1 hour ago, olderschoolcfc said:

 

Im going to take a step back from this season his season as its no fun to constantly listen to fans bleating on about how unfair life is. Stockholm syndrome is a strange bedfellow and im tired of hearing the Tuche/ Roman fans harp on about how life was. Welcome to the new future. Good or bad, Keep the blue flag flag flying high. 

I disagree, I think its hilarious seeing how certain fans are reacting to the first real, prolonged downturn at the club after nearly 20 years of unprecedented success. I dont think theres enough prams in the world for the amount of dummies being thrown out of them....

15 hours ago, WhiteWall said:

Exactly.

There remain some of us on here that not only remember the Bates years but the Mears family before that. I thank god for Roman Abramovich's involvement with this club and i get irritated that every negative aspect seems to be set at his door. He bankrolled the club. Invented us as a force. Not reinvented, invented. It seems to be overlooked that at the point of Roman's takeover we were staring liquidation in the face then as well as we had debts being called (60m i think).. Having bankrolled us and made us the most successful club in english football, he was working with the club to make us self sufficient and to develop the whole ground and surrounding area.

I would venture that some of the fans on this forum that are casting aspersions on Roman and his legacy are only Chelsea fans because of the attraction of us as a successful club when they were young. Would they have been fans of us if we'd still had Uncle Ken at the helm, bobbing up and down between the divisions, tumble down ground, away end an open wasteland, winners of the full members cup..and fck all else.

Personally i will never have a bad word for anything that Roman has done for us. But that's because i will always have the memory of Christmas 1980 in my head. Chelsea 0 v 0 Bristol city, Division 2, 18,000 of us freezing our bollox off looking out across a frozen tundra with Colin Lee and Alan Mayes up top toiling away doing nothing. Even when i moan and groan about our sh!t football and rubbish players now, deep down i still know how cr@p it has been before.

It seems to me you are skipping over the success of the late 90's before Abramovich came through with FA Cup x 2, League Cup and European Cup Winners Cup. The only injection of money I recall during this time was from Matthew Harding. Yep we could have been another team bobbing up and down positions, it all depends. Bates might have sold to someone else that was ready to put money in though likely nowhere as rich as Abramovich. 

I also think Roman was unlucky yet felt under May when the first sign of  a political change he should have sold up then yet for some reason he did not read the new political winds until it was forced on him. 

15 hours ago, WhiteWall said:

Exactly.

There remain some of us on here that not only remember the Bates years but the Mears family before that. I thank god for Roman Abramovich's involvement with this club and i get irritated that every negative aspect seems to be set at his door. He bankrolled the club. Invented us as a force. Not reinvented, invented. It seems to be overlooked that at the point of Roman's takeover we were staring liquidation in the face then as well as we had debts being called (60m i think).. Having bankrolled us and made us the most successful club in english football, he was working with the club to make us self sufficient and to develop the whole ground and surrounding area.

I would venture that some of the fans on this forum that are casting aspersions on Roman and his legacy are only Chelsea fans because of the attraction of us as a successful club when they were young. Would they have been fans of us if we'd still had Uncle Ken at the helm, bobbing up and down between the divisions, tumble down ground, away end an open wasteland, winners of the full members cup..and fck all else.

Personally i will never have a bad word for anything that Roman has done for us. But that's because i will always have the memory of Christmas 1980 in my head. Chelsea 0 v 0 Bristol city, Division 2, 18,000 of us freezing our bollox off looking out across a frozen tundra with Colin Lee and Alan Mayes up top toiling away doing nothing. Even when i moan and groan about our sh!t football and rubbish players now, deep down i still know how cr@p it has been before.

I have a major issue with what you have said about the Bates' era in this post. Wrong on so many levels. And whatever Abramovich did, (cue "what have the Romans ever done for us?"), it pales rapidly when compared to where we were, and what we were facing, when Ken took us over. No Bates, no Chelsea for Roman to come along and buy 20 years later.

13 hours ago, Argo said:

I don't know if this was aimed at me but I feel the need to reply.

Can't you appreciate someone for their contribution but also be critical when they haven't got it right? Maybe I'm on another planet but personally I feel that's a very healthy way to live generally.

Do i appreciate Romans contributions to this club? Ofcourse I f**king do, but I'm not going because of that pretend breaking transfer records on Lukaku and Kepa were good moves.

It wasn't aimed at anyone specifically cos i don't do that. Ever. I might not like it when other members send personal digs at others on here, but i don't do that.

I also welcome and enjoy getting involved in discussions where opinions differ form my own.

I am merely making the observation that there is a selection of our fanbase and various forum members who do seem to imply from messages that i read that Roman is seen as the cause of all of the ills that we seem to now be having and that this seems to be the consequence of his lack of care and his overall ruthless approach.

