22 minutes ago, Luiz4Chelsea said:

Maybe that's a good thing. There can be no assumption under these circumstances that we just need to manage the status quo. There is no doubt that a new owner and management need to immediately show their worth and ambition. If we're lucky this could be a boost for our summer. 

Yeah, who knows.

I very strongly suspect the new owners will focus on securing sustainability first though and then see what we can afford to do after that. Which is sensible I suppose from a business perspective but would probably see City & Liverpool pull even further ahead of us.

I will try to be optimistic but I don't have a good feeling about the summer. We are losing at least a couple top class starters, probably three or four when everything is said and done. Replacing them would be a massive task in any summer, nevermind this summer with everything up in the air at this club.

 

 

 

By the way it’s Americans that own Liverpool isn’t it?

what we need is an owner that likes football and understands what it takes to run a successful franchise. Succes on the field leads to a bigger value of the club. 

Which is why I would prefer the Turkish guy, not sure if he is still in the running.

3 hours ago, terraloon said:

This is the one that interests me.

Its the knowledge this chap and his brother have in terms of the  property market.

I know all about the issues around land ownership , the freehold etc but I will throw into the pot the problems that now exist around thenEarls Court development and the power held by the pitch owners 

So let’s just suppose that in exchange for a land swap and say 25-30% of the cost of building  and moving to a 60k new stadium on the sites of the now demolished exhibition buildings at Earl’s Court how would people feel ? 
 

For me it actually would fit like a glove because once in a stadium my focus would be 100% on matters on the pitch
 

 

Have to compare the costs and see. May offer the ability to build  bigger stadium than 60k.

We love the bridge, realistically we have to consider all options as it will sadly hold us back if we want to compete at the top imo.

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

Have to compare the costs and see. May offer the ability to build  bigger stadium than 60k.

 

We love the bridge, realistically we have to consider all options as it will sadly hold us back if we want to compete at the top imo.

It’s the last sentence that is relevant and to be honest how I feel. 

From today's Guardian. If this story has any legs, fight it to the last. Don't let another dodgy Yank owner into the league.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/mar/09/woody-johnson-chelsea-bid-rumours-new-york-jets-owner

I imagine if Nick Candy is looking to buy the club he will probably have to take a similar route as to what Amanda Staveley did at Newcastle because his networth alone doesn't even meet half of Roman's asking price.

5 minutes ago, Stretford Ender said:

From today's Guardian. If this story has any legs, fight it to the last. Don't let another dodgy Yank owner into the league.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/mar/09/woody-johnson-chelsea-bid-rumours-new-york-jets-owner

Most of us trust in Roman to take care of the club. However if the UK government take us over they won't give a sh*t and we will go to the highest bidder.

3 minutes ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

I imagine if Nick Candy is looking to buy the club he will probably have to take a similar route as to what Amanda Staveley did at Newcastle because his networth alone doesn't even meet half of Roman's asking price.

If he presents a realistic package to develop the bridge and keep us moving forward I believe Roman drops the price and takes a much smaller fee, since he is not keeping it anyways and even if it drops to 400mill that is a lot to go to the war victims.

Matt Law in the Telegraph on Chelsea's not exactly meritocratic wage bill:

With the first deadline for bids to buy Chelsea fast approaching, those weighing up an offer or waiting to find out if a bid is accepted may be confused to find that head coach Thomas Tuchel’s preferred team for Thursday night’s trip to Norwich City is unlikely to match up with the club's list of salaries.

To put it bluntly, the wage bill reads back to front. Among the highest earners are Romelu Lukaku, Timo Werner, on-loan Saúl Ñíguez, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Kepa Arrizabalaga – all of whom cannot be guaranteed to start against bottom-of-the-table Norwich.

Contrast that to the bottom of the list, where three of Chelsea’s best and most reliable players, Edouard Mendy, Reece James and Mason Mount, sit.

It is a situation that will need addressing relatively quickly and will shock any individual or group who get as far as being able to delve into the Chelsea books as part of the takeover process.

The Swiss Ramble Twitter account this week highlighted just how much Roman Abramovich has propped Chelsea up over his 19 years in charge and the club’s new reality will probably be that, no matter how good the next owners might prove to be, things will have to change.

Whether or not the £333 million the club pays out in salaries, according to accounts up to June last year, is sustainable remains to be seen, but the wage bill will at least need to be re-balanced to better reward performance and productivity rather than reputation and transfer fee.

If he does not start against Norwich, then Thursday night will mark 89 days since Werner last started a Premier League game for Chelsea and it seems clear that, whoever owns the club, the German will be made available in the summer.

But, just as they find an upside down wage bill, any prospective owner who looks at the books will see how difficult it will be to sell Werner without accepting a big financial loss.

Werner was signed for £47.5m two years ago and, despite initial projections being more conservative, Telegraph Sport understands his five-year contract is worth around £14m-a-year. In terms of the club’s profit and loss, player’s transfer fees are spread across the length of their contracts, so, including his wages, Werner has cost Chelsea about £47m so far.

No wonder there were reports out of Germany this week that Borussia Dortmund would not be able to pay Werner’s wages and, on book value alone, Chelsea would need to demand a transfer fee of at least £28.5m to cover the remaining three years on what he is worth to the club.

