1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

Michael Emenalo

Emenalos job for the club is actually severely underrated.

He was essentially our sporting director as long as Gourlay was our Chief Excecutive. Gourlay smartly let the most competent football man handle that part of the business and Emenalo brought in the likes of Salah, Courtois, De Bruyne, Mata, Oscar, Hazard, Lukaku, Azpi, Cahill, Matic, Zouma, Kante among others. Obviously there were some mistakes too but in general we were a lot better in the transfer market when he was in charge between 2011-2016 than we have been since.

He did of course resign in 2017 after losing a power struggle with Granovskaia. Then the club decided it was a good idea to absorb Emenalo's role into hers and it's not gone great. Conte was devestated when he left and saw the writing on the wall from that moment on in my opinion.
Emenalo was also a great defender and contributor to our academy as well back in his time at the club.

I think this club would have been in a much better place if Granovskaia stuck with what's she good at and we had a football man in charge of the football related.

Here is a list of all the significant players we bought when Emenalo and Gourlay were working in tandem between 2011-2014.

2011: Mata, Lukaku, Meireles, Courtois, Cahill, De Bruyne,
2012: Hazard, Oscar, Moses, Azpi, Demba Ba
2013: Willian, Matic. Schurrle, Salah, Zouma,
2014: Costa, Fabregas, Cuadrado, F.Luis,, Remy,

Obviously the highlighted two were flops but that is one hell of a recruitment job over those years.

It's a shame he's gone. It genuinly is.

Edited February 7, 20224 yr by Sindre

5 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Emenalos job for the club is actually severely underrated.

He was essentially our sporting director as long as Gourlay was our Chief Excecutive. Gourlay smartly let the most competent football man handle that part of the business and Emenalo brought in the likes of Salah, Courtois, De Bruyne, Mata, Oscar, Hazard, Lukaku, Azpi, Cahill, Matic, Zouma, Kante among others. Obviously there were some mistakes too but in general we were a lot better in the transfer market when he was in charge between 2011-2016 than we have been since.

He did of course resign in 2017 after losing a power struggle with Granovskaia. Then the club decided it was a good idea to absorb Emenalo's role into hers and it's not gone great. Conte was devestated when he left and saw the writing on the wall from that moment on in my opinion.
Emenalo was also a great defender and contributor to our academy as well back in his time at the club.

I think this club would have been in a much better place if Granovskaia stuck with what's she good at and we had a football man in charge of the football related.

It's a shame he's gone really. 

 

I genuinely think fan pressure forced Emanalo out and to do this day it leaves a bitter taste in  my mouth. Let's be honest, him being Nigerian, his face didn't sit well with many fans who would use any excuse to blame him. Was even blamed for Jose's meltdown and sacking. God some fans make me sick sometimes. 

29 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Emenalos job for the club is actually severely underrated.

He was essentially our sporting director as long as Gourlay was our Chief Excecutive. Gourlay smartly let the most competent football man handle that part of the business and Emenalo brought in the likes of Salah, Courtois, De Bruyne, Mata, Oscar, Hazard, Lukaku, Azpi, Cahill, Matic, Zouma, Kante among others. Obviously there were some mistakes too but in general we were a lot better in the transfer market when he was in charge between 2011-2016 than we have been since.

He did of course resign in 2017 after losing a power struggle with Granovskaia. Then the club decided it was a good idea to absorb Emenalo's role into hers and it's not gone great. Conte was devestated when he left and saw the writing on the wall from that moment on in my opinion.
Emenalo was also a great defender and contributor to our academy as well back in his time at the club.

I think this club would have been in a much better place if Granovskaia stuck with what's she good at and we had a football man in charge of the football related.

Here is a list of all the significant players we bought when Emenalo and Gourlay were working in tandem between 2011-2014.

2011: Mata, Lukaku, Meireles, Courtois, Cahill, De Bruyne,
2012: Hazard, Oscar, Moses, Azpi, Demba Ba
2013: Willian, Matic. Schurrle, Salah, Zouma,
2014: Costa, Fabregas, Cuadrado, F.Luis,, Remy,

Obviously the highlighted two were flops but that is one hell of a recruitment job over those years.

