18 minutes ago, Zeta said:

There is no hope for this squad they've assembled. It's not just a case of young players who need time and experience. The vast majority of them simply are bad players and not ever going to be good enough for the top level. 

Agree.. technically they aren’t good enough.. who ever scouted them .. 

On 04/04/2024 at 22:48, Zeta said:

There is no hope for this squad they've assembled. It's not just a case of young players who need time and experience. The vast majority of them simply are bad players and not ever going to be good enough for the top level. 

I'd disagree.

With coaching, 

Gusto, Colwill, Badiashille, Disasi, Caicedo, Enzo, Carney, Palmer, are all good enough to have us in that top 4 bracket. 

Jackson, Cucu, Petrovic, are decent rotation options. 

Gilchrist, Hutchinson and Andrey Santos could all be future top bracket players. 

That's a promising squad. A few additions and better coaching and these purchases suddenly look like good buys. 

 

A team which is relegated and probably will receive over 100 goals make us to look like a clowns. And we are clowns, players who don't have basic football knowledge and make mistake after mistake after mistake. Thank you Cancel Culture Aunt Todd.

Edited April 7, 20242 yr by JJ8

https://www.football.london/chelsea-fc/news/bad-news-todd-boehly-speaks-28923267

Boehly has overseen spending in excess of £1billion during his reign, bringing in players such as Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez, but has received little reward for his significant financial backing.

Though aware of this lack of progress, Boehly has refused to become impatient and believes success can soon arrive once many of the club's players have been afforded the time to settle to their surroundings.

“We just need to let the process develop and give them the time to go from being unbelievable individual players with great skills to fold into a team," the 50-year-old told Forbes.

"The good news is people care so much. And the bad news is people care so much. That leads to times when they’re frustrated with the team and the owners. I get that, but we just have to continue to stay the course.”

For the 1 billion we have spent, besides Palmar, maybe chukwuemeka every single one of them is either a big flop or overpaid 40% of their transfer fee

 

f**k this ownership man

5 hours ago, cfcforeverfan said:

For the 1 billion we have spent, besides Palmar, maybe chukwuemeka every single one of them is either a big flop or overpaid 40% of their transfer fee

 

f**k this ownership man

Whilst I agree that we have significantly overpaid for a number of our players I am not sure about the flop element. 

Granted the goalkeeping and CB recruitment has been pretty poor and Cucurella still leaves me numb most games, with Gusto, Palmer, Mudryk, Madueke, Enzo and even Caicedo (in the right organisational structure), you can clearly see there is the outline of a good side there.

We may well have to trade our ffp free hitters now due to our hapless ownership and there will still be some that we cannot move on.

The issue for me is the appalling lack of organisation,  structure and in game management from this manager along with this awful style of football of relying on the poorest, least creative of our players to dictate our pattern.

A decent CB pairing, 2 real strikers in the squad instead of the league one clown we have up top, play a formation that suits our midfield and get the ball quickly to the players that can create and we would be a different proposition.  It won't happen with this bloke. No way.

1 hour ago, WhiteWall said:

Whilst I agree that we have significantly overpaid for a number of our players I am not sure about the flop element. 

Granted the goalkeeping and CB recruitment has been pretty poor and Cucurella still leaves me numb most games, with Gusto, Palmer, Mudryk, Madueke, Enzo and even Caicedo (in the right organisational structure), you can clearly see there is the outline of a good side there.

We may well have to trade our ffp free hitters now due to our hapless ownership and there will still be some that we cannot move on.

The issue for me is the appalling lack of organisation,  structure and in game management from this manager along with this awful style of football of relying on the poorest, least creative of our players to dictate our pattern.

A decent CB pairing, 2 real strikers in the squad instead of the league one clown we have up top, play a formation that suits our midfield and get the ball quickly to the players that can create and we would be a different proposition.  It won't happen with this bloke. No way.

The way you are describing things Whitewall, Pochettino (or whoever follows him) is 6 players short of having a decent team to work with ... GK, 2x CB, LB, 2x Strikers, and that's without any acknowledgment that the midfield is still a problem !

Edited April 8, 20242 yr by Sexyfootball

20 hours ago, bisright1 said:

I'd disagree.

With coaching, 

Gusto, Colwill, Badiashille, Disasi, Caicedo, Enzo, Carney, Palmer, are all good enough to have us in that top 4 bracket. 

Jackson, Cucu, Petrovic, are decent rotation options. 

Gilchrist, Hutchinson and Andrey Santos could all be future top bracket players. 

That's a promising squad. A few additions and better coaching and these purchases suddenly look like good buys. 

