On 19/04/2025 at 00:56, RMH said:

I think that @axman2526 made a very good point in the next managers thread. This is the owners dream. Buying shed load of potential, whether players and coach, to build the “greatest” team in 5-10 years time. But, they’re used to the American games, which are sh*t and don’t work the same way as European football. And football is probably more unpredictable than American football or baseball in that great youngsters don’t fulfill expectations for many reasons. They think that their American way is the best, but it’s not.

I don't think football is that different to American sport. In us sport, you draft well and build a good team then to get to the next level you need to acquire pieces through trade/free agent and that is expensive.

I think our board know this. They like Brighton model. Brighton has been a stable midtable team for years now. I think they finished 6th under RDZ. But they can't/won't take the next step because the next step is expensive.

On 19/04/2025 at 00:56, RMH said:

Edited April 22, 20251 yr by Bob stark

7 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

I don't think football is that different to American sport. In us sport, you draft well and build a good team then to get to the next level you need to acquire pieces through trade/free agent and that is expensive.

I think our board know this. They like Brighton model. Brighton has been a stable midtable team for years now. I think they finished 6th under RDZ. But they can't/won't take the next step because the next step is expensive.

As Liam Twomey said "Brighton on steroids". Meaning we are buying the top percentile talent and our aim is to win trophies as well. For Brighton that is a pipe dream and once in a decade type of scenario. This is at least how I see it.

In America they either retool or rebuild. We chose to rebuild which at the time seemed the good thing as they want the club to be entirely theirs and not something Roman built. Now we are letting the young lads learn the ropes/gain experience and when we arrive to a certain point we start adding pieces (experience, winners) to really compete on the highest level.

Montreal Canadiens just reached the playoffs after years of rebuilding the squad with top talent. They decided to go into playoffs with this young squad but I am sure next season they will add experienced players to their squad to really go for the cup. Anyway Hockey is naturally different but I can see parallels with our squad building and what is custom in the NHL.

I also see a problem with us again with a parallel to NHL. New York Rangers really need a rebuild but the fans won't have it. The squad needs to be good every season. They are in a big city with lots of history but their directors don't have the guts to do so. They didn't have an owner change so they probably cling into just retooling abd moving some pieces.

47 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

It wasn't tod though, it was 100% TT

Most of these were second or third choices though.

The "A-List", if I remember right, was Raphinha, De Ligt, Kounde, and there was probably someone else initially instead of Auba ?

4 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Most of these were second or third choices though.

The "A-List", if I remember right, was Raphinha, De Ligt, Kounde, and there was probably someone else initially instead of Auba ?

These list are not exactly great either.

De Light and Kounde are bad.

Raphinha is good but south american player players dream is usually to play for barca/madrid.

2 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

These list are not exactly great either.

De Light and Kounde are bad.

Raphinha is good but south american player players dream is usually to play for barca/madrid.

Kounde bad lol?

23 minutes ago, evissy said:

As Liam Twomey said "Brighton on steroids". Meaning we are buying the top percentile talent and our aim is to win trophies as well. For Brighton that is a pipe dream and once in a decade type of scenario. This is at least how I see it.

In America they either retool or rebuild. We chose to rebuild which at the time seemed the good thing as they want the club to be entirely theirs and not something Roman built. Now we are letting the young lads learn the ropes/gain experience and when we arrive to a certain point we start adding pieces (experience, winners) to really compete on the highest level.

Montreal Canadiens just reached the playoffs after years of rebuilding the squad with top talent. They decided to go into playoffs with this young squad but I am sure next season they will add experienced players to their squad to really go for the cup. Anyway Hockey is naturally different but I can see parallels with our squad building and what is custom in the NHL.

I also see a problem with us again with a parallel to NHL. New York Rangers really need a rebuild but the fans won't have it. The squad needs to be good every season. They are in a big city with lots of history but their directors don't have the guts to do so. They didn't have an owner change so they probably cling into just retooling abd moving some pieces.

Not really, in nfl/nba every team know if you want to go for title you need to stop building through draft.

You can certainly build a playoff team cheaply but to get title it is difficult. You can of course get lucky.

Just now, Ukraine Bolt said:

Kounde bad lol?

Kounde is bad. I take fit Fofana any day

Edited April 22, 20251 yr by Bob stark

13 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Not really, in nfl/nba every team know if you want to go for title you need to stop building through draft.

You can certainly build a playoff team cheaply but to get title it is difficult. You can of course get lucky.

