16 minutes ago, Modueke said:

That's all we need to cheer things up; In-house fighting between owners!

Would not surprise me though. Clearlake are in the business of making money, us missing out on Europe, or even dropping down to the championship, is them losing even more money.

They have investors to answer to.

If we drop to the championship, that's it. We'll be liquidated. I can't see any way the club could survive with the amount of money they've spent, with FFP regulations, playing in the championship. We wouldn't be able to sell our playing assets for much, because everyone will know we'd be desperate and offer peanuts.

21 hours ago, forbzy said:

The way we are being run reminds me very much of the way things work in baseball, which is not surprising given Boehly's connections to the Dodgers. In baseball when team owners make a decision to rebuild the fans know that the team will likely be awful for several years. A bunch of prospects are brought in and a new team is developed with the plan to have them challenging after a few years. That mostly works in baseball, although attendances may go down. But there is no significant to having an awful season. No teams are relegated and the worst teams are rewarded with a better pick of the new talent. Taking the same approach in the Premier League is very risky. Yes there are a few weak teams in the Premier League most seasons, but with our lack of players with any experience I wouldn't fancy our chances if we have to fight it out with the likes of Burnley.

This is the same in the NBA too…the Bulls have been rebuilding since 98

51 minutes ago, Zeta said:

If we drop to the championship, that's it. We'll be liquidated. I can't see any way the club could survive with the amount of money they've spent, with FFP regulations, playing in the championship. We wouldn't be able to sell our playing assets for much, because everyone will know we'd be desperate and offer peanuts.

Agreed, it will be like Leeds in 2004. If we go down we will have to sell our assets, players and the maybe even the bridge. We will have to rebuild with free agents and then probably get relegated again. Finally it will be insolvency and administration, there wont be any buyer the debts will be too high. Thing is based on our results for a year now this is a very real possibility. 

4 minutes ago, Vialli96 said:

Agreed, it will be like Leeds in 2004. If we go down we will have to sell our assets, players and the maybe even the bridge. We will have to rebuild with free agents and then probably get relegated again. Finally it will be insolvency and administration, there wont be any buyer the debts will be too high. Thing is based on our results for a year now this is a very real possibility. 

Yeah is not said in jest, we absolutely could go down, our results this year show we currently would do over our last 35 games.

Look it’s become clear what the strategy of Boehly is. He’s tried to implement the American model i.e. a complete rebuild by investing in potential, whilst conceding that the club wont be successful for the foreseeable future. The hope is that in 3-4 years time things start coming together and the club can be a legitimate contender again. Boehly stated that European football was decades behind American sports. 

The difference is in America whether its the NBA, NFL or the MLB they have franchises that cant get relegated and remain profitable even if theyre at the bottom of the table. They have fans that will still attend games, buy the merchandise, enjoy a night out with all the added entertainment, music, cheerleaders, popcorn and candy floss; regardless of how the team is playing. They are not like football fans in Europe with passion and who demand results and walk out if their team is down 2-0 with 20 minutes to go. 
 

Its just complete arrogance, naivety and shortsightedness to think you can apply a foreign model to a completely different sport, league and culture thats well established and been going on well over hundred years with tried and tested models for success. 

Forum stats suggest many 'fans' jumped the sinking ship when the sanctions hit, I'm guessing probably more of the newer 'fan', but even so. If we start to play Championship, then at least we know we'll be in a smaller but albeit more core of a supporter.

....and to think they are still planning a higher capacity ground. Complete circus act!

I'm sure the commitment to build a new ground or redevelop the Bridge, was part of the sale conditions. Even more they stand to lose if they f**k it up.

54 minutes ago, Modueke said:

Forum stats suggest many 'fans' jumped the sinking ship when the sanctions hit, I'm guessing probably more of the newer 'fan', but even so. If we start to play Championship, then at least we know we'll be in a smaller but albeit more core of a supporter.

....and to think they are still planning a higher capacity ground. Complete circus act!

 

30 minutes ago, Ajbod said:

I'm sure the commitment to build a new ground or redevelop the Bridge, was part of the sale conditions. Even more they stand to lose if they f**k it up.

We need to put the redevelopment plans on hold.

I don't believe these owners even considered the possibility we could go down. If we down we will be selling off players at a discount, and still getting hit with points penalties. Likely it will be a Leeds esc meltdown, maybe Derby levels.

