8 minutes ago, JM7 said:

We have to remember that we were sanctioned for a number of months and owners only took over 2 months ago. 
 

These are multi million pound deals that are complicated and there’s a lot of factors and competition 

Yeah but the competition is only from f**king Barcelona for everyone of our targets..they had inside knowledge of who we were targeting this window and f**ked us on more or less on every one even though they can't afford sh*t.  Will be interesting to see if the likes of Leeds and Seville start moaning when the instalments are not made on time.  They must be paying off the Spanish FA

Just now, CFCCAN said:

Yeah but the competition is only from f**king Barcelona for everyone of our targets..they had inside knowledge of who we were targeting this window and f**ked us on more or less on every one even though they can't afford sh*t.  Will be interesting to see if the likes of Leeds and Seville start moaning when the instalments are not made on time.  They must be paying off the Spanish FA

Think the Spanish FA are in on it. Barca and Real are the only things making their sh*t league relevant.

12 hours ago, big blue said:

havent watched much of preseason, but i just read Tuchel saying we are off the place becayse theres uncertainty around the squad with players looking to leave. 

Why even take them then? Why is Batshuayi playing? 

Shouldve left behind all the players we either dont want, or the players looking at moves away, then just took a squad of players that are going to be playing next season, and use youth players to boost the numbers. 

Barlkey, Batshuayi, Kenedy, Emerson, Alonso, Sarr, Kepa. How many of these will be here next season? 

Should be Vale, Gilmour, Soonsup-Bell, Webster. Players that are playing for something. 

It seems we are a few weeks behind. I think we need at least 3 more including Kounde. 

Tuchel is a coach, i get the impression he isnt enjoying having to manage so much off the field stuff at the moment. 

On average most of players on the tour will have 100-160 minutes of preseason game time under their belt so far. With the delayed transfer activity, the squad won't really be game ready before the start of the season. Most of the real work is being done in the training sessions.

If you are Thiago Silva, who would you give you a tougher time during those sessions - Batshuayi or Jude? Barkley or Vale? The answer should be obvious, and that's why Tuchel said exactly that - to maintain a high training level. 

I never watched the Tuchel press conference until tonight. Just watching it I didn't think he said anything shocking like the media and some fans seem to claim. He was calm and explained the issues. In regards to players leaving - he certainly meant that players who are going to go on loan. I'm sure he didn't mean players who can make the squad who are thinking of leaving. He's proably referring to Emerson, Batshuayi etc. 

2 hours ago, CFCCAN said:

Yeah but the competition is only from f**king Barcelona for everyone of our targets..they had inside knowledge of who we were targeting this window and f**ked us on more or less on every one even though they can't afford sh*t.  Will be interesting to see if the likes of Leeds and Seville start moaning when the instalments are not made on time.  They must be paying off the Spanish FA

Doesn't take much to work out how they have got that info, Probably someone whos now left the club after the sale

They want to keep romans reign unbeaten! 

What a stinky weekend for the club

Controversial question - did the CL win cloud our judgment, and is TT the right manager to carry us forward? 

I'm not suggesting a change based on preseason, and TT has my full support for the transitional period we are in.  I would not make a change, however:

- We've been playing abysmal football since Feb, maybe earlier.  Other factors impacted this, but at its core we've been poor for a long time
- Continue to field 7 or 8 defensive minded players, lacking any sense of creativity through midfield and an inability to self-create and score upfront
- Do not appear to be playing to our players strengths.  Still have no clue on our best 11
- They can't all be bad finishers - there has to be some level of coaching and cohesion that is missing
- The CL was a massive highlight, but we have also lost 3 domestic cup finals under TT, scoring 0 goals across those games
- Continue to make mistakes that are punished.  Teams have to do so little to score or get a result against us
- We've a lack of central defenders, yet continue to persist with Sarr or Emerson in LCB positions.  Why on earth is Colwill not getting more minutes

Players need to work much harder and concentrate more for me.  That comes down to TT unlocking the team potential.  Right now we continue to do the same thing week after week and expect different results. It must improve quickly.

