1 hour ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Arsenal, they bought Lacazette and A?ubameyang last year. Spent about £70m this summer with only about £5m recouped through player sales. 

Last season Arsenal sold

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Theo Walcott
Olivier Giroud
Francis Coquelin
Wojciech Szczesny
Gabriel Paulista
Kieran Gibbs

  

They actually made a profit on player sales last season.

Arsenal has a net spend of roughly 70M over the past three windows. Chelsea's is about 145M

 

 

If we do have a spend up, I only hope we buy some players with bottle and leadership. At present we don't have an underbelly. We are soft.

2 minutes ago, Skinnedy said:

Last season Arsenal sold

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Theo Walcott
Olivier Giroud
Francis Coquelin
Wojciech Szczesny
Gabriel Paulista
Kieran Gibbs

  

They actually made a profit on player sales last season.

Arsenal has a net spend of roughly 70M over the past three windows. Chelsea's is about 145M

Only player from that list Arsenal would have liked to have kept is Oxlade-Chamberlain. 

Our higher net spend is mostly accounted for from this summer. We spent £60m on Jorginho which was negotiated as part of Sarri's joining us and bringing in Kepa because Courtois backed us into a corner into selling him to Madrid. 

If AC Milan were to take up their option to turn Bakayoko's loan into a permanent one that's £35m recouped too. 

I don't think there's a huge difference between how we and Arsenal are operating. 

3 hours ago, abramovich said:

No, that's not an ambition, it's called being bankrolled by an oil state. City aren't run as a business, so they don't have to worry about anything. Their 'commercial income' is artificially propped up by the companies connected to  the UAE royal family and realistically they're working at a huge financial loss season after season, but UEFA are simply too scared/or corrupt to take on the City owners. No other club, except PSG (another oil state project) can operate like that and get away with it. Only recently there was a big exposé on how they lied/cheated/bullied their way to make it look like they're complying with the FFP guidelines. 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/manchester-city-exposed-bending-the-rules-to-the-tune-of-millions-a-1236346.html

Doesn't really matter though. It's a bit hypocritical for us to point the finger when Roman spent a boatload after he took over at Chelsea. Even if we take City out of the discussion, Liverpool have shown they have a vision in mind and have allowed the coach to follow that, while supporting him with the players he needs for the system. 

21 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

I don't think there's a huge difference between how we and Arsenal are operating. 

I agree, though the 140 is spread over the last two seasons evenly... what it doesn't take into account for is the massive Oscar money that was never spent.

but if you look higher in the thread, the point that a couple of us were taking issue with was this --

"I don't think that the club is showing that much of an ambition compared to Man City, Arsenal and Manure."

City and United are really the only ones throwing around the cash. Everyone else is re-investing sales for the most part, including Arsenal and Liverpool

 

16 hours ago, atomis said:

I agree with most of this.......we spend too much money on dross.

 

 

Interesting watch. I agree we have wasted a large amount of money on players. Some of the signings are mind boggling. However he when comparing the fees with city, he hasn't taken into account wages, so even though we have been willing to match city in terms of transfer fees, have we been able to match city on the wages front? 

I find it very strange that we don't have someone with a high football acumen making decisions on player purchases. It has been this way for about 10 years though. 

I'm hoping this summer is a sign that we are back to targeting the right players though, we are still one of the richest clubs in the world, and spending £125m on kepa and jorginho, shows that we are still willing to spend. 

Next summer there could be a significant amount of money available if we finish top 4. We have a lot of big earners coming towards the end of their contracts, and if we can sell some of the fringe/loan players, there will be funds available to bring in the 3/4 players sarri needs to take the team to the next level.

Roman has pretty much always backed the manager financially, I know conte wasn't happy with the players he got, but we still spend £350m while he was in charge. Let's just hope sarri gets given the right players this time.

 

I'm wondering how big a gap between us and City will Roman tolerate? 2 games against City, away to Liverpool, Arsenal, Utd and home to Spurs. The way we're going we could very easily lose all those games. I think we'll end up 20 + points from the champs. But where the hell do we go if that isn't acceptable to Roman?  Ask Jose to return again...*shudders*

21 minutes ago, Dixon said:

I'm wondering how big a gap between us and City will Roman tolerate? 2 games against City, away to Liverpool, Arsenal, Utd and home to Spurs. The way we're going we could very easily lose all those games. I think we'll end up 20 + points from the champs. But where the hell do we go if that isn't acceptable to Roman?  Ask Jose to return again...*shudders*

I feel like he'll be willing to tolerate a season or two of no silverware/ only domestic cups, which is probably the amount of time we should expect it to take for the transformation from a defence-first to possession based team to happen. 19 games and only one loss is a pretty special return given that we are only running Sarri-ball at about 50% of its potential

6 hours ago, abramovich said:

No, that's not an ambition, it's called being bankrolled by an oil state. City aren't run as a business, so they don't have to worry about anything. Their 'commercial income' is artificially propped up by the companies connected to  the UAE royal family and realistically they're working at a huge financial loss season after season, but UEFA are simply too scared/or corrupt to take on the City owners. No other club, except PSG (another oil state project) can operate like that and get away with it. Only recently there was a big exposé on how they lied/cheated/bullied their way to make it look like they're complying with the FFP guidelines. 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/manchester-city-exposed-bending-the-rules-to-the-tune-of-millions-a-1236346.html

I agree, you're right.