Whilst i might find this constant blaming a bit tiresome and not wholly accurate i have no problem with people having aqn opinion other than mine, even if some of those opinions are diametrically opposed to mine. In fact i am not sure who you interpreted my post as a comment in your directionb as i often do agree with the comments that you make, as evidenced by me often and routinely liking a lot of the posts that you have made.

My point was a counter argument to any of those that do hold these opionions, espcially those in the 25 -30 year bracket whose love for Chelsea may well have been borne out of our positon, status, and attractiveness when they were in the 6-10 year old age bracket, which would have been as a direct result of the influence and input form Abramovich and i was merely illustrating that I, along with many others, have had a damn sight bleaker experience supportign Chelsea than we had under Roman.

 

 

1 hour ago, strider6004 said:

It seems to me you are skipping over the success of the late 90's before Abramovich came through with FA Cup x 2, League Cup and European Cup Winners Cup. The only injection of money I recall during this time was from Matthew Harding. Yep we could have been another team bobbing up and down positions, it all depends. Bates might have sold to someone else that was ready to put money in though likely nowhere as rich as Abramovich. 

I also think Roman was unlucky yet felt under May when the first sign of  a political change he should have sold up then yet for some reason he did not read the new political winds until it was forced on him. 

Agreed those years first with Hoddle, Gullitt, Vialli, remain some of my happiest, especially as i first starting taking my son then. If Matthew had lived we might have been very different, if he had won the power struggle over Bates. Would it have made a difference in the overall scheme of things i am not sure. Benfield's had money but not the numbers that the Sky deal brought in through Roman and various others, Walker, John Hall, etc.

Nobody can predict the future nor can we repaint the past.

I am not enjoying this at the moment, but in reality it is only the constant foot in the mouth approach from Boehly constantly setting us up for the laughing stock thatt pi$$e$ me off. We will get the right manager ultimately and we will turn it around on the pitch. That i have no doubt of. We might not all like the method in which it happens, who leaves, who comes in.

One thing every Chelsea fan should be agreed on, is that every owner that we have had has had the best interests of the club at heart. This guy is new and we may not yet feel that his intentions are totally altruistic but i suspect, i hope that he is desparate for us as a club to be massively successful both on and off the pitch, in the same way that Roman wanted us to be a european power.

1 hour ago, just said:

I have a major issue with what you have said about the Bates' era in this post. Wrong on so many levels. And whatever Abramovich did, (cue "what have the Romans ever done for us?"), it pales rapidly when compared to where we were, and what we were facing, when Ken took us over. No Bates, no Chelsea for Roman to come along and buy 20 years later.

I never said that either. 

There was a time when the owners were not splashed all over the back pages every day. My comment about the Bates and Mears years was highlighting the lack of funds available for on the pitch investment, nothing to do with the quality of the ownership in the boardroom. I was illustrating that for some of us watching the likes of Drogba, Lampard, Cech, Terry, Robben etc was fantatsic in comparison to the years of mediocre, at best, football and players we have experioenced watching over the years.

I don't doubt the value of Ken Bates to this club and have cited it on numerous occasions, whether it was slapping the £1 down to buy the club and inherit the debt, dealing with Brian Mears, or indeed the dealings he had for years with Cabra Estates until he brought them down and saved us.

None of that is forgotten or disregarded. But similarly the Roman years was a ride i loved and would do all over again. Some of the football and footballers i have seen at the Bridge, i would never have dreamt of in those earlier years of my youth.

 

Edited April 21, 20233 yr by WhiteWall

33 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

It wasn't aimed at anyone specifically cos i don't do that. Ever. I might not like it when other members send personal digs at others on here, but i don't do that.

I also welcome and enjoy getting involved in discussions where opinions differ form my own.

I am merely making the observation that there is a selection of our fanbase and various forum members who do seem to imply from messages that i read that Roman is seen as the cause of all of the ills that we seem to now be having and that this seems to be the consequence of his lack of care and his overall ruthless approach.

Whilst i might find this constant blaming a bit tiresome and not wholly accurate i have no problem with people having aqn opinion other than mine, even if some of those opinions are diametrically opposed to mine. In fact i am not sure who you interpreted my post as a comment in your directionb as i often do agree with the comments that you make, as evidenced by me often and routinely liking a lot of the posts that you have made.

My point was a counter argument to any of those that do hold these opionions, espcially those in the 25 -30 year bracket whose love for Chelsea may well have been borne out of our positon, status, and attractiveness when they were in the 6-10 year old age bracket, which would have been as a direct result of the influence and input form Abramovich and i was merely illustrating that I, along with many others, have had a damn sight bleaker experience supportign Chelsea than we had under Roman.

 

 

The ship was leaking when Roman was in charge, and to my mind he was papering over some of the cracks and fixing others.

