4 minutes ago, Barrettinator said:

I don't know who's said that and whoever did is clearly wrong. Don't make it seem like it's a fairly popular opinion though. That's an unfair mischaracterization. 

You might not have said it but plenty of posters have literally said she's a woman trying to break into the big boys club

1 hour ago, Barrettinator said:

Arsenal as stubborn, as they are, let go of Wenger earlier than they wanted to because of their fans - and rightly so.

That's not really true. Wenger was sacked because he couldn't deliver CL money anymore or else he'd been sacked years ago if it was up to the fans.

2 minutes ago, enigma said:

Who here can deep down feel confident of us going into next season with Conte still in charge, and making top four or even competing? Right now I'm not at all confident about making top four next year with Conte in charge. Last season there was a lot of discontent, not just from the coach himself, but among a couple players too it seems. 

If we go into the season with Conte, the odds of losing Hazard and Courtois dramatically increase.

1 minute ago, Deino said:

You might not have said it but plenty of posters have literally said she's a woman trying to break into the big boys club

That's not really true. Wenger was sacked because he couldn't deliver CL money anymore or else he'd been sacked years ago if it was up to the fans.

It's not like Emery is guaranteed to waltz into CL money even now. I'm sure they'd have loved to give Wenger one last season to do a farewell tour. Their board were already on thin ice with their fans. Probably since 2013 at least. 

9 minutes ago, Barrettinator said:

I get what you're saying but you can't claim no one knows what's going on while also claiming Roman hasn't made the money available. You don't know that for sure. No one does. How does it make sense that we're being heavily linked with players that cost over €25m, €30m, and in Jorginho's case over €55m but we're finding it difficult to pay €8m for Sarri? We've thrown money like that about to buy players like Djilobodji and co whom we didn't need several times. Baba Rahman cost twice that. Zappacosta, a bang average player cost 3 times that. We just bought Barkley in January for £15m when we could have gotten him for free this summer and we didn't even need him either. So when you put all these circumstances together, it doesn't make sense to say Roman hasn't made €8m available to sign a manager whom he clearly wants (otherwise, we'd have been on to someone else weeks ago).

Anyway, I'm as confused as anyone and I'm actually quite irritated tbh. Even if we end up appointing Sarri, I don't think anyone should expect much from him this season. Our best players aren't even gonna join the squad for a while, some of them are still at the WC. We have only 3 pre-season matches and the season starts August 11th, if I'm not mistaken. This is despite the fact that Sarri's brand of football takes a while to adapt to. Brace yourselves for a tough season ahead.

Will be even worse for Tottenham ... Almost all their team is still in Russia and playing. 

Chelsea doesnt make business on sundays i read somewhere. Have we ever made a signing on a sunday?

2 hours ago, Barrettinator said:

Ehhhhh of course this was going to rear its head. How about we're just tired of confusing decisions by the club? When it was Emenalo in charge of certain moves, some of you lot claimed racism when he caught criticism. How is it that when Marina was the darling of pretty much every Chelsea fan from the Hazard transfer until Mourinho 2.0's second year her gender wasn't a factor but now that she's at the forefront of some of a lot of these decisions, she can't take criticism because of her gender? Come on, that's ridiculous. 

We haven't had a DOF for 8 months and atm still don't even look close to appointing one. The board have known pretty much since January that they didn't want Conte to continue yet here we are 2 seconds away from pre-season. No transfer has even been completed. When the Costa and Fabregas deals were wrapped up quickly before the last WC started, the board got a lot of praise, specifically Marina. If you can take praise then you should be able to take criticism.

She's the only recognisable face making decisions for the club apart from Roman. You shouldn't be surprised she's being criticised. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen or heard Chelsea fans criticise Roman in the past 15 years and rightly so. There really isn't much basis for laying much if any blame at Roman's feet. It's always been down to those he gave the responsibility of running the day to day affairs of the club. Why should Roman have to get involved in transfer deals AFTER making the money available?

Very well written.

I'm convinced that this is all over. Conte starts pre season tomorrow. If Chelsea were trying to sack Conte and replace with Sarri they are trying to do so unrealistically cheaply, which won't happen.