Rebuild always takes time and is not certain but it gives you the basis.

59 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Kounde is bad. I take fit Fofana any day

That's the problem though.

300+days of any given year you don't have a fit Fofana to take !

2 hours ago, Bob stark said:

Kounde is bad. I take fit Fofana any day

Insane

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

That's the problem though.

300+days of any given year you don't have a fit Fofana to take !

What a pity. Our downfall started when Fofana go down.

2 hours ago, Bob stark said:

What a pity. Our downfall started when Fofana go down.

Fofana is a good player when fit. Problem is he rarely seems to be fit for more than a few games at a time. Same with Lavia. You cannot build a team around unreliability like that.

2 hours ago, Bob stark said:

What a pity. Our downfall started when Fofana go down.

We won 6 games on the bounce after Fofana got injured, this is a lazy take.

6 hours ago, Bob stark said:

It wasn't tod though, it was 100% TT

Pretty sure TT didn't sign the cheques.

7 hours ago, Bob stark said:

It wasn't tod though, it was 100% TT

This is incorrect. Tuchel didn't give any names specifically to sign, he asked the club to target a certain profile of player, but they were sh*t at it and gave us a Koulibaly who's legs had gone, a Sterling that burned out, a washed up Aubameyang, and injury prone Fofana.

One of the reasons why he was apparently sacked was because he didn't want to involve himself in identifying talent himself. The owners soon realised their mistake though because it's very rare to find a manager that does that kind of thing anymore.

9 hours ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

Without the lucky 4 points at the weekend we'd be 14th since the Everton game. Why are you happy with mediocrity? We've been bordering on relegation form for 4 months now with no sign of improvement.

I've been thinking about mediocrity lately. I started to support Chelsea in 1994, when we weren't setting the world on fire in the league. And I didn't care about that at all, I loved Chelsea even if the football was a bit rough around the edges. I didn't go over for a match until the 2000s, but when I did and we drew or lost, I still was excited and considered myself to be lucky to be a Blue. The occasional FA Cup made me jump up and down with excitement, I even flew over for a final (can't recall the year, perhaps the Villa final) just to watch it on a big screen in the So Bar.

That excitement for our club and our football has disappeared. I feel no connection to our players. If I can get that feeling back, that nothing else matters but Chelsea, even if we are mediocre with no chance of European football and only the occasional cup quarter final to look forward to, I would be ecstatic.

1 hour ago, Valerie said:

I've been thinking about mediocrity lately. I started to support Chelsea in 1994, when we weren't setting the world on fire in the league. And I didn't care about that at all, I loved Chelsea even if the football was a bit rough around the edges. I didn't go over for a match until the 2000s, but when I did and we drew or lost, I still was excited and considered myself to be lucky to be a Blue. The occasional FA Cup made me jump up and down with excitement, I even flew over for a final (can't recall the year, perhaps the Villa final) just to watch it on a big screen in the So Bar.

That excitement for our club and our football has disappeared. I feel no connection to our players. If I can get that feeling back, that nothing else matters but Chelsea, even if we are mediocre with no chance of European football and only the occasional cup quarter final to look forward to, I would be ecstatic.

That’s funny, I went to every game in the 94 cup run including Sheffield Wednesday away on a Wednesday night. I believe that’s the first time I’d ever heard ‘blue flag’ sung by us. Luton in the semi at Wembley when we serenaded Kerry Dixon. Lucky enough to have had a drink with him since (just a drink haha) and he was emotional talking about it. Couldn’t get a ticket for the final, gutted. Was offered one for £300 by a tout. A season ticket for the following season was £330, I was 18 and just started working all my games previous( apparently as young as 2) were compliments of my Chelsea loving dad. So me my dad and brother went for the season tickets instead. Utd beat us 4-0 so turned out to be a good decision, we have had them ever since.

The club just took off after that, I feel so lucky. the last 30 years have been like winning the football lottery. We have won it all. To see it all picked apart in such a short time is gutting. I understand wanting ur own personal etc etc but everything was there. We were world champions, we had a conveyer belt of talent coming through the youth team, after the sanctions the club needed a steady hand not a complete overhaul. We grew together as a club, I remember when I first saw the tourists over there. They were welcomed, they were Chelsea. It meant we were doing something right. I used to take this piss out of my own boys( little glory hunters, where were you when we were sh*t haha) well they know now.