In elite sports, you either go forward or fall from grace. In the new owner's mind, they probably think just a couple of seasons out of CL, no big deal since they are saving 100M operational cost a year. The reality is relegation is a distinct possibility, and that's a new concept they never heard of. I don't think we will go down, but the damage to the brand has already been done. Do Americans want pay big money to watch the 16th best EPL team play against a MLS team?

3 hours ago, Vialli96 said:

This is the same in the NBA too…the Bulls have been rebuilding since 98

Yes. The Bulls are terribly run this days. A sad state of affairs after the glory years of the 90's. There seemed to be some hope about 10 years ago that the glory years were going to return, but decisions since then have been awful. They can barely make the playoffs these years. I'm happy that I at least got to witness some of the glory years with Phil Jackson and MJ.

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

 

We need to put the redevelopment plans on hold.

I don't believe these owners even considered the possibility we could go down. If we down we will be selling off players at a discount, and still getting hit with points penalties. Likely it will be a Leeds esc meltdown, maybe Derby levels.

Totally agreed. It would be ugly. Even allowing for our current form we should still have enough quality returning from injury to improve our position at some point this season. But you never know what is around the corner. A couple more key injuries/re-injuries etc. and before you know it we could find ourselves with an inexperienced squad up against seasoned relegation fighters like Burnley, Everton and Sheff United. I wouldn't fancy our chances.

Not sure of all the terms written into the Clearlake purchase of the club. But I assume the 10 year agreement was to prevent a new owner from trying to make a short term profit by flipping to another seller? If so how would that agreement work if Clearlake found itself unable to manage the finance of the club e.g. following a relegation? Could that be a breach of the agreement perhaps? 

i dont even know if a protest like how United fans against the Glazers or A**x fans recently can get these clowns out of the club anymore, not saying I agree with the violent act though

19 hours ago, hawkster said:

We can huff and puff but as I understand it we have the owners for 10 years , this was the deal insisted upon when we were sold.

So we can do a glaziers out type stand but they're not going anywhere because they can't .

They can. Not being able to sell for 10 years is not enforceable anyway. Not sure who was it but there was a very detailed article/post about this somewhere. And even if they can`t sell outright there are ways around it.

Hell ... They don`t have to sell the club. All they have to do is remove their morons from management and appoint someone who is competent instead to manage the club. I don`t care who is the owner on paper. What I care about is whether or not the club is well run. Clearlake sees this as an investment. I am sure they will agree with me that Chelsea should be well managed and clearly Eggboehly are TOTALLY INCAPABLE.

8 hours ago, EdinburghBlue said:

Been a while since I posted, quite frankly - we are being run terribly. The irony of Boehly/Eghbali saying the football club was a mess on all sides is now just laughable in hindsight.

 

We’ve spent £1bn and we have won about 2 games this calendar year, we’re joint bottom on form for this year. 
We’ve sold off all the academy graduates to sign a bunch of nobodies with “potential” and get rolled over every week.

The most appalling part of all of this is the fact we are now almost in October and have no shirt sponsor? How is that an improvement on the business side of the club? 
 

The owners are running the club into the ground, it’s not even about the success but I have never in my life felt more disconnected from Chelsea than I do now.

We are stuck with these owners for 10 years, there’s nothing we can do about it, but it’s not been a good start and I honestly don’t see how we can progress. 

 

£1,000,000,000 - let that sink in.

We could have signed a new starting 11 with a budget of f**king £90m a position - you could have a team of world class players, yet we don’t have a single one.

Totally agree. But I disagree about the notion that nothing can be done. There are lots of scenarios. First of all we can hope that Clearlake understands that Eggboehly don`t understand anything about football and decide to remove them from the club. This is quite a likely scenario if fans start protesting against them. They don`t want to see their investment go to zero after all.

Imagine if you have your money invested in Clearlake and watch this train wreck of current Chelsea FC from an investor`s perspective. I would be furious to see my money squandered in this totally ridiculous way.

Less likely is Clearlake selling the club. There are ways around the 10 year clause. 100 %. 

6 hours ago, Modueke said:

Forum stats suggest many 'fans' jumped the sinking ship when the sanctions hit, I'm guessing probably more of the newer 'fan', but even so. If we start to play Championship, then at least we know we'll be in a smaller but albeit more core of a supporter.

....and to think they are still planning a higher capacity ground. Complete circus act!

However the financial model is unsustainable.  Surely we would go bust in this scenario 

f**k me this is depressing. ☹️

Bloody hell this forum is depressing, am I the only one who believes it will get better at this point?

And I thought I was the negative one around here. Or maybe it's the delusional one now? 

13 minutes ago, Victor90 said:

Bloody hell this forum is depressing, am I the only one who believes it will get better at this point?