 

Largely agree, however for fees paid- unprecedented outlay in the history of world football. In terms of coaching, football is a fairly simple game. These players have been coached since whenever they became attacked to clubs at 11 years old. If anything in my experience skill can become nullified by over coaching. You’ve either got it or you haven’t 

Exception to coaching rule, set pieces, which are vitally important. Other than that think the basics are installed at a young age

Sounds like a broken record, but it's just irresponsible to overpay for so many players ( especially players aren't even ready for first team)  when they knew there are FFP rules in place. If youth and future prospects are the focus, spend on academy, try to promote players with in ( our youth team has been pretty good), instead of throwing in big money at unknowns. For what we spent, could have easily buy a team of proven players who are at their prime for about 4-5 seasons, instead we got this. It's easy to say next season will be better with this and that goes our way, didn't we say this last season after getting rid of Potter and Lampard?

1 hour ago, icecoolguy22 said:

Sounds like a broken record, but it's just irresponsible to overpay for so many players ( especially players aren't even ready for first team)  when they knew there are FFP rules in place. If youth and future prospects are the focus, spend on academy, try to promote players with in ( our youth team has been pretty good), instead of throwing in big money at unknowns. For what we spent, could have easily buy a team of proven players who are at their prime for about 4-5 seasons, instead we got this. It's easy to say next season will be better with this and that goes our way, didn't we say this last season after getting rid of Potter and Lampard?

And that would have been something everyone else does. I like the fact we have tried to do things differently. 

We need fans behind the team and masses of patience. The end game for this 'experiment' could be something much bigger than we could have achieved by buying established players. We just have to wait.

I hope the owners have things under control financially.

On 04/04/2024 at 22:06, Jangz said:

Agree.. technically they aren’t good enough.. who ever scouted them .. 

Whoscored.com

16 minutes ago, evissy said:

And that would have been something everyone else does. I like the fact we have tried to do things differently. 

We need fans behind the team and masses of patience. The end game for this 'experiment' could be something much bigger than we could have achieved by buying established players. We just have to wait.

I hope the owners have things under control financially.

Or with countless poor decision made through experimentation in a field that they have no knowledge of, we end up backed into a financial corner where we have no option to persist with a core of players that may end up never fulfilling their promise due to being led by an inept manager until we are cragged into the championship. That's the thing with projects, they can just as easily go horribly wrong as they can go fantastically well.

Also how is this patience to be defined. Let's say, at the end of this season with Klopp leaving and possibly Van Dijk, that Salah decides to ride off into the Saudi Arabian sunset and yo placate the new incoming manager, Liverpool make an audacious £80-£90m bid for Cole Palmer as they see him as a natural successor to Salah.

Double your money, do we think these owners would take the offer! Of course. On the bass that we have Madueke, and Gabriel possibly, could be, perhaps, maybe, come good in a couple of years. Are we then happy to lose our stand out POTY to a team that used to be a rival of ours for the sake of our undefined project?

14 minutes ago, evissy said:

And that would have been something everyone else does. I like the fact we have tried to do things differently. 

We need fans behind the team and masses of patience. The end game for this 'experiment' could be something much bigger than we could have achieved by buying established players. We just have to wait.

I hope the owners have things under control financially.

 The overly optimistic endgame for all this is becoming a top 4 club and that's where we were when the ownership took over.

If that were true Reece James would already be a Real Madrid player. Evident that the club will view certain players as untouchable. Palmer likely on top of the list. 

Edited April 8, 20242 yr by Sconnie Blue

1 hour ago, Sheva said:

 The overly optimistic endgame for all this is becoming a top 4 club and that's where we were when the ownership took over.

Okay...so we build the side from young lads that will develop and gain experience every season and will form the core of the squad. Most of those young players are considered among the elite of their age group. Some of them are maybe below the elite but considered top talents and sought after by our biggest rivals. Our owners decided to pay top dollar to secure them. 

Palmer and Madueke are U21 England core, Casadei and Santos were two top players of U20 World Champions last summer to give you an example. 

Not every one of them will survive in the first team and will be sold on. New ones will come in. Maybe we will go for one or two a bit more experienced players like we did with Nkunku. But I guess even he was secured before the new sporting directors came in. Time will tell. 

We are giving a chance to young lads to play in a massive club together as young lads in big roles. In a good scenario that could give us a great platform for years to come. We don't inherit thighs from the past, we create new Chelsea. 

I think something like this has to be behind the thinking of creating this squad. It could also go wrong. Absolutely. But if you don't change the way you operate you can't expect different results. 