They have spent 3yrs and billions making us worse on the pitch which is a crime but I can take. You have to take the rough with the smooth but the worse part is how they have made us fans feel so disenfranchised.

They need to get some Chelsea back into the club. People the fans can associate with. The only people at the club the fans feel like that about at the moment are the kids they have to sell to financially cover their f**k ups.

We can take mediocrity, but we need identity. You can take away our success but did you have to take away our heart and soul. Cos that’s what it feels like.

Edited April 22, 20251 yr by C3blue

3 hours ago, Valerie said:

That excitement for our club and our football has disappeared. I feel no connection to our players. If I can get that feeling back, that nothing else matters but Chelsea, even if we are mediocre with no chance of European football and only the occasional cup quarter final to look forward to, I would be ecstatic.

I feel the same way. For me, it's due to the sheer number of players we sign. I remember being excited about Carney and Washington a couple of years ago. Now I don't even bother reading the names of the youngsters we sign, let alone looking them up since they'll most likely never really play for us.

14 hours ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

We won 6 games on the bounce after Fofana got injured, this is a lazy take.

Are you counting conference league game? 😂😂😂

After Fofana went down vs villa. We won against soton 😂😂😂, Spuds (awful2 performance but we got lucky) n brentford That is it.

Everton D

Ipswich L

Fulham L

Palace D

Wolves W

City L

Bournemouth D

13 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

This is incorrect. Tuchel didn't give any names specifically to sign, he asked the club to target a certain profile of player, but they were sh*t at it and gave us a Koulibaly who's legs had gone, a Sterling that burned out, a washed up Aubameyang, and injury prone Fofana.

One of the reasons why he was apparently sacked was because he didn't want to involve himself in identifying talent himself. The owners soon realised their mistake though because it's very rare to find a manager that does that kind of thing anymore.

14 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Pretty sure TT didn't sign the cheques.

That signing fit what TT want.

An experience lcb who will replace silva eventually, kouli.

Lcb, Cucu

1v1, Sterling

Rcb, Fofana

St, auba

All of this player fit what TT want, no chance Boehly pick any of this player.

The sad thing is whether it was TT or Boely or a combination of the 2 I wish we had that now.

An experienced top quality manager identifying what his first team requires and a SD trying to get them for him. Of course mistakes were made, they always will be. Any signing can not work out even the biggest and best names we know that more than most.

Better than the model our current SD’s have implemented.

Why not do both, build a first team capable of competing now and plan for the future.

Wow I’ve just revolutionised the sport, oh wait that’s what all the top clubs do.

☹️

1 hour ago, Sconnie Blue said:

☹️

BlueCo out is the only option if we want an actual football club to support ... these owners aren't ever going to do anything different to what they've done in the last 3 years ...

10 hours ago, Bob stark said:

Are you counting conference league game? 😂😂😂

After Fofana went down vs villa. We won against soton 😂😂😂, Spuds (awful2 performance but we got lucky) n brentford That is it.

Everton D

Ipswich L

Fulham L

Palace D

Wolves W

City L

Bournemouth D

Did we not play in the conference league? Do those games not count?

So we won 3 more games in the league, 6 in all comps. Spurs wasn't an awful performance, the two goals conceded was Cucurella slipping over. Not a single person was concerned at 2-0 down because we were playing so well and we knew we would win.

Out of the league games we won with Fofana fit we didn't beat a single team in the top half of the table other than Brighton.

8 hours ago, C3blue said:

The sad thing is whether it was TT or Boely or a combination of the 2 I wish we had that now.

An experienced top quality manager identifying what his first team requires and a SD trying to get them for him. Of course mistakes were made, they always will be. Any signing can not work out even the biggest and best names we know that more than most.

Better than the model our current SD’s have implemented.

Why not do both, build a first team capable of competing now and plan for the future.

Wow I’ve just revolutionised the sport, oh wait that’s what all the top clubs do.

We’re all in – 100 per cent – every minute of every match.

In fact, what you suggested as a better plan is exactly what Todd promised us in 2022.

"Acquiring the best talent'

" Build on Chelsea's remarkable history of success "

There was nothing about acquiring loads of youngsters from abroad and also buying not the " best talent ' but instead buying mediocre talent for the first team squad.

From an early article on the takeover........vv

“Our vision as owners is clear: we want to make the fans proud.

“Along with our commitment to developing the youth squad and acquiring the best talent, our plan of action is to invest in the club for the long-term and build on Chelsea’s remarkable history of success.