And I thought I was the negative one around here. Or maybe it's the delusional one now? 

I'm right behind you in the delusional queue LOL. I hate queuing though so I really hope we improve soon !

34 minutes ago, Victor90 said:

Bloody hell this forum is depressing, am I the only one who believes it will get better at this point?

And I thought I was the negative one around here. Or maybe it's the delusional one now? 

It really is depressing. But the reality of us spending so much money and recording something like 10 wins in 7 months is really bottom of the barrel form for this club.  You could never in a million years predict such a downfall with the amount of money invested. Injuries and not strengthening in attack more is an excuse to a degree but my god, I can't compare this to anything else I've seen in sports, ever.

11 minutes ago, KonaKai Blue said:

It really is depressing. But the reality of us spending so much money and recording something like 10 wins in 7 months is really bottom of the barrel form for this club.  You could never in a million years predict such a downfall with the amount of money invested. Injuries and not strengthening in attack more is an excuse to a degree but my god, I can't compare this to anything else I've seen in sports, ever.

Oh it's horrendous, I can't even lie. No other fans have had to put up with the sh*t we've had to when it comes to the top 6, sure United, Liverpool, and Arsenal have had their moments but they've never had to endure finishing bottom half of the table and almost have their clubs going extinct. 

It's a lot, and trust me I feel it too. But I'm hoping in a couple of years we comeback and read these posts and have a laugh about it. I think we've got a squad full of talented players and I do think they'll get better and we'll get better as a team. I do think we the fans and the club need to just hunker down and get through this, it's a big process and we're going through it. 

If we finish just off relegation, you best believe I'll be angry with Poch, the squad, everyone, because despite the factors we are much better than finishing like that. Going by results we're certainly on a trajectory of last season (possibly worse) but we are still not even a 1/4 way into the season. So we just have to give it time, we've got no other choice. I'm still hopefull we can turn this around yet. 

34 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

I'm right behind you in the delusional queue LOL. I hate queuing though so I really hope we improve soon !

One of these days you're going to have to disagree with me SF, it's getting scary 

1 hour ago, Victor90 said:

Bloody hell this forum is depressing, am I the only one who believes it will get better at this point?

And I thought I was the negative one around here. Or maybe it's the delusional one now? 

Of course it is depressing. Roman was forced to sell and decided to hand the club over to an American investment company, that doesn`t even understand anything about football. I wonder what Roman thinks about this decision today.

The entire future of the club is at stake now. If we don`t turn it around we will get relegated. We have been in relegation form for 9 out of 12 months of 2023 now. I am actually surprised there are people around who aren`t panicking yet. I have never felt so disheartened about the state of Chelsea since falling in love with the club watching us get knocked out by AS Monaco in the 2003/2004 season.

The problem is not just how horrible we are managed. No, the problem is also that Boehly had the audacity to critisize Roman for his management of the club. I still remember how he came in and talked this bullsh*t about European sports being 15 years behind American sports. Now look at what he has done. Everyone is laughing at Chelsea for being total morons in the transfer market and rightfully so. We spent 1 billion on new players and have no one in the team that can score a goal. Not one truly elite player in the entire squad apart from maybe Enzo when played in the right position. Reece James would be world-class if he wasn`t injured all the time. But he hasn`t been able to stay fit for a long time now and there is no reason to stay optimistic. Either his body is not made for PL football or the medical team is incompetent ...

Ah ... and I forgot: We also don`t have a shirt sponsor yet. How is this even possible?

 

Iv'e lost a lot of interest in recent times, the same as some of my Chelsea mates. It all so depressing on and off the field. I'll always be a Chelsea fan no matter what,but this season and part of last we've been going to our local  team Slough Town who play in the National League South. Cheap as chips to get in, Drink beer before during and after the game, honest hard playing footballers, no diving rolling around cheating. A real pleasure to look forward to, as opposed to dreading the outcome of Chelsea at the moment. And then Sunday mornings watching my grandson playing in the local under eights (magical).

 

Yeah its all very toxic. The boos at full time (AGAIN) and Eghbali entering the dressing room. We've seen this all before. Any news that comes out of Chelsea nowadays is 99% negative and will cause inside turmoil or outside negative views on integrity. I was embarrassed the season we finished 10th in 2016, this is a very, very new low. 

Fortunately I am busy with my kids and am part of a triathlon team so I am able to keep my mind off Chelsea for the time being. Really does take a toll on you when you have nothing else going on. 

Edited September 26, 20232 yr by Sconnie Blue