3 hours ago, Skinnedy said:

Last season Arsenal sold

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Theo Walcott
Olivier Giroud
Francis Coquelin
Wojciech Szczesny
Gabriel Paulista
Kieran Gibbs

  

They actually made a profit on player sales last season.

Arsenal has a net spend of roughly 70M over the past three windows. Chelsea's is about 145M

 

 

Well you see there the reaction of Arsenal after a weak period, they sold a bunch of useless players and real bench warmers and got players like Lacazette and Aubameyang for 60 and £70m, both of those players were first choices in their clubs before they got to Arsenal.
What did we do? We got Arsenal's bench warmer Giroud and Real Madrid's bench warmer Morata.
And I like the mentality of Giroud and he does well for us that's all true, but he's not a player you build your attack around.

Our best window in the last years was when we signed Kante, Alonso, D.Luiz and Michy (with Michy being as expensive as Kante) and after that I consider Rudi to be our best signing, so you see those names and only 1 player is an attacker and he's never at the club anyway, the board has been clueless when it comes to signing attacking players so that's why I maybe exaggerate when I compare us to Arsenal but Arsenal saw a big hole and went in, scouted well and regardless of how they do you know those strikers are quality players...

But hey all that I've said can be discarded as soon as we look over to Spurs cause they don't buy anything and they are still beating us in the recent 2 years more and more, so is the spending or the board the main reason why we are not as good? I don't know anymore.

How confident are you that the board will back Sarri with top players?

Not at all confident in our board especially in the transfer department.

1 hour ago, Gol15 said:

Well you see there the reaction of Arsenal after a weak period,

Now I see... I think this became a separate debate...

people tend to equate ambition with money spent. In that regard, Chelsea has still been ambitious. Not nearly to the point of City and United, but on par with Liverpool and Arsenal. 

but the original question of "back Sarri with top players". Last season, the club was rebuilding and not ambitious, hence the friction with Conte

This past window, I think Jorginho and Kepa could be considered top players

So, I guess my answer to the original question has a qualifier...

-- I trust the board to spend the money it makes to try and make the squad better. I don't have full confidence that they will bring in the players that will make the squad better... how's that.. lol

 

Sadly, I'll be even less confident if somehow Sarri lifts the title at the end of the season.....

Money will be spent I just hope that it's spent well.  By this I mean not spending 120-150 million on 3 average players but rather spend half that or so on one top player with the other spots being filled by youth/loanees etc.  Considering the market, is there a huge gap between what our best youth/loanees can do and what 40million will get?  

But I don't expect to have a wish list of players incoming in the next few windows....mind, I'd be happy to see Sarri "backed" in getting some of the youth into the first team, as in backed with time and managed expectations....I was hoping for that this season but I wonder if I was either too optimistic or if the powers to be thought "hey, we're actually doing too good this season to jeopardize it with youths integration being prioritized"......... I would love to see this time next year the likes of Ampadu, CHO, Mount et al getting regular opportunities more than another 40mil or so spent on players I've never heard of (unless it's Azpiliqueta all over again, never heard of him prior but I'd take thatagain!). 

 

1 hour ago, Gol15 said:

Well you see there the reaction of Arsenal after a weak period, they sold a bunch of useless players and real bench warmers and got players like Lacazette and Aubameyang for 60 and £70m, both of those players were first choices in their clubs before they got to Arsenal.
What did we do? We got Arsenal's bench warmer Giroud and Real Madrid's bench warmer Morata.
And I like the mentality of Giroud and he does well for us that's all true, but he's not a player you build your attack around.

Our best window in the last years was when we signed Kante, Alonso, D.Luiz and Michy (with Michy being as expensive as Kante) and after that I consider Rudi to be our best signing, so you see those names and only 1 player is an attacker and he's never at the club anyway, the board has been clueless when it comes to signing attacking players so that's why I maybe exaggerate when I compare us to Arsenal but Arsenal saw a big hole and went in, scouted well and regardless of how they do you know those strikers are quality players...

But hey all that I've said can be discarded as soon as we look over to Spurs cause they don't buy anything and they are still beating us in the recent 2 years more and more, so is the spending or the board the main reason why we are not as good? I don't know anymore.

Arsenal also recently got a pro who makes sure they get their targets and the right ones.......and also a negotiater if im not wrong......I just remembered that cuz my brother is a gooner and he was adament they would do good now in trasnfers......can only agree with him. Laca and Auba alone showed they have a vision and more than willing to fil the voids/holes. We will once and for all see if the board has a long term plan/vision come Jan and Summer......that should put it all to bed. Will we get Sarri targets? Will we go after cheaper players? Or quality players that actually can improve the first 11? We'll'see.