If you look at MU commercially they are still a powerhouse in world football but on the pitch they have been the red donkeys instead of Devils since SAF left. His figure and that successful period still looms on those young players and they just can't let go of it. Neville and Keane hopefully stick on beating them on TV for years to come. 

I hope our young players have a better platform to spring from. We absolutely need to back them and give them and Pochettino time.

1 hour ago, evissy said:

Okay...so we build the side from young lads that will develop and gain experience every season and will form the core of the squad. Most of those young players are considered among the elite of their age group. Some of them are maybe below the elite but considered top talents and sought after by our biggest rivals. Our owners decided to pay top dollar to secure them. 

Palmer and Madueke are U21 England core, Casadei and Santos were two top players of U20 World Champions last summer to give you an example. 

Not every one of them will survive in the first team and will be sold on. New ones will come in. Maybe we will go for one or two a bit more experienced players like we did with Nkunku. But I guess even he was secured before the new sporting directors came in. Time will tell. 

We are giving a chance to young lads to play in a massive club together as young lads in big roles. In a good scenario that could give us a great platform for years to come. We don't inherit thighs from the past, we create new Chelsea. 

I think something like this has to be behind the thinking of creating this squad. It could also go wrong. Absolutely. But if you don't change the way you operate you can't expect different results. 

If you look at MU commercially they are still a powerhouse in world football but on the pitch they have been the red donkeys instead of Devils since SAF left. His figure and that successful period still looms on those young players and they just can't let go of it. Neville and Keane hopefully stick on beating them on TV for years to come. 

I hope our young players have a better platform to spring from. We absolutely need to back them and give them and Pochettino time.

We have one of the best academies in world football, the foundation is already there. They could have easily just kept the experienced players and found a manager that would give a chance to the players in our academy.

Instead they spent north of 700m on taking players from other academies and decided develop those instead while getting rid of most of the experienced players.

5 hours ago, evissy said:

Okay...so we build the side from young lads that will develop and gain experience every season and will form the core of the squad. Most of those young players are considered among the elite of their age group. Some of them are maybe below the elite but considered top talents and sought after by our biggest rivals. Our owners decided to pay top dollar to secure them. 

Palmer and Madueke are U21 England core, Casadei and Santos were two top players of U20 World Champions last summer to give you an example. 

Not every one of them will survive in the first team and will be sold on. New ones will come in. Maybe we will go for one or two a bit more experienced players like we did with Nkunku. But I guess even he was secured before the new sporting directors came in. Time will tell. 

We are giving a chance to young lads to play in a massive club together as young lads in big roles. In a good scenario that could give us a great platform for years to come. We don't inherit thighs from the past, we create new Chelsea. 

I think something like this has to be behind the thinking of creating this squad. It could also go wrong. Absolutely. But if you don't change the way you operate you can't expect different results. 

If you look at MU commercially they are still a powerhouse in world football but on the pitch they have been the red donkeys instead of Devils since SAF left. His figure and that successful period still looms on those young players and they just can't let go of it. Neville and Keane hopefully stick on beating them on TV for years to come. 

I hope our young players have a better platform to spring from. We absolutely need to back them and give them and Pochettino time.

I'm not sure if you're being serious here and very naive or just taking a piss. Hope it's the former.

You said in a previous post I like the fact we have tried to do things differently. That's a noble stance but there's a reason why clubs don't go that route. I said it back in June last year in this very forum 

I get it that the squad needs refreshing but it feels that we're overdoing it a bit. At the rate Todd is going by the end of the transfer window we'll have only Thiago Silva, Kepa, Chilwell and Sterling in the 'over 25' group, and probably close to 80% of the first team squad will be around 21-22 years old, most of them unproven in the PL. It may look good on paper, but I doubt it's going to work. We need experience, on and off the pitch.

Now I'm not quoting myself for the 'I told you' effect since there were plenty of other posters who felt the same way. I also remember others insisting that 'people in charge know what they're doing' and telling everyone to relax. Now that we're about to finish midtable for the second season in a row I think it's safe to say that those in charge clearly don't know sh*t.

And why did we have to change the way we operated, as you put it? We won everything under the sun in the previous twenty years and have been finishing in a top four spot regularly. 

The idea of a new Chelsea emerging from the group of young players that will keep developing together sounds great as an idea for a movie or a TV series but it's not realistic. We're already in financial trouble, that means we'll have to sell players in order to balance the books. And even if we didn't have to sell our best, how long do you think the likes of Palmer would want to stick around anyway if we keep finishing closer to the relegation zone than top six year after year? 

