5 minutes ago, OriginalS said:

It has.

So what does this bit of news mean? For me it means Matt wants to have clicks with a news that might rile up fans. If those players are not part of the first team why should they loiter around the facilities. We did that before and it clearly disrupted the first team squad. Would you decide they can hang around there if this was your club?

5 minutes ago, OriginalS said:

It has.

So what does this bit of news mean? For me it means Matt wants to have clicks with a news that might rile up fans. If those players are not part of the first team why should they loiter around the facilities. We did that before and it clearly disrupted the first team squad. Would you decide they can hang around there if this was your club?

Just now, Erik said:

Broja will never be a starter here. However the way we've been treating academy graduates the last few seasons, as commodities who are only their to be developed and sold on to fund our transfer addiction has never been and should never be the Chelsea way. 

Are they being treated poorly? Where is the evidence of that? Only way to know that if Broja himself says he is being treated poorly and even that is only his view and up for debate. Why get upset over (probably) nothing?

2 minutes ago, evissy said:

Are they being treated poorly? Where is the evidence of that? Only way to know that if Broja himself says he is being treated poorly and even that is only his view and up for debate. Why get upset over (probably) nothing?

I think you are missing the point entirely. This is not a personal mission I have for Broja's sake. It's more of general image we are depicting to future academy prospects, transfers and potential fans. The message being, if you are a talented youngster, be prepared to be used and then thrown to the curb once you develop and become valuable so we profit from you so we sign the next world Cup winner from South America. 

25 minutes ago, evissy said:

If those players are not part of the first team why should they loiter around the facilities. We did that before and it clearly disrupted the first team squad. Would you decide they can hang around there if this was your club?

They are already "loitering" around the facilities considering they are showing up at Cobham every single day. Probably feels great for captain Reece James to see his pals in the parking lot every morning only for them to go train with the kids even thought he himself knows Trevoh and Conor are far better players than some of the lads Reece finds in the first-team dressing room in the morning.

And yes, if I was running a football club I would probably try to be so decent and respectful that every player that signed a first-team contract with my club were considered first-team players until the moment they were sold. And secondly i'd probably (and by probably I mean definitly) make sure that I didn't sign so many nobodies that my squad size was 40+ a day before the season kicked off.

Right now Chalobah, Gallagher, Broja, Casadei, Datro Fofana, Washington, Kepa, Petrovic, Carney and many others are somewhere at Cobham rotting away so no I don't think we've handled anything in any kind of professional manner this summer either.

Edited August 15, 20241 yr by OriginalS

52 minutes ago, Erik said:

I think you are missing the point entirely. This is not a personal mission I have for Broja's sake. It's more of general image we are depicting to future academy prospects, transfers and potential fans. The message being, if you are a talented youngster, be prepared to be used and then thrown to the curb once you develop and become valuable so we profit from you so we sign the next world Cup winner from South America. 

Reece James and Levi Colwill are in the side. Reece being injured all the time doesn't help to be fair. 

I hope the bar is very high for the players we buy. Either been seen a sellable player or a prospect seen in the first team in the future. 

We have sold a ton of our prospect out of need and because they were not as good as the next guy. 

At this very moment as PSR is introduced and being very scary for clubs the most profit is in the homegrown players. Enzo basically confirmed this. 

Why we are buying top prospects all over the place is a bit in the dark to me. Couple of scenarios are presented here: we are heading towards a long period of transfer ban, it is part of a business model or just harvesting best youth from the world to create a massive circle of players that are with Chelsea, Strasbourg, on loan or a new satellite club we are going to buy.

If I would run a business I would think it is very counter productive to sell home grown players if they are up the scratch. Conor is unknown as of now. We offered him a contract but he decided to go. Reece and Colwill are good enough. 

To say this dents our image as a developing club dows not hold water. Why wouldn't a youngster want to be in one of the best youth setups at Chelsea? We do brilliant job there. Not many end up at Chelsea first team but neither do at Real Madrid, City, Bayern or other big clubs.

Anyway we know too little to AGAIN throw the directors under the bus.

I think you are all missing the point.

It was about shirt numbers. When was the last time they actually meant something!? Mudryk wears 10! 10 ffs! 🤣 

 

Anyway...as you were, back to the serious stuff. Haha

5 minutes ago, Simplymo said:

I think you are all missing the point.

It was about shirt numbers. When was the last time they actually meant something!? Mudryk wears 10! 10 ffs! 🤣 

 

Anyway...as you were, back to the serious stuff. Haha

Glad I'm not the only one noticing that, number 10 used to mean something to the team. Maybe kids just picking their favourite number these days, who knows.

2 hours ago, Erik said:

I think you are missing the point entirely. This is not a personal mission I have for Broja's sake. It's more of general image we are depicting to future academy prospects, transfers and potential fans. The message being, if you are a talented youngster, be prepared to be used and then thrown to the curb once you develop and become valuable so we profit from you so we sign the next world Cup winner from South America. 