Its going to be another season with Conte who questioned the boards ambition last season. Well watch this space, if we are penny pinching over compensation clauses i can't see any chance of us trading in a market with the prices as they currently are. This is the time that we probably all need to take stock of our positon and our ambiitons goign forward as i expect any dealings we do under Conte will be net positive in money terms.

Ironically, i haven't seen us linked to a single player this summer unless Sarri is linked as part of the reasoning. Take Sarri out of the picture I am not certain we will be signing anybody.

1 hour ago, benjsross said:

You've obviously missed the posters in this thread making reference to her gender. I found the emenalo racism stuff without any credit - because no one did make reference to it. But people ARE saying her gender is relevant.

My other point is, Roman obviously hasn't made the money available and people seem to act like that is Marinas fault. I don't know why. I also don't know why it's Marinas fault that a DoF hasn't been appointed, is that her responsibility? If doesn't seem like it. Emenalo didn't report into Marina did he? He reported into Roman. 

Outside of that, I and no one else, know why things aren't happening. And I prefer to blame the top of the tree. Which is Roman. Does that mean I am not thankful for everything that's happened in the last 15 years? No. But now, I'm confused what's going on and it's a bit of a shambles.

“ Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”

Those were Churchill’s words 70 odd years ago. Substitute Russia with Roman.

Nothing is ever straightforward with Russia and its power brokers.

34 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

I'm convinced that this is all over. Conte starts pre season tomorrow. If Chelsea were trying to sack Conte and replace with Sarri they are trying to do so unrealistically cheaply, which won't happen.

Its going to be another season with Conte who questioned the boards ambition last season. Well watch this space, if we are penny pinching over compensation clauses i can't see any chance of us trading in a market with the prices as they currently are. This is the time that we probably all need to take stock of our positon and our ambiitons goign forward as i expect any dealings we do under Conte will be net positive in money terms.

Ironically, i haven't seen us linked to a single player this summer unless Sarri is linked as part of the reasoning. Take Sarri out of the picture I am not certain we will be signing anybody.

Anything is possible. Personally as far as ability as a manager goes I'd be very happy to keep Conte and I'd be happy to see the back of Willian, Luiz, Fabregas et al if it meant him staying.

For me though that isn't realistic. Hard to see relationships being repaired after we've spent 6 weeks chasing another manager and apparently his transfer targets. 

In any case this is a schmozzle. AdL is a tough negotiator and if we wanted Sarri we could have easily paid the clause a month ago. That mistake may yet have significant consequences.

Napoli president has personally told Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich that a fee of €20m is required to relieve Sarri from his contract, paving the way for him to finally move to London. (Tuttosport) #CFC

“Slowing down on the Sarri updates. Don’t think y’all really care about how fast Abramovich Yacht was going and how close it was to De Laurentiis!

I’ll bring significant developments only, as it’s clear these negotiations are ridiculously complicated.” Simon Phillips

 

This is getting worse and worse. I think Marina has met her match!

20m now when we could and should have signed him for less than half that a month ago.

Heads need to roll for this dumpster fire of a managerial situation.

best get used to the idea of another 12 months of Conte then, and some of our better players probably leaving.

Conte stays.

Hazard leaves as he's fed up playing false 9 under a defensive manager.

Willian has to leave because of his disrespect to Conte.

D.Luiz leaves as Conte clearly doesn't like him.

RLC will leave as Conte sees him as a striker and will play him for 1 cup game. 

Another season of wasting Emerson with hardly any game time.

Don't really see the positives of this for the sake of £20m (less than 1 Zappacosta). 

So Conte is due to be back at Cobham tomorrow. When I see pictures of him in this season's training kit running training drills with the players then I'll give up on Sarri for good :( 

47 minutes ago, JM7 said:

Napoli president has personally told Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich that a fee of €20m is required to relieve Sarri from his contract, paving the way for him to finally move to London. (Tuttosport) #CFC

“Slowing down on the Sarri updates. Don’t think y’all really care about how fast Abramovich Yacht was going and how close it was to De Laurentiis!

I’ll bring significant developments only, as it’s clear these negotiations are ridiculously complicated.” Simon Phillips

 

This is getting worse and worse. I think Marina has met her match!