It's a shame he's gone. It genuinly is.

Was a good list. Like I said don't think Marina has done that well and is protected by her relationship with Roman. And fair enough is his club. So he can do what he wants.

45 minutes ago, KonaKai Blue said:

I genuinely think fan pressure forced Emanalo out and to do this day it leaves a bitter taste in  my mouth. Let's be honest, him being Nigerian, his face didn't sit well with many fans who would use any excuse to blame him. Was even blamed for Jose's meltdown and sacking. God some fans make me sick sometimes. 

In fairness the fan pressure was aimed at the players as well after the Jose meltdown but I think his interview right after the sacking really didn't help, Jose at the time was a club legend here and it felt like he'd been thrown under the bus. 

 

In hindsight though it was a really bad decision getting rid of him, we've wasted so much money since then

2 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Personally think Birch, Kenyon, Gourley and Michael Emenalo all did better in their roles than Marina. 

Marina is very good at selling players for good money but we clearly need someone else for the buy-side

43 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Was a good list. Like I said don't think Marina has done that well and is protected by her relationship with Roman. And fair enough is his club. So he can do what he wants.

What exactly did she do wrong? Lampard and Cech were responsible for approaching the players not her, she has always been the person that gives the players the pen and points to them where to sign. Public information that Lampard personally called Ziyech, that Cech personally flew to Germany in order to talk with Werner and so on...

I don't buy this whole "power struggle" between Marina and Emenalo, they both did their roles for years and for multiple managers. In fact I believe that it was Conte that influenced at some degree Emenalo's decision to quit after they didn't agree on the players to sign and Conte didn't even stop there he kept fighting the whole club over the course of that season, him saying that he was sad that Emenalo left doesn't change the fact that he kept pointing fingers at everyone else that didn't quit their position. 

So who was getting the players if not Emenalo and any given manager at the time? Also Emenalo contributed to the club getting into the transfer ban despite his youth project being great because one of the main problems was having youth players without registering them and if he had a slightly better relationship with Conte we would have signed Lukaku that summer and not Morata, "potato-potato".

Fits that Emenalo quit that year right after getting Bakayoko and Drinkwater, if the relationship between Conte and him really was great then how come none of them ever wanted to take any responsibility for those terrible transfers? Clearly the two main people at fault covered for each other because Marina is still working for the club while the other two did their best to abandon ship as soon as they f**ked up.

3 hours ago, KonaKai Blue said:

I genuinely think fan pressure forced Emanalo out and to do this day it leaves a bitter taste in  my mouth. Let's be honest, him being Nigerian, his face didn't sit well with many fans who would use any excuse to blame him. Was even blamed for Jose's meltdown and sacking. God some fans make me sick sometimes. 

Blame the media for that mate, I remember reading stories placing our nightmare transfer window 2017 all on him amongst other stuff that went wrong around that period 15-17 I think when we had an underwhelming window after winning the league with Jose he was also blamed. 

A lot of people know now he was made a scapegoat but at the time imo I think they all saw him as an issue and couldn't wait to see the back off him 😔

2 hours ago, Gol15 said:

What exactly did she do wrong? Lampard and Cech were responsible for approaching the players not her, she has always been the person that gives the players the pen and points to them where to sign. Public information that Lampard personally called Ziyech, that Cech personally flew to Germany in order to talk with Werner and so on...

I don't buy this whole "power struggle" between Marina and Emenalo, they both did their roles for years and for multiple managers. In fact I believe that it was Conte that influenced at some degree Emenalo's decision to quit after they didn't agree on the players to sign and Conte didn't even stop there he kept fighting the whole club over the course of that season, him saying that he was sad that Emenalo left doesn't change the fact that he kept pointing fingers at everyone else that didn't quit their position. 

So who was getting the players if not Emenalo and any given manager at the time? Also Emenalo contributed to the club getting into the transfer ban despite his youth project being great because one of the main problems was having youth players without registering them and if he had a slightly better relationship with Conte we would have signed Lukaku that summer and not Morata, "potato-potato".

Fits that Emenalo quit that year right after getting Bakayoko and Drinkwater, if the relationship between Conte and him really was great then how come none of them ever wanted to take any responsibility for those terrible transfers? Clearly the two main people at fault covered for each other because Marina is still working for the club while the other two did their best to abandon ship as soon as they f**ked up.