Football when it comes to how academy players are treated has and always been brutal. If any youngster even had the notion that joining an academy at say 7 meant you would  remain at one club , be treated differently to the other players then that youngsters parents or advisors have failed to alert these youngsters just what they are getting into.

History tells  you just how high the % of academy youngsters  that fail to even get 1 minutes of first team appearances and indeed those that progress from the academy will know well that every player has their price and unless the hierarchy at a club see value in you staying then as I say every player has a price. It’s the industry that these youngsters have chosen and sorry you are just wrong if you think that Chelsea are close to being out of step with other clubs that decide that professionals train away from the first team group or are told they have no future at the club or another trick that most use is to get players who the club want to get rid of is to get them to travel to every game and never get on the bench and that could well mean being with the first team squad on a Saturday, the U21 on a Monday and again with the first team on a Wednesday. Yes it is horrendous but as I say football is ruthless.

Clubs can’t sack players  save gross misconduct ,so to a degree they are wrapped up in cotton wool. Broja  like Gallagher could have given notice under what is called the Webster Ruling and walked away from their contracts in the summer but they didn’t so to a degree they have failed to exercise their contractual rights why is that ? It is allowed  in what is called the defined period they could( possibly Chalobah isn’t quite in the potion) irrespective they could have handed in a transfer request which is still a valid approach even though it’s rarely used nowadays 
 

I get it that  Chelsea are being singled out but look at say A**x and how they sell so many academy players , or what about Barcelona or even Real they have no second thoughts whatsoever about selling players who aren’t wanted or who will generate a decent return . Also where is the disgust that Arsenal got rid of circa 20 academy graduates in the close season. Ok many had just completed their first 2 years but at 18 it’s difficult to even quantify how they would feel .

As for Chelsea well go back to the like of Jimmy Greaves or John Hollins, Peter Osgood, Alan Hudson , Butch  Wilkinsand you will see that even that far back players were treated very much as commodities. Then let’s fast forward to the RA era his tenure set the trend player after player who graduated and maybe had those few minutes were sold. But that was alright then but not now because some don’t like the owners and want a stick to beat them with.

 

Edited August 15, 20241 yr by terraloon

4 hours ago, terraloon said:

Football when it comes to how academy players are treated has and always been brutal. If any youngster even had the notion that joining an academy at say 7 meant you would  remain at one club , be treated differently to the other players then that youngsters parents or advisors have failed to alert these youngsters just what they are getting into.

History tells  you just how high the % of academy youngsters  that fail to even get 1 minutes of first team appearances and indeed those that progress from the academy will know well that every player has their price and unless the hierarchy at a club see value in you staying then as I say every player has a price. It’s the industry that these youngsters have chosen and sorry you are just wrong if you think that Chelsea are close to being out of step with other clubs that decide that professionals train away from the first team group or are told they have no future at the club or another trick that most use is to get players who the club want to get rid of is to get them to travel to every game and never get on the bench and that could well mean being with the first team squad on a Saturday, the U21 on a Monday and again with the first team on a Wednesday. Yes it is horrendous but as I say football is ruthless.

Clubs can’t sack players  save gross misconduct ,so to a degree they are wrapped up in cotton wool. Broja  like Gallagher could have given notice under what is called the Webster Ruling and walked away from their contracts in the summer but they didn’t so to a degree they have failed to exercise their contractual rights why is that ? It is allowed  in what is called the defined period they could( possibly Chalobah isn’t quite in the potion) irrespective they could have handed in a transfer request which is still a valid approach even though it’s rarely used nowadays 
 

I get it that  Chelsea are being singled out but look at say A**x and how they sell so many academy players , or what about Barcelona or even Real they have no second thoughts whatsoever about selling players who aren’t wanted or who will generate a decent return . Also where is the disgust that Arsenal got rid of circa 20 academy graduates in the close season. Ok many had just completed their first 2 years but at 18 it’s difficult to even quantify how they would feel .

As for Chelsea well go back to the like of Jimmy Greaves or John Hollins, Peter Osgood, Alan Hudson , Butch  Wilkinsand you will see that even that far back players were treated very much as commodities. Then let’s fast forward to the RA era his tenure set the trend player after player who graduated and maybe had those few minutes were sold. But that was alright then but not now because some don’t like the owners and want a stick to beat them with.

 

I think you're comparing apples and oranges.

I don't disagree that the academy system is ruthless and that other clubs have had circumstances where a player is treated 'unfairly' and purposely exiled from the squad in order to encourage his exit. 

However at Chelsea it looks as if it is starting to become a systematic policy that is being ingrained into the club. 