What's happened since is that Boehly has pulled off all the sticky tape, exposed all the holes, made some more holes and has started to come up with some plans on how to fix them. 

So we're sinking basically. 

15 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

The ship was leaking when Roman was in charge, and to my mind he was papering over some of the cracks and fixing others.

What's happened since is that Boehly has pulled off all the sticky tape, exposed all the holes, made some more holes and has started to come up with some plans on how to fix them. 

So we're sinking basically. 

Maybe you're right, who really knows.

I do know that the club were purposefully moving towards a more self sustaining business model and Roman had purposefully taking a back step to allow the board to work us back toward profitability without the need to draw upon his finances as heavily. I also know that the club unveiled massive redevelopment plans having got planning permission, to make the gound into one of the best arenas in Europe, to take us to a new level.

I also know that the sh*t didn't hit the fan all in one go and that his enforced absence, foreign citizenship and the ultimately sanctions all happened over a period of time, so of course deterioration of the objectives and goals would have certainly been happening.

But with a plan for self sufficiency, with more stakeholder ownership falling to Buck and the board, i don't think it is necessarily a bad call to say that the responsibility for a lot of the poor decisions, in the transfer market and the boardroom, particularly in the more recent years, should lie just as much with those responsible for those jobs than just the overall owner.

Edited April 21, 20233 yr by WhiteWall

17 hours ago, WhiteWall said:

Exactly.

There remain some of us on here that not only remember the Bates years but the Mears family before that. I thank god for Roman Abramovich's involvement with this club and i get irritated that every negative aspect seems to be set at his door. He bankrolled the club. Invented us as a force. Not reinvented, invented. It seems to be overlooked that at the point of Roman's takeover we were staring liquidation in the face then as well as we had debts being called (60m i think).. Having bankrolled us and made us the most successful club in english football, he was working with the club to make us self sufficient and to develop the whole ground and surrounding area.

I would venture that some of the fans on this forum that are casting aspersions on Roman and his legacy are only Chelsea fans because of the attraction of us as a successful club when they were young. Would they have been fans of us if we'd still had Uncle Ken at the helm, bobbing up and down between the divisions, tumble down ground, away end an open wasteland, winners of the full members cup..and fck all else.

Personally i will never have a bad word for anything that Roman has done for us. But that's because i will always have the memory of Christmas 1980 in my head. Chelsea 0 v 0 Bristol city, Division 2, 18,000 of us freezing our bollox off looking out across a frozen tundra with Colin Lee and Alan Mayes up top toiling away doing nothing. Even when i moan and groan about our sh!t football and rubbish players now, deep down i still know how cr@p it has been before.

Absolutely no unfulfilled ambitions as a Chelsea fan. Between the ages on nine and eighteen ( 75-84) we only had two years in the top flight.

We’ve won everything under the sun, and what do we have to show for it- a silent stadium full of tourists looking at Facebook the game- fans- use that term loosely- from across the globe who only supported the club for reflected on glory/- who are now moaning like f**k cause the wheels have fallen off

You can’t change your team, but kinda envy the likes of Brentford fans- get a bit of noise going, no one’s in it because they expect to win trophies every year.

Thought it might take a relegation to get rid of the w....r tag alongs who claim to support CFC, but suspect our current mid table malaise will do the trick

 

 

22 hours ago, Gol15 said:

This simply isn't true and it will never be true, no matter how many times it's written on a forum, sorry.

If things get so bad that we end up in a relegation fight next season, they will hold on to that excuse. The current owners are the ones causing these issues, not the past ones.

6 hours ago, bisright1 said:

The ship was leaking when Roman was in charge, and to my mind he was papering over some of the cracks and fixing others.

What's happened since is that Boehly has pulled off all the sticky tape, exposed all the holes, made some more holes and has started to come up with some plans on how to fix them. 

So we're sinking basically. 

I somewhat agree with this. Said for a long time that we were rotten to the core, and the short term thinking we got ourselves into only furthered the issues - putting sticky plasters over gaping wounds to get us through.

We needed Todd to rip off those plasters, as painful as it is, to fix the root cause. That will take time to embed and heal - but i do think it was needed

Need to give the project some time.. He has failed my expectations so far as he has spent too much money on unproven players. Either this sinks or gets pulled back with a world class manager actually making a system and playing to the players strengths. 

 

If you look at the squad and clear the deadwood out we have a core of

Badiashile/Colwill/Fofana/RJ/Ben chilwell

Enzo/kante/Andrey santos

Mudryk/Nkunku/Mount/Madueke/

Am still undecided on Havertz, I think in a system he can still be a very good player.  

We need somebody to have a positive impact and improve the young players and get a striker who can actually shoot and score I would take osimhen or any young prolific striker. 