Depends what you believe gol. That same public information has stated that, aside from Roman, nobody at the club has more power and final say than Marina.

So as to who really makes the choices about which players are signed I don't know, do you? My belief is Marina has a lot of say in it, as Kenyon and Emanalo did before/during her time.

10 hours ago, Gol15 said:

What exactly did she do wrong? Lampard and Cech were responsible for approaching the players not her, she has always been the person that gives the players the pen and points to them where to sign. Public information that Lampard personally called Ziyech, that Cech personally flew to Germany in order to talk with Werner and so on...

I don't buy this whole "power struggle" between Marina and Emenalo, they both did their roles for years and for multiple managers. In fact I believe that it was Conte that influenced at some degree Emenalo's decision to quit after they didn't agree on the players to sign and Conte didn't even stop there he kept fighting the whole club over the course of that season, him saying that he was sad that Emenalo left doesn't change the fact that he kept pointing fingers at everyone else that didn't quit their position. 

So who was getting the players if not Emenalo and any given manager at the time? Also Emenalo contributed to the club getting into the transfer ban despite his youth project being great because one of the main problems was having youth players without registering them and if he had a slightly better relationship with Conte we would have signed Lukaku that summer and not Morata, "potato-potato".

Fits that Emenalo quit that year right after getting Bakayoko and Drinkwater, if the relationship between Conte and him really was great then how come none of them ever wanted to take any responsibility for those terrible transfers? Clearly the two main people at fault covered for each other because Marina is still working for the club while the other two did their best to abandon ship as soon as they f**ked up.

That isn't the way it works at Chelsea.
Listen to this little outtake from an interview with Ray Wilkins in 2017 and you get a sense of how the club works in terms of recruitment.

 

11 hours ago, KonaKai Blue said:

I genuinely think fan pressure forced Emanalo out and to do this day it leaves a bitter taste in  my mouth. Let's be honest, him being Nigerian, his face didn't sit well with many fans who would use any excuse to blame him. Was even blamed for Jose's meltdown and sacking. God some fans make me sick sometimes. 

Absolute massive load of sh*t, do you have any evidence of that or are you just claiming were all racist on the basis of nothing?

12 hours ago, KonaKai Blue said:

I genuinely think fan pressure forced Emanalo out and to do this day it leaves a bitter taste in  my mouth. Let's be honest, him being Nigerian, his face didn't sit well with many fans who would use any excuse to blame him. Was even blamed for Jose's meltdown and sacking. God some fans make me sick sometimes. 

Utter sh*te. I do remember there was a massive amount of piss taking over the fact that he’d previously coached an under 12’s girls team, but there was no hint of any negativities based on either his race or nationality. 
 

Some fans do make me sick though, especially those fans with a tendency to look form and even invent problems within the club and it’s fanbase where none exist.

I remember I was always pissed with Emenalo given his CV was coaching under 12 girls and he kept calling Jose "individual" without a modicum of respect after he was sacked. Nothing to do with nationality or race. 

2 hours ago, Sindre said:

That isn't the way it works at Chelsea.
Listen to this little outtake from an interview with Ray Wilkins in 2017 and you get a sense of how the club works in terms of recruitment.

 

This doesn't really go against anything I said though. Somehow Conte blamed everyone but Emenalo after he quit, the two made a mess out of that summer transfer window and none wanted to take any responsibility, that's how I see it.

3 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

This doesn't really go against anything I said though. Somehow Conte blamed everyone but Emenalo after he quit, the two made a mess out of that summer transfer window and none wanted to take any responsibility, that's how I see it.

You are entitled to your opinion. But it's fairly common knowledge that Conte & Emenalo was targeting entirely different players than we ended up signing. Emenalo realized he was about to lose all power due to Granovskaias powergrab (in my opinion) and he resigned. She should have left the recruitment process to Emenalo which had worked so great for several years but she wanted control over that too. Which she also got when Emenalo's role was absorbed into hers after he left. Bit of a Game of Thrones really that she won but not sure it's been beneficial to the club.