That news hasn't popped up on Tuttosports website yet so I imagine its a complete bollocks tweet why give someone else news you won't use yourself

37 minutes ago, zes said:

So Conte is due to be back at Cobham tomorrow. When I see pictures of him in this season's training kit running training drills with the players then I'll give up on Sarri for good :( 

Personally hoping this scenario. 

this is one of the most bizarre situations i have ever seen. not one source reported on Conte staying and if he ends up staying i seriously don't know what to expect

the club should have set a deadline by June and if it doesn't they needed to start supporting Conte in the media and fire him after the season starts if the team doesn't do well. firing him after he shows up for training. this is a big mess 

i don't how reliable the pic is, here is the link 

https://sport.sky.it/calciomercato/estero/2018/07/07/calciomercato-chelsea-conte-cobham.html

Edited July 8, 20188 yr by theone

1 hour ago, JM7 said:

Napoli president has personally told Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich that a fee of €20m is required to relieve Sarri from his contract, paving the way for him to finally move to London. (Tuttosport) #CFC

“Slowing down on the Sarri updates. Don’t think y’all really care about how fast Abramovich Yacht was going and how close it was to De Laurentiis!

I’ll bring significant developments only, as it’s clear these negotiations are ridiculously complicated.” Simon Phillips

 

This is getting worse and worse. I think Marina has met her match!

This does not make any sense. I don’t know much law, or Italian law for that matter, but if true that is unconscionable on the part of ADL. He has brought in Ancelotti to do Sarri’s job, effectively terminating his employment, and when someone is offering to take Sarri off his hands, ADL increases his demands?!? That’s very unfair against Sarri. I know professional football plays by “different rules” but I think there is only so far one can go and I don’t think this ploy would be in ADL’s interests - either legally or with his reputation. I’m sure ADL is smarter than this and I’m calling this rubbish.

2 hours ago, Costa19 said:

Chelsea doesnt make business on sundays i read somewhere. Have we ever made a signing on a sunday?

We announced the signing of Rüdiger on July 9 2017, a Sunday.  He was also our first signing of the summer and would coincide with this weekend this year, so maybe we will have some news today?

4 hours ago, Barrettinator said:

It's not like Emery is guaranteed to waltz into CL money even now. I'm sure they'd have loved to give Wenger one last season to do a farewell tour. Their board were already on thin ice with their fans. Probably since 2013 at least. 

I'd wager it's because Emery has a good pedigree of winning the Europa hence auto-qualification to the CL. I doubt their owner really cared that much about the fans considering how the owner treated fans of his other sports teams.

edit: I'm basing this off AFTV rants btw. Not that I really know that much about the Arse

Edited July 8, 20188 yr by Deino

I suppose Conte staying will shut up the "Chelsea don't give managers enough time" crowd 

3 hours ago, Riccardo said:

This does not make any sense. I don’t know much law, or Italian law for that matter, but if true that is unconscionable on the part of ADL. He has brought in Ancelotti to do Sarri’s job, effectively terminating his employment, and when someone is offering to take Sarri off his hands, ADL increases his demands?!? That’s very unfair against Sarri. I know professional football plays by “different rules” but I think there is only so far one can go and I don’t think this ploy would be in ADL’s interests - either legally or with his reputation. I’m sure ADL is smarter than this and I’m calling this rubbish.

He's increasing his demand because the buyout for this upcoming season has expired and that's his prerogative. He holds all the cards unfortunately. 

The 8m does renew for the following season so anyone could pay that and Sarri is theirs June 1st next year. 

Edited July 8, 20188 yr by TheChelseaBlues

ADL is a total prick...

4 minutes ago, TheChelseaBlues said:

He's increasing his demand because the buyout for this upcoming season has expired and that's his prerogative. He holds all the cards unfortunately. 

The 8m does renew for the following season so anyone could pay that and Sarri is theirs June 1st next year. 

Can't we do the same then. Just give Conte Jody's job and bring in a new guy above him.

5 minutes ago, Ballack & Blu said:

ADL is a total prick...

Worst owner to deal with in world football. MUCH worse than Levy. At least Levy tells you he doesn't want to sell and usually means it unless you meet a high fee he sets. ADL tells you he wants 5m today and even if you agree to pay it tomorrow, if he wakes up tomorrow and the wind hits his skin differently, he'll say he wants 10m now. Absolute f**king bellend.

He's lucky he's a cheap bastard and doesn't have any plans of buying players from other top clubs. I'm sure there's a lot of club executives who would love to stick it to him.