Success breeds success. You're not going to build a team of winners the way this lot have been going about it. You'll just have a bunch of bitter footballers with a broken spirit who'd feel they were sold a lie.

 

Edited April 8, 20242 yr by abramovich

Forget the players, forget Pochettino it is so clear that these owners and board will continue to make mistakes because they're just out of their depth.

It's only dawned on me at no point can I ever recall them ever talking about specifically what style of football or philosophy they want. Which shows why our approach to literally everything has been so scattergun. 

Possession based football, sure ok but what else? How do they want the team to play? Surely saying we want a young talented team doesn't equal a project. What do you want the young team to learn, to do, what's their identity?

You get clips coming out from Pochettino's interview a while back speaking about how tactics and philosophy aren't as important. The main priority is as long as players do what the coach wants them to do. Isn't that literally philosophy and tactics Poch? What are we teaching these players?

Imo the project should have been if we're selling all our stars to focus on youth then you look to intergrate the academy like Lampard 2020. Why did we invest so much across the last 20 years into its development under RA and for it to be recognised as one of the best in the world only to go out and buy young players who aren't proven and then use the academy to cover the cost. Who thought of this and believed it was a good idea. 

There's so many holes in this board's logic at this point, I'm close to checking out for the season and hoping next year will be better. Yet I'm scared that with the same people in charge we will just rinse and repeat.

At this point with the big money spent I think we should generally question whether this is a money laundering operation, because you do not spend this much in such a short time and not so frivolously to the point that its waste. Who is being held accountable, what are the consequences for failure? So far Tuxhel and Potter losing their jobs. In my opinion Potter was a victim of the board and Tuchel well he hasn't been the same since 18 months ago but he didn't deserve what he got. I will die on the hill we would never finish below 6th with Tuchel this or last season.

Edited April 8, 20242 yr by LongtimerLurker

@LongtimerLurker Anyway, nice shades bro!

12 hours ago, evissy said:

And that would have been something everyone else does. I like the fact we have tried to do things differently. 

We need fans behind the team and masses of patience. The end game for this 'experiment' could be something much bigger than we could have achieved by buying established players. We just have to wait.

I hope the owners have things under control financially.

So basically a very expensive experiment that may work, but plenty of past examples to prove otherwise. Already 2 years into the project, we are going backwards while others making progress. So yes, let's wait and hope for something better🙃

3 hours ago, icecoolguy22 said:

So basically a very expensive experiment that may work, but plenty of past examples to prove otherwise. Already 2 years into the project, we are going backwards while others making progress. So yes, let's wait and hope for something better🙃

1 year. We have had this young squad only about a year. 

5 hours ago, evissy said:

1 year. We have had this young squad only about a year. 

If you look at this way, you may as well ignore table and results for the next 5-10 years. Every season the owners will get a bunch of young players, so every season will year 1 for the team. You trust the experiment, good for you. But this is a results driven business, not judging by results is just sugar coating incompetency.

3 hours ago, icecoolguy22 said:

If you look at this way, you may as well ignore table and results for the next 5-10 years. Every season the owners will get a bunch of young players, so every season will year 1 for the team. You trust the experiment, good for you. But this is a results driven business, not judging by results is just sugar coating incompetency.

We're not planning to restart the squad every year. 

Next season the best players will stay in the squad. And they'll be available for the next 10 years. 

I think Poch is the issue. And if we didn't have Poch I'd think a goalkeeper and striker are what we need. That's all we need to become top 4 with this squad and the young players coming through. 

5 hours ago, icecoolguy22 said:

If you look at this way, you may as well ignore table and results for the next 5-10 years. Every season the owners will get a bunch of young players, so every season will year 1 for the team. You trust the experiment, good for you. But this is a results driven business, not judging by results is just sugar coating incompetency.

Who said we will get young players every year? We did the complete overhaul. And I agree on many levels why the owners wanted to vent the entire squad and employees. That is how you reset. 

Most fans here have wanted the complete overhaul. Now that we did it was irresponsible. That is because we haven't had quick results and quick turnaround in results. Fans have zero patience in Chelsea and with the Roman history I get it. 

This (project) will only work if don't budge. By budging I mean listening to us fans and media doing something stupid like rinse and repeat with managers and buy established players that are not the profile fitting for the project.

This feels an experiment and I understand it might feel irresponsible and in some extent it could be. There is no other previous project you can reflect this on and we put masses of emphasis on the sporting directors we just hired. I get it. However I like this approach (or the idea of) much more than just continuing what Roman did.