Can you show me examples of where a club have given over 42+ first team players long term contracts (some stretching to over 6 or 7 years) only to then pressure a select few players out of the club on mass a couple of seasons later in order to fund more money to buy more players on mass?

And then the cycle repeats. I can't see an end goal here. We look incredibly short sighted and may pay the price later on when we end up breaking fair play budgeting regulations a few seasons down the line. 

It would be a sound strategy if the club was making profit off of the players sold (we are not) or if the strategy was translating into results on the football pitch (we can see that hasn't been the case so far).

If either of these things were happening we could maybe accept and roll with it but so far we are yet to see any good fruits come from this run and gun recruitment policy. 

 

 

Edited August 15, 20241 yr by Erik

2 hours ago, Erik said:

I think you're comparing apples and oranges.

I don't disagree that the academy system is ruthless and that other clubs have had circumstances where a player is treated 'unfairly' and purposely exiled from the squad in order to encourage his exit. 

However at Chelsea it looks as if it is starting to become a systematic policy that is being ingrained into the club. 

Can you show me examples of where a club have given over 42+ first team players long term contracts (some stretching to over 6 or 7 years) only to then pressure a select few players out of the club on mass a couple of seasons later in order to fund more money to buy more players on mass?

And then the cycle repeats. I can't see an end goal here. We look incredibly short sighted and may pay the price later on when we end up breaking fair play budgeting regulations a few seasons down the line. 

It would be a sound strategy if the club was making profit off of the players sold (we are not) or if the strategy was translating into results on the football pitch (we can see that hasn't been the case so far).

If either of these things were happening we could maybe accept and roll with it but so far we are yet to see any good fruits come from this run and gun recruitment policy. 

 

 

As things stand of the 43 registered players at the end of season that’s upcoming 26 will have less than 4 years left on their contracts, 9 will have 5 years left, 6 will have 6 years left, 1  will have 7 years left and 1 , Palmer will have 8 years left.

In Europe in particular it’s common place to have significant numbers of contracted players. Bayern for instance have 59, Barcelona 46, and Benfica 51. The difference there is they all have B teams that play in their respective countries football league structure. Then you have clubs that have multi club structure such as the City Group who have in excess of 100 players registered.

You can then look at say Everton their accounts tell us they have 74 players in their academy and 180 employed either playing in or supporting their first teams.

In football it is common place to have a strategy in place with the time line of 5 years indeed  ours was something called project 30 you clearly are impatient if nothing else and in reality the current regime whilst making mistakes by signing the likes of Mudryk and Kouibally I am not close to making judgement calls on the vast majority of their signings be they suitable for the first team or being sold if their potential isn’t realised 

 

 

Edited August 15, 20241 yr by terraloon

To summarise, for those that still don't get it:

We don't care about academy players being sold, we care about them being sold when the expensive replacements being signed and kept on are categorically worse. 

Guehi got sold because at the time we had Rudiger, Christensen, T.Silva, Azpi etc. all ahead of him.

It was fine when Livramento got sold because we had Reece James playing every game. 

Chalobah being sold and thrown to train with the reserves is embarrassing because we have to watch Tosin (free so not too bad), Badiashile (pmsl) and Disasi instead. All worse than him.

Hope this helps. 

 

7 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

 

Could be a decent option for him. I suppose Clearlake will be hoping a decent loan can increase his value and lead to a half decent transfer fee a year from now.

2 minutes ago, forbzy said:

Could be a decent option for him. I suppose Clearlake will be hoping a decent loan can increase his value and lead to a half decent transfer fee a year from now.

That's a lot of decency.

See if he gets games there.

Maybe is a buy option that becomes mandatory if Ipswich stay up.

Wish him luck, hope he rediscovers the instincts we thought would be great for us. 

Wish him well. Would have much preferred a permanent transfer though. We're running out of loans for our dead wood.

Mandatory £30m buy clause if Ipswich avoid relegation. 

4 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Mandatory £30m buy clause if Ipswich avoid relegation. 

Bite their handoff if true..

13 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Mandatory £30m buy clause if Ipswich avoid relegation. 

We’ve played a blinder here.

12 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Mandatory £30m buy clause if Ipswich avoid relegation. 

We should make a subforum so we can all cheer for good old Ipswich Town if it's true

31 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Mandatory £30m buy clause if Ipswich avoid relegation. 

Hmm, don't think they will, huge step up after two successive promotions.

The year is 2025: Ipswich have defied expectations and finished 10th in the league. Chelsea have parted ways with Maresca after finishing 8th in the table and have hired Kieren Mckenna on a 9 year contract and have just tabled a bid to re-purchase Broja for 60 million after a 20 goal season. (Joke 😜) 

Good luck Armando! 

Deleted as Erik beat me to the punchline.. ;-) Can well see it happening. 

Edited August 20, 20241 yr by bluetrooper