 

 

Edited July 25, 20223 yr by PhilH930

1 hour ago, PhilH930 said:

Controversial question - did the CL win cloud our judgment, and is TT the right manager to carry us forward? 

I'm not suggesting a change based on preseason, and TT has my full support for the transitional period we are in.  I would not make a change, however:

- We've been playing abysmal football since Feb, maybe earlier.  Other factors impacted this, but at its core we've been poor for a long time
- Continue to field 7 or 8 defensive minded players, lacking any sense of creativity through midfield and an inability to self-create and score upfront
- Do not appear to be playing to our players strengths.  Still have no clue on our best 11
- They can't all be bad finishers - there has to be some level of coaching and cohesion that is missing
- The CL was a massive highlight, but we have also lost 3 domestic cup finals under TT, scoring 0 goals across those games
- Continue to make mistakes that are punished.  Teams have to do so little to score or get a result against us
- We've a lack of central defenders, yet continue to persist with Sarr or Emerson in LCB positions.  Why on earth is Colwill not getting more minutes

Players need to work much harder and concentrate more for me.  That comes down to TT unlocking the team potential.  Right now we continue to do the same thing week after week and expect different results. It must improve quickly.

 

 

Good points, Colwill though has missed 2 of the games because of knocks, not on TT that.

6 hours ago, Drogba1 said:

Think the Spanish FA are in on it. Barca and Real are the only things making their sh*t league relevant.

The league is separate from the FA, and La Liga have been publicly unsupportive of Barcelona's transfer dealings - Barcelona are still unable to register any of their players for La Liga

1 hour ago, PhilH930 said:

Controversial question - did the CL win cloud our judgment, and is TT the right manager to carry us forward? 

I'm not suggesting a change based on preseason, and TT has my full support for the transitional period we are in.  I would not make a change, however:

- We've been playing abysmal football since Feb, maybe earlier.  Other factors impacted this, but at its core we've been poor for a long time
- Continue to field 7 or 8 defensive minded players, lacking any sense of creativity through midfield and an inability to self-create and score upfront
- Do not appear to be playing to our players strengths.  Still have no clue on our best 11
- They can't all be bad finishers - there has to be some level of coaching and cohesion that is missing
- The CL was a massive highlight, but we have also lost 3 domestic cup finals under TT, scoring 0 goals across those games
- Continue to make mistakes that are punished.  Teams have to do so little to score or get a result against us
- We've a lack of central defenders, yet continue to persist with Sarr or Emerson in LCB positions.  Why on earth is Colwill not getting more minutes

Players need to work much harder and concentrate more for me.  That comes down to TT unlocking the team potential.  Right now we continue to do the same thing week after week and expect different results. It must improve quickly.

 

 

My assessment on Tuchel after 2 season is that he is brilliant tactically. His half time adjustment is spot on 9/10 times.

His footballing style is much closer to pep than to Klopp. There is huge emphasis on taking as little risk as possible and preventing counter attack.

You can't argue with the result. We went to all domestic cup final last season, finished 3rd and we should have beaten real. 

However, our offense has clearly suffered under Tuchel. Every game feels like a grind as we need somebody to provide us with magic moment to score. This is where Tuchel's huge emphasis on structure defensively hurt us.

One one hand we can get away fielding kova, jorgi even ruben as pivot (no way in hell you can tell me that this is a viable pivot 3 years ago). Even Sarr who imo not Chelsea level player is playable.

On the other hand, our offensive player has been a mess. We don't have runner everywhere to provide support. We don't use Conte pattern football. We attack with 5+1. We field two dm behind them, sometimes it is jorgi + Kante (very little creativity from this two). We then give those attacker a ball in final 3rd and it is time for them to work. This work when you have quality attacker but very difficult for lessen player. 

2 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

Controversial question - did the CL win cloud our judgment, and is TT the right manager to carry us forward? 