The 8 year deals also might screw us long term we need to be careful unless the owners have a ton of money but with FFP sniffing around we have to be clever. 

 

Pochettino seems to be favourite to be our next manager

 

when will we start protesting against Bohley at the Bridge like United fans against Glazers? This is getting worse and worse, a manager sacked by the ultimate failure team - Spurs is going to be our manager lmao

Apparently the club have made a list of 10 "Elite" players to build around:

Reece James, Wesley Fofana, Enzo Fernández, Mykhailo Mudry, Benoît Badiashile, Christopher Nkunku, and Levi Colwill.

Edited April 22, 20233 yr by axman2526

2 hours ago, cfcforeverfan said:

Pochettino seems to be favourite to be our next manager

 

when will we start protesting against Bohley at the Bridge like United fans against Glazers? This is getting worse and worse, a manager sacked by the ultimate failure team - Spurs is going to be our manager lmao

Boehly is nothing like the glazers. 

On 20/04/2023 at 17:51, enigma said:

The problem is with Silva and Drogba, is they haven't been at the club the last decade. Under Abramovich the club was already heading in the wrong direction. Never kept us competitive which is why we are in the situation we are in.

If we are brutally honest, look at Conte league win. Klopp and Pep had just arrived in the league, Conte switched the formation and we happened to go on a strong run that we finished the league strong enough, but we were faltering even in the latter end of that season.

The next season we weren't competitive enough due to not strengthening a fairly strong squad, which is Roman's and the board's fault. We were linked with the likes of Alex Sandro, Van Dijk, and a few others. Terry was aging, we could have used VVD.

There's a reason he chose Liverpool as their project was more appealing, which tells you something when we had won the league a season before. We haven't had a sniff at the league in five seasons, which is mental. All because of poor investment in the squad. Anyone remember Djilodobji? Or whatever his name is. 

I believe tht djilodobji was mou 2nd season and that was a really bad summer. 

I wish it was 2033 and "Boehly & Chelsea agree sale" could have a totally different meaning ...

4 hours ago, cfcforeverfan said:

Pochettino seems to be favourite to be our next manager

 

when will we start protesting against Bohley at the Bridge like United fans against Glazers? This is getting worse and worse, a manager sacked by the ultimate failure team - Spurs is going to be our manager lmao

Absolutely ridiculous comparison. From the get go the Glazers rinsed Man Utd. 

Bohley and co have a 3 Billion pound hole in their wallet.

3 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Apparently the club have made a list of 10 "Elite" players to build around:

Reece James, Wesley Fofana, Enzo Fernández, Mykhailo Mudry, Benoît Badiashile, Christopher Nkunku, and Levi Colwill.

That's 7 isn't it

I do think we've become spoilt over the years, but this is a new period. You cannot just snap fingers and win the league. Look at Guardiola at city. First season in charge he faltered and thijgs went wrong, City looked bad and he was being called a fraud. The following season they win the league.

Anyone who comes in needs time. We may need more or less time, but we are currently sat in 11th, so getting top four and closing the pts gap next season is the main goal. Forget about winning the league.

7 hours ago, cfcforeverfan said:

Pochettino seems to be favourite to be our next manager

 

when will we start protesting against Bohley at the Bridge like United fans against Glazers? This is getting worse and worse, a manager sacked by the ultimate failure team - Spurs is going to be our manager lmao

Yes because that's worked a treat hasn't it?

Will the protests be before or after they pay Todd to sit in a seat for 90-120 minutes?

We used to laugh that Arsenal's sole ambition was to win a top 4 place every season 

That's us now, we've been miles off winning it for years.

I'm hopeful that eventually we will become that side challenging for the title once again

7 hours ago, cfcforeverfan said:

Pochettino seems to be favourite to be our next manager

 

when will we start protesting against Bohley at the Bridge like United fans against Glazers? This is getting worse and worse, a manager sacked by the ultimate failure team - Spurs is going to be our manager lmao

This is nothing like the Glazers, Boehley is putting money INTO the club and not taking millions out of the club

1 hour ago, Argo said:

Yes because that's worked a treat hasn't it?

Will the protests be before or after they pay Todd to sit in a seat for 90-120 minutes?

All the blokes on the Chelsea fan channels make me laugh, keep moaning about how bad it is and the owners need to go. Stop f**king going to games then... 

1 hour ago, Victor90 said:

All the blokes on the Chelsea fan channels make me laugh, keep moaning about how bad it is and the owners need to go. Stop f**king going to games then... 

Very simplistic. The days when true fans really mattered have long since gone. We have 28000 season ticket holders. What are these supposed to do, give them up only for them to fall into the hands of fans who are on the waiting list or corporate clientele? This leaves around 10000 tickets for fans who can't get/afford season tickets. These of course could stop attending only for their tickets to fall into the hands of more tourists. The Premier League sells.