams and Pep Chelsea, I'd bet my house on Poch finishing above him.

How are you supposed to judge the improvement of Jackson, Palmer, Caicedo, Madueke, Gusto, Disasi, Colwill, Petrovic? Palmer is better than what he showed at City last season, Gusto has been excellent, Disasi and Colwill are better players than they were at the beginning of the season, and Sterling improved on last season. Let's not let a narrative get in the way of actual evidence. You also cannot assemble a squad devoid of leadership characteristics and then 8 months into his tenure blame the manager for the lack of leadership being shown (even more so when considering other factors like injuries). As I've said, keep the manager unless things become untenable, build the squad, fix the injury issues. That's the only way forward.

You know that by mere inference from the fact that we signed....Poch. You don't sign Poch to win titles, you don't sign Jose to develop a young team. Just as we know, or some of us should know, what the targets are given the profile of players we're signing. We have a dysfunctional squad, leading to a dysfunctional team and we at least have to control for the coaching staff while we set things straight.

And let's be clear, Poch wasn't hired to take the team to titles. He was hired to take the team to the next step, building out the foundation with a view to finding some consistency. What we've seen this season is much better than the horror show that was last season - and that with more experienced players. We've been sniffing victories against City, Arsenal and Liverpool which would have been a dream last season. I'm fine with keeping him on as long as the squad gets fixed and injuries are ironed out. That will have a bigger impact than any managerial change. We need consistency in the backroom before we'll see it on the pitch.

There was no parallel drawn between our youngsters and Messi. If you can't comprehend the point made regarding context of the spending then we'll leave it just there. We're not consistently poor. When the only metric you're using is points, no doubt you'll end up with such a confirmation bias. With all reasonable metrics we were better than Arsenal, Liverpool, Brighton, City, Spurs. That says enough as a counterpoint. We're not a poor team at all, and certainly not because the youngsters aren't good enough. Their output and performances are within expectations given the context. As I said, we're unbalanced - by way of experience and requirements in certain positions. If your expectations are consistent quality performances with inexperienced youngsters, then the issue is with your expectations.

Well then it seems to be a pointless discussion if you can't even recognise the difference between opinion and fact. Carney was a youngster being groomed for the Villa 1st team. Considered by many scouts to be a great talent with big potential. He rejected an extension hence the bargain price. Spinning the story any other way is nonsensical. No fantasy metrics. A superb talent, well scouted and signed for 20m in today's market... 'Lowest amount of talent per pound in sports history' - Jesus christ man get a grip. If you bought 20x 15 year old Messis for a billion and the team was similarly inconsistent would you say the same? Context is everything. We may be unbalanced and inexperienced but fans of most teams in the league would kill to have some of the talent we've recruited recently.

By the algorithmic metric of ability-potential-player cost. It's that simple. Just focusing on the names you brought up - Carney is an immense talent and 20m is pittance. Villa fans hated losing him, especially at that price. Brighton would have charged 50m. Badiashile (who you claim has done nothing) was our best defender for periods last season and was great by way of data and eye-test. You can judge their respective values and also control for the fact that we are firmly an unbalanced team in transition. But to argue that the directors have not made some very good value signings is disingenuous. My argument is exactly that - All of them are bargains on paper. We'll have to see how they pan out in the long run.

It's not that the team cannot defend. It's that we can't put out a consistent defensive unit due to fitness issues. And Silva, Enzo, Caicedo are forced to play every minute. I'd be happy to see 3 at the back whenever we lack midfield options. It will constrict the zones Caicedo and Enzo will need to cover. Would even swop Jackson for Gallagher and use Palmer as a 9 in big away games.