I'm not suggesting a change based on preseason, and TT has my full support for the transitional period we are in.  I would not make a change, however:

- We've been playing abysmal football since Feb, maybe earlier.  Other factors impacted this, but at its core we've been poor for a long time
- Continue to field 7 or 8 defensive minded players, lacking any sense of creativity through midfield and an inability to self-create and score upfront
- Do not appear to be playing to our players strengths.  Still have no clue on our best 11
- They can't all be bad finishers - there has to be some level of coaching and cohesion that is missing
- The CL was a massive highlight, but we have also lost 3 domestic cup finals under TT, scoring 0 goals across those games
- Continue to make mistakes that are punished.  Teams have to do so little to score or get a result against us
- We've a lack of central defenders, yet continue to persist with Sarr or Emerson in LCB positions.  Why on earth is Colwill not getting more minutes

Players need to work much harder and concentrate more for me.  That comes down to TT unlocking the team potential.  Right now we continue to do the same thing week after week and expect different results. It must improve quickly.

 

 

If what we are seeing with this group was out of the ordinary, then I would maybe agree with you, but these issues existed before Tuchel arrived. They were there before Lampard and Sarri too.

I really believe it's a club and player problem more than a coaching problem. We have had the very best coaches in the world manage this club, how can none of them be good enough?

7 hours ago, JM7 said:

We have to remember that we were sanctioned for a number of months and owners only took over 2 months ago. 
 

These are multi million pound deals that are complicated and there’s a lot of factors and competition 

If we really wanted Kounde, we’ve cocked up. All the preliminaries had been done, Seville had been very public in what fee they required. In June we still had Marina to tie things up and importantly the nearest Barcelona could get to signing him was a Panini card. Instead we’ve flirted with other players, tried to do swap deals that never come off and Kounde has had his head turned.

26 minutes ago, charierre said:

If we really wanted Kounde, we’ve cocked up. 

This is it, we've only ourselves to blame. Two years in a row we've told him, publicly, that he's not a priority.

5 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

Controversial question - did the CL win cloud our judgment, and is TT the right manager to carry us forward? 

I'm not suggesting a change based on preseason, and TT has my full support for the transitional period we are in.  I would not make a change, however:

- We've been playing abysmal football since Feb, maybe earlier.  Other factors impacted this, but at its core we've been poor for a long time
- Continue to field 7 or 8 defensive minded players, lacking any sense of creativity through midfield and an inability to self-create and score upfront
- Do not appear to be playing to our players strengths.  Still have no clue on our best 11
- They can't all be bad finishers - there has to be some level of coaching and cohesion that is missing
- The CL was a massive highlight, but we have also lost 3 domestic cup finals under TT, scoring 0 goals across those games
- Continue to make mistakes that are punished.  Teams have to do so little to score or get a result against us
- We've a lack of central defenders, yet continue to persist with Sarr or Emerson in LCB positions.  Why on earth is Colwill not getting more minutes

Players need to work much harder and concentrate more for me.  That comes down to TT unlocking the team potential.  Right now we continue to do the same thing week after week and expect different results. It must improve quickly.

 

 

Fully agree with all of that, I would also add that people saying he has a problem because players want to leave or arent committed need to look at the reason these players want out, and thats down to the manager.

Secondly, this is absolutely a transitional period, and as such we shouldnt be bothering with desperately trying to sign any players, just hold on until we can sign the players we want and use the players at eh club this season, especially the young lads returning from loan or graduating from academy level. 

1 minute ago, dkw said:

Fully agree with all of that, I would also add that people saying he has a problem because players want to leave or arent committed need to look at the reason these players want out, and thats down to the manager.

Secondly, this is absolutely a transitional period, and as such we shouldnt be bothering with desperately trying to sign any players, just hold on until we can sign the players we want and use the players at eh club this season, especially the young lads returning from loan or graduating from academy level. 

No way this is transitional period. The two player that we signed are 27 n 31. We are in win now mode. 