But not accepting a financial hit to sell the 26-year-old could also be costly for Chelsea, as Werner would set the European champions back a further £70.5m on the books were he to stay at the club for the remainder of his contract.

Werner has started only three games for Chelsea this year, the dead-rubber Carabao Cup second leg against Tottenham Hotspur and FA Cup ties against Chesterfield and Luton Town.

It is a similarly alarming situation regarding Kepa, who is likely to ask to leave Chelsea this summer after performing well during his limited opportunities since Tuchel’s arrival.

His eye-watering £71.6m transfer fee was spread over seven years, which means that, including wages thought to be roughly £10m-a-year, Kepa has already cost Chelsea £72.8m, with the club needing at least £30.6m to redeem his book value over the remaining three years of his deal.

Kepa is comfortably the most expensive second-choice goalkeeper in history, while Mendy, named as the world’s best goalkeeper in the 2021 Fifa Best awards, has proved to be a bargain.

Signed for £20m on a five-year contract, Mendy’s transfer fee is a yearly cost on the books of just £4m and it is estimated that the Senegal international, who is now a European, world and African champion, earns around £3m-a-year.

With players like Werner and Kepa costing Chelsea so much, it perhaps becomes more understandable why Antonio Rüdiger, who is very much mid-table in terms of the club’s earners, has been holding out for a significant pay rise to sign a new deal. It could have also contributed to the fact Andreas Christensen is close to agreeing a free transfer switch to Barcelona at the end of the season.

And there may be more difficult negotiations down the line with the list of players who could be described as being underpaid, at least in a Premier League footballer sense, just as eye-catching as those who some might believe have not been justifying their salaries.

The value of James to Chelsea has been underlined over the past week after the right-back started his first game since his two-month lay-off and inspired the club to victory over Burnley, scoring the opening goal just after half-time. The injury set-back Tuchel revealed he has suffered ahead of the Norwich game will be keenly felt.

His contract, which James signed in 2020, still has three years to run and Chelsea have the option to extend it by a further 12 months. So in that respect Chelsea and their next owners have nothing to worry about.

But the 22-year-old is now undisputedly one of Chelsea’s most important players which should be recognised in his salary and will also be well aware that his current pay packet falls well below what most of his England team-mates are earning.

The same can be said of another of the club’s academy products Mount, who will have two years remaining on his contract in the summer and consistently impacts games like no other Chelsea player. Even his critics cannot argue against 15 goal contributions this season.

Mendy, too, deserves a hefty pay rise while there is also the issue over what the next owners do about midfielders N’Golo Kanté and Jorginho, whose contracts will have only one year to run at the end of this season.

Abramovich kept Chelsea at the top, but it will be a major challenge for the next owners to do so if the wage bill remains back to front.

5 minutes ago, PloKoon13 said:

Matt Law in the Telegraph on Chelsea's not exactly meritocratic wage bill:

 

 

He is right about unbalanced nature of it. Makes it hard to shift Kepa, Lukaku, Werner and CHO. 

Roman has done a lot of good things but between him and Marina they messed up big time on several deals.

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

He is right about unbalanced nature of it. Makes it hard to shift Kepa, Lukaku, Werner and CHO. 

Roman has done a lot of good things but between him and Marina they messed up big time on several deals.

This is why I don't understand why we can't pay Rudiger the 200k+ a week he's asking for, we have worse players earning far more than that

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

He is right about unbalanced nature of it. Makes it hard to shift Kepa, Lukaku, Werner and CHO. 

Roman has done a lot of good things but between him and Marina they messed up big time on several deals.

I don’t think they messed up on the deals, the players were just not the right fit for the ‘Next’ manager. IMO the biggest problem was not replacing Emenalo.

2 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Most of us trust in Roman to take care of the club. However if the UK government take us over they won't give a sh*t and we will go to the highest bidder.

You don't want those clowns involved either. I remember when Mandelson stopped Murdoch from buying United back in the day, yet they did sod-all to prevent a leveraged buyout. I know politics is taboo on this thread but it should be abundantly clear to all in sundry that the government couldn't organize an orgy in a whorehouse. Roman is bound to be under pressure to offload Chelsea so the government can slap itself on the back, but the ramifications of this could spell disaster for a great club.

On 08/03/2022 at 13:05, nonotnowjim said:

Again, get a grip....

A bad owner, even one that take us to the conference, is never, in any universe, anywhere near as much of a tragedy as a plane crash which kills people.

 

I'm not talking about tragedy I'm talking about the sinking of the club.  

 

Clearly a plane crash would be a greater tragedy due to deaths.  However the club's fortunes would recover faster with that than with Woody Johnson as the owner.  

I'm talking about results only. 

Edited March 9, 20224 yr by Valpo

5 minutes ago, Stretford Ender said:

Roman is bound to be under pressure to offload Chelsea so the government can slap itself on the back, but the ramifications of this could spell disaster for a great club.

I disagree, now Roman has made his intentions clear to sell the club and fund aid to Ukraine victims the government have gone quiet and i presume are happy with that.

 

3 minutes ago, coco said:

I disagree, now Roman has made his intentions clear to sell the club and fund aid to Ukraine victims the government have gone quiet and i presume are happy with that.

 

Perhaps, but trust them at your peril.

22 minutes ago, Stretford