I don't think they would have brought in someone to completely revolutionise our playstyle unless they had the pre-desposition to back him. As long as the players he wants are available I think he'll get them.

Will he get four years like Klopp and Pochettino if we don't look close to winning something? ehh....

1 minute ago, Luca Vialli said:

I don't think they would have brought in someone to completely revolutionise our playstyle unless they had the pre-desposition to back him. As long as the players he wants are available I think he'll get them.

Will he get four years like Klopp and Pochettino if we don't look close to winning something? ehh....

1 hour ago, Luca Vialli said:

I don't think they would have brought in someone to completely revolutionise our playstyle unless they had the pre-desposition to back him. As long as the players he wants are available I think he'll get them.

Will he get four years like Klopp and Pochettino if we don't look close to winning something? ehh....

AVB springs to mind. Brought in to play high press, fast attacking football. That went well didn't it.

AVB was crap though, Sarri has made an obvious impact on the side already.

15 hours ago, Luca Vialli said:

AVB was crap though, 

I think that's a bit unfair!

He came to us being touted as the next great manager in world football. I simply think he lost confidence in himself and his ideas after that bonkers game against Arsenal. Tho we were wide open (extremely wide open) and shipped a lot of goals, i still thought we showed some incredibly exciting promise going forward. To play that way meant we needed a defence with very quick players which would have meant getting rid of JT, which was never going to happen. I was a massive JT fan, but part of me wonders how things would have gone if AVB had held his nerve, explained why JT had to go and then got on with his original gameplan.  

Not confident, although in the hit & miss policy the Russian Bird favors (looks above talent anybody - Torres) sometimes the club gets lucky - e.g. she noticed Kante had a release clause (or was that picked up by Emelano); and sometimes we get unlucky e.g. Drinky (along with Baka not in Sarri's plans but DD cost 35 mill & is on massive wages until 2022).  Does the club need to implement what used to be called the 'continental model' and hire a qualified & experienced DOF ? Sarri has told us many times he's just here to coach the players he is provided with.  But you could also counter that this unfathomable to the outside transfer policy has been in force for several seasons now, and in the last 4 before Sarri ball we have won 2 titles & 2 cups so maybe ....'if it aint broke dont fix it'.

Edited November 28, 20187 yr by General

5 hours ago, Dixon said:

I think that's a bit unfair!

He came to us being touted as the next great manager in world football. I simply think he lost confidence in himself and his ideas after that bonkers game against Arsenal. Tho we were wide open (extremely wide open) and shipped a lot of goals, i still thought we showed some incredibly exciting promise going forward. To play that way meant we needed a defence with very quick players which would have meant getting rid of JT, which was never going to happen. I was a massive JT fan, but part of me wonders how things would have gone if AVB had held his nerve, explained why JT had to go and then got on with his original gameplan.  

Strange as this sounds, AVB's downfall began due to two victory's. The Valencia and City games he comprised his 'project' to get the results and when you do that the only way is down in the long run, the players reverted to their default comfort zone and stopped listening. Sarri must resist the temptation to do likewise no matter what, because if he shows even the slightest willingness of letting the players revert to type they will subconsciously hit the comfort zone and stop listening.

On 26/11/2018 at 17:07, chiefBlueCFC said:

Yeah, he may not focus on it himself, but it is a little silly to not at least make requests/recommendations to the board. We are gonna find out regardless in the coming months. Also, I agree that he won't complain about transfers, which will be a really nice change.

Until we're getting stuffed week in week out and he is sticking with Morata up top and Luiz making errors in a 2 CB pairing.

So listening to his presser today, he will stick with Jorginho, and persist with Modernising Kante, because Kante isn't as technical as J, so Kante winning two Premierships as a DCM, is being ousted, Jorginho is a marvel, but hr isn't powerful enough, as seen by Dele Ali outplaying and out muscling him, i don't know what the answer is, but it seems Kante is shoe-horned into a position he doesn't suit

On 28/11/2018 at 02:13, enigma said:

Doesn't really matter though. It's a bit hypocritical for us to point the finger when Roman spent a boatload after he took over at Chelsea. Even if we take City out of the discussion, Liverpool have shown they have a vision in mind and have allowed the coach to follow that, while supporting him with the players he needs for the system. 

Chelsea weren't breaking any rules when Roman first took over, the take over of city happened a decade ago and they are still completely ignoring FFP.  Klopp has been the manager of the dippers for more than 3 years, it is a bit harsh when Sarri has only been here a few months.

 

This is the type of thread I would expect on Talk Chelsea, not the Shedend. I guess the days of the community on this forum being better, than those plastics on Talk Chelsea are long gone. 

No doubt we will buy a winger to replace Hudson Odoi!