3 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

No way this is transitional period. The two player that we signed are 27 n 31. We are in win now mode. 

I mean as a club, the whole thin is going through a huge transition and we should be taking this opportunity to make the changes we desperately need to the squad.

On 24/07/2022 at 15:56, Scott Harris said:

There are problems with this club that existed far before Tuchel arrived. The horrible habits that have crept into our game like getting to the oppositions box and somehow ending up back at the halfway line feels like it's been getting worse for years now, since Conte's second season at least. There were even signs of it under Mourinho. It's like it's become part of the clubs identity. I hate it, I just want to see the club consistently play with some desire to create chances, not lose their bottle as soon as they approach the oppositions box. I have never seen a club that has gone through so many goal shy attackers. 

Hazard has been our only consistent attacker in nearly a decade at this point. Costa, Pedro, Giroud and now Mount have been good in patches, but everybody else has been sh*t. It's not surprising that Salah and De Bruyne went on to greater things once they left us, we just seem to be the death of attacking footballers. It doesn't help that our midfield is lightweight and can't produce a bit of creative football between them. It's like the only thing we can get right these days is our defenders and fall backs.......well, until one of the CB's or Goalkeeper decides to forget how to pass a ball and just gives it to the opposition so they can score an easy goal.

On the pitch and off the pitch, our whole identity has become really soft. 

Not sure I agree with this. We were pretty good offensively in Lamp firs season. I remembered we had many player in the box, too many perhaps. 

1 hour ago, Bob stark said:

No way this is transitional period. The two player that we signed are 27 n 31. We are in win now mode. 

To me if that was the case we would of done more biz and paid the asking fees straight away, We had like 8 deadwood players and haven't really made a dent on that pile tbh

Something def going on with barca, They've done this not just to us either, De Jong looks like its gone belly up for utd too with barca again messing about

Its getting to conspiracy levels at this point!

1 hour ago, dkw said:

I mean as a club, the whole thin is going through a huge transition and we should be taking this opportunity to make the changes we desperately need to the squad.

I am not sure that Todd and Clearlake would see it that way mate. They will be impressed by Roman's tenure and will want to make an impact of their own, I doubt that "transitional" is a word in their vocabulary. They have bought two top pro's at the peak of their careers, so this doesn't scream transition either. I completely agree that we need to integrate Gallagher & Broja into the squad. We MUST persuade Broja that he has a real chance of becoming our first choice striker, and to forget trying to leave the Club, at least this season, as it will not be permitted.  Clearly, TT wants to get rid of Dave, Alonso, Werner, Ziyech and CHO, so let's do it, and replace these chaps, be it temporarily or permanently with  very good replacements or alternatively - up and coming Academy prospects

1 hour ago, coombsie said:

I am not sure that Todd and Clearlake would see it that way mate. They will be impressed by Roman's tenure and will want to make an impact of their own, I doubt that "transitional" is a word in their vocabulary. They have bought two top pro's at the peak of their careers, so this doesn't scream transition either. I completely agree that we need to integrate Gallagher & Broja into the squad. We MUST persuade Broja that he has a real chance of becoming our first choice striker, and to forget trying to leave the Club, at least this season, as it will not be permitted.  Clearly, TT wants to get rid of Dave, Alonso, Werner, Ziyech and CHO, so let's do it, and replace these chaps, be it temporarily or permanently with  very good replacements or alternatively - up and coming Academy prospects

And if we take a bit of a dive in shedding these players so be it. They will ultimately leave for free and may quite posisbly end up undermining morale for the remainder of their time. Don't know him of course but Ziyech's body language alone screams high maintenance to me. Didn't he even get bombed by his national coach due to his attitude.