Marina has completely buggered up the wage structure at the whole club, most recently by offering this mammoth contract to Lukaku. She's also sanctioned huge money for Werner, Saul and Kepa of course.

Stupidly high wages are the biggest contributor to us making huge losses as a club, and to the understandable discontent of certain players who want parity with the top earners, or to at least be closer to it.

If you believe the numbers at sportrac.com, then Lukaku currently "earns" £10K a week MORE than the combined wages of Thiago Silva, Rudiger, James and Mendy. How ridiculous is that ?

Are we that unattractive as a club that we have to offer double the money players can get elsewhere to get players to join us ? I call bollocks on that. It is just plain bad business, with accountability in the board room and nowhere else. Master negotiator my arse ... 

55 minutes ago, Sindre said:

You are entitled to your opinion. But it's fairly common knowledge that Conte & Emenalo was targeting entirely different players than we ended up signing. Emenalo realized he was about to lose all power due to Granovskaias powergrab (in my opinion) and he resigned. She should have left the recruitment process to Emenalo which had worked so great for several years but she wanted control over that too. Which she also got when Emenalo's role was absorbed into hers after he left. Bit of a Game of Thrones really that she won but not sure it's been beneficial to the club.

Your first sentence has no logical connection to the second one. if Conte and Emenalo didn't agree on the players it's not even needed for Marina to have any say in order for Emenalo to step down after the result from the two of them making deals that year. If we agree that both of them wanted different players adding that Conte blamed everyone else but himself and was sad after Emenalo left, it really looks like they tried to hide their own responsibility for their roles by pointing fingers at the club and not looking at the mirror to see just how they did that time, after all in your video Wilkins says that when it comes to players it's what the coach wants.

Marina had to work with that mess, Conte was pointing fingers at the club for the whole season and Emenalo caused the transfer ban, I have no issues with Marina taking more control over the situation specially since Conte's decisions haunt us till this day and given the fact that the previous manager Mourinho wasted the opportunity of having De Bruyne it only makes me trust Marina even more.

28 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Marina has completely buggered up the wage structure at the whole club, most recently by offering this mammoth contract to Lukaku. She's also sanctioned huge money for Werner, Saul and Kepa of course.

Stupidly high wages are the biggest contributor to us making huge losses as a club, and to the understandable discontent of certain players who want parity with the top earners, or to at least be closer to it.

If you believe the numbers at sportrac.com, then Lukaku currently "earns" £10K a week MORE than the combined wages of Thiago Silva, Rudiger, James and Mendy. How ridiculous is that ?

Are we that unattractive as a club that we have to offer double the money players can get elsewhere to get players to join us ? I call bollocks on that. It is just plain bad business, with accountability in the board room and nowhere else. Master negotiator my arse ... 

But if she says no to those transfers then it's her and as an extension the club not backing the manager isn't it? Poor Lampard can't get Werner because Marina is in the way, poor Tuchel can't get a striker like Lukaku because Marina isn't backing him...

1 hour ago, Sindre said:

You are entitled to your opinion. But it's fairly common knowledge that Conte & Emenalo was targeting entirely different players than we ended up signing. Emenalo realized he was about to lose all power due to Granovskaias powergrab (in my opinion) and he resigned. She should have left the recruitment process to Emenalo which had worked so great for several years but she wanted control over that too. Which she also got when Emenalo's role was absorbed into hers after he left. Bit of a Game of Thrones really that she won but not sure it's been beneficial to the club.

Where on earth do you get this sh*t from 😂

23 minutes ago, dkw said:

Where on earth do you get this sh*t from 😂

Widely reported by credible sources and also from interviews with Emenalo and Conte since then.

7 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Widely reported by credible sources and also from interviews with Emenalo and Conte since then.

So you`ll be able to find proof to corroborate this quite easily then.

2 minutes ago, dkw said:

So you`ll be able to find proof to corroborate this quite easily then.

Have at it:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/abramovich-aide-quits-to-rock-chelsea-5rsrw3zj3

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/may/12/antonio-conte-emelano-chelsea-tough-season

https://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2017/11/7/16612686/michael-emenalo-exit-interview-chelsea-legacy

 

So absolutely nothing in any of those saying Granovskia was interfering in transfers, or he realised he was going to lose all power etc. Just random supposition and bullsh*t basically, especially from that weaintgotnohistory load of tosh.