1 hour ago, coombsie said:

I am not sure that Todd and Clearlake would see it that way mate. They will be impressed by Roman's tenure and will want to make an impact of their own, I doubt that "transitional" is a word in their vocabulary. They have bought two top pro's at the peak of their careers, so this doesn't scream transition either. I completely agree that we need to integrate Gallagher & Broja into the squad. We MUST persuade Broja that he has a real chance of becoming our first choice striker, and to forget trying to leave the Club, at least this season, as it will not be permitted.  Clearly, TT wants to get rid of Dave, Alonso, Werner, Ziyech and CHO, so let's do it, and replace these chaps, be it temporarily or permanently with  very good replacements or alternatively - up and coming Academy prospects

Yeah, cant argue with that, rather than buy players because we need players I would much rather we hold off until the next window or even the one after that and get the players we actually want. this whole window is a mess for a lot of reasons, so just hold back, use the players we have who want to be here, sell/bin the rest and have some patience...which I know is a swear word in football.

34 minutes ago, dkw said:

Yeah, cant argue with that, rather than buy players because we need players I would much rather we hold off until the next window or even the one after that and get the players we actually want. this whole window is a mess for a lot of reasons, so just hold back, use the players we have who want to be here, sell/bin the rest and have some patience...which I know is a swear word in football.

I would just like to see the ones that want to leave (with the exception of Broja) - GO ASAP !!

TT keeps talking about a very big squad, so here he can do something about that. And if, and I know that its a big IF, a decent player, that we do want becomes available, then buy him, but not at all costs. And I am so sick of Kounde, his agent and Barca, let's just withdraw our offer and from any further talks and hope that Barca's "offer" is a smokescreen and that he gets to stay at the sh*thole that is Sevilla.

On 24/07/2022 at 11:26, nonotnowjim said:

I have just watched the press conference after the Arsenal game....
 

The biggest take away for me is one thing TT said. Essentially he said "the players are the same so why expect something different?"

That is outrageous and essentially him washing his hands of responsibility. As a coach, he has to coach, make players better, find solutions and systems that work and suit the players he has at his disposal.

A sunday league manager isn't going to get his team playing Tiki Taka because the players he has won't have the skills or ability to play that way. So he goes more direct. 

Likewise, it is TT role as our manager to get the best of the players we have. 

If Werner doesn't work on the wing, then don't play him there. If CHO passes backwards all the time and doesn't perform as instructed then don't pick him. If the system doesn't work because it stifles all of our attack, then change it!

Simply saying the players are the same and therefore you can't expect things to change stinks of him giving up. As does his admission that we won't be ready for the new season and can't compete. Those are conversations for him and Todd ...not the media.

I don't, think it is outrageous and I completely disagree with this comment, fact of the matter is we have a squad made up of several managers choices that are an ill fit for the way Tuchel wants to play.. Certain players can only play in one way and one system, no amount of coaching is going to change that.

 For example, Werner will not improve his strike rate with coaching in this league, he’s in a rut and frankly although I rate him for workrate alone, he is not suited to the premier league and will never get enough space to score, for a player that needs several chances and space to run into, you cannot coach him to become a completely different player and even if you could, we have a squad full of players that do not suit the system.

 Ziyech is not all of a sudden going to become a beast and fight for every ball, he’s too lightweight for the prem.

 We get fans on here calling for a back four to suit the attackers, all well and good but look what happened when Lampard played a back four we were shipping goals left right and centre and the opposition was shutting up shop. The team and squad is so unbalanced I can see why Tuchel is making these comments, at the very least you would expect a player when pulling on the blue shirt to give 110% in every match and if they don’t then damn right they should get called out on it… they earn enough money to at least play for the fans!

The squad needs to be balanced out with smart signings, but we can't do that at the moment as we don't have enough centreback cover, we have too much deadwood and we are behind due to sanctions etc..

 This mess will take at least 2 seasons and 4 transfer windows to sort out.  

26 minutes ago, Trueblue76 said:

 This mess will take at least 2 seasons and 4 transfer windows to sort out.  

Nail on head.