20 hours ago, KonaKai Blue said:

I genuinely think fan pressure forced Emanalo out and to do this day it leaves a bitter taste in  my mouth. Let's be honest, him being Nigerian, his face didn't sit well with many fans who would use any excuse to blame him. Was even blamed for Jose's meltdown and sacking. God some fans make me sick sometimes. 

I don't think it was anything racially motivated. He was on a hiding to nothing from the moment he took the Wilkins' job (let alone the interview after Mou was fired).

I still feel there's reluctance in some quarters to fully take to Tuchel despite delivering big ears simply by the pure association of being the one who took Frank's job so a person who spent most of him time here as part of the much maligned board didn't stand a chance.

23 hours ago, Gol15 said:

Your first sentence has no logical connection to the second one. if Conte and Emenalo didn't agree on the players it's not even needed for Marina to have any say in order for Emenalo to step down after the result from the two of them making deals that year. If we agree that both of them wanted different players adding that Conte blamed everyone else but himself and was sad after Emenalo left, it really looks like they tried to hide their own responsibility for their roles by pointing fingers at the club and not looking at the mirror to see just how they did that time, after all in your video Wilkins says that when it comes to players it's what the coach wants.

Marina had to work with that mess, Conte was pointing fingers at the club for the whole season and Emenalo caused the transfer ban, I have no issues with Marina taking more control over the situation specially since Conte's decisions haunt us till this day and given the fact that the previous manager Mourinho wasted the opportunity of having De Bruyne it only makes me trust Marina even more.

Perhaps I was unclear but my point was that Conte & Emenalo together wanted certain players. The main two being Van Dijk & Lukaku (Emenalo was caught on tape talking to him) who were both available but Granovskaia deemed them and others were too expensive. Then we instead turned around and spent £220 million on hot garbage and sold Matic to one of our main competitors and replacing him with bloody Danny Drinkwater..

Leading to the well known Conte meltdown and Emenalo to resign.

It was a complete shambles and it still haunts the club until this day with many of the duds still at the club.

No one needs to be surprised we've been miles off any title challenge since that summer. It all comes back to what happened there. Because back then we really had the chance to cement ourselves as the best team in this league and continue to win Premier Leagues. Instead we wasted it and City grabbed the chance with both hands.

 

55 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Perhaps I was unclear but my point was that Conte & Emenalo together wanted certain players. The main two being Van Dijk & Lukaku (Emenalo was caught on tape talking to him) who were both available but Granovskaia deemed them and others were too expensive. Then we instead turned around and spent £220 million on hot garbage and sold Matic to one of our main competitors and replacing him with bloody Danny Drinkwater..

Leading to the well known Conte meltdown and Emenalo to resign.

It was a complete shambles and it still haunts the club until this day with many of the duds still at the club.

No one needs to be surprised we've been miles off any title challenge since that summer. It all comes back to what happened there. Because back then we really had the chance to cement ourselves as the best team in this league and continue to win Premier Leagues. Instead we wasted it and City grabbed the chance with both hands.

 

So you think that the main person to be blamed is Marina then? Conte had very high demands and even if some weren't met by the club he was ultimately very happy to get Morata for example, he thought he could make him a standard first choice despite him being mainly a super sub for Juventus and Real Madrid prior.

The Conte factor is volatile, we were champions and he couldn't keep 2 key players in Costa and Matic and that was enough for a total meltdown and for a top 5 finish and instead of trying to solve after not being backed enough he kept making the situation worse. January came we got for example Giroud to help out the striker situation but ultimately his style just didn't work without heavy spending but we also need to consider that he had no intention of trying to include the academy so even if he had stayed once the transfer ban came he was bound to implode there too. After all he went to Inter, demanded a whole bunch of players in order to win, got them and won a title but quit when the club told him that their expenses were simply too high despite winning.

I doubt that we would have managed to defend the title even if we had spent huge money on Van Dijk, he signed for Liverpool in January for 80m so in the summer prior to that he would have been even more expensive and what for? To play 35% possession against Man City because Conte didn't get Lukaku?