There is an interesting article on the Daily Mail web page today about Edu's approach at Arsenal when he came on board as DoF which (if you park any sentiment about it being "Arsenal") actually has a lot of good points in it that are very applicable to our situation.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-11044127/Big-money-flops-killing-Arsenal-admits-Edu-aims-Champions-League-return.html 

 

•    Arsenal technical director Edu created a five-year plan when he was appointed
•    It has involved getting rid of older, high salary players who are not performing
•    None of the 10 outfield players who have signed since last year are older than 25
•    But the Brazilian will not be happy until the club are competing for the title again

Edu will discover soon if he really did read the runes. The technical director told Mikel Arteta and the Arsenal board a couple of years back: 'Guys, 2022-23 will be the season we are going to be much better.'
Edu's forecast formed part of a new, five-year plan for Arsenal, devised after Unai Emery was sacked in late 2019.
Change, driven alongside Arteta, has been ruthless and expensive and, at times, painful.
'If a guy is performing and has a big salary, that's not a problem,' Edu says. 'When the player is 26-plus, big salary and he's not performing, he's killing you.u 
'You don't have a valuation to sell the player, the player is comfortable — Arsenal, London, beautiful, everything is fantastic — and a good salary. How many players with that kind of characteristics did we have in the past? Eighty per cent of the squad.'
Not any more. On Edu's watch, around 40 players have been shipped out. Some, including Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Mesut Ozil, were paid to leave. Several more will go this summer.
Since last year, 10 outfield players have arrived. None older than 25.
'Try to avoid one more year with the problem in the dressing room,' Edu says. 'Take it out. Even if you have to pay because that guy is sometimes blocking someone.' He considers it an investment.
 

Edited July 25, 20223 yr by Sexyfootball

12 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Nail on head.

There is an interesting article on the Daily Mail web page today about Edu's approach at Arsenal when he came on board as DoF which (if you park any sentiment about it being "Arsenal") actually has a lot of good points in it that are very applicable to our situation.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-11044127/Big-money-flops-killing-Arsenal-admits-Edu-aims-Champions-League-return.html 

 

•    Arsenal technical director Edu created a five-year plan when he was appointed
•    It has involved getting rid of older, high salary players who are not performing
•    None of the 10 outfield players who have signed since last year are older than 25
•    But the Brazilian will not be happy until the club are competing for the title again

Edu will discover soon if he really did read the runes. The technical director told Mikel Arteta and the Arsenal board a couple of years back: 'Guys, 2022-23 will be the season we are going to be much better.'
Edu's forecast formed part of a new, five-year plan for Arsenal, devised after Unai Emery was sacked in late 2019.
Change, driven alongside Arteta, has been ruthless and expensive and, at times, painful.
'If a guy is performing and has a big salary, that's not a problem,' Edu says. 'When the player is 26-plus, big salary and he's not performing, he's killing you.u 
'You don't have a valuation to sell the player, the player is comfortable — Arsenal, London, beautiful, everything is fantastic — and a good salary. How many players with that kind of characteristics did we have in the past? Eighty per cent of the squad.'
Not any more. On Edu's watch, around 40 players have been shipped out. Some, including Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Mesut Ozil, were paid to leave. Several more will go this summer.
Since last year, 10 outfield players have arrived. None older than 25.
'Try to avoid one more year with the problem in the dressing room,' Edu says. 'Take it out. Even if you have to pay because that guy is sometimes blocking someone.' He considers it an investment.
 

This guy spent an absolute fortune at Arse in the last three years and they finished 8th, 8th and 5th. Why should we give a sh*t about his so-called expertise? Because they beat us in a preseason game?

14 minutes ago, abramovich said:

This guy spent an absolute fortune at Arse in the last three years and they finished 8th, 8th and 5th. Why should we give a sh*t about his so-called expertise? Because they beat us in a preseason game?

Sigh. You've done exactly what I suggested not to do ... making it all about "Arsenal" ... 

If you actually take the approach of rooting out highly paid non-performers who are affecting dressing room morale, having a medium term plan, and signing young, hungry players, you pretty much have a situation 100% applicable to where we are now, and what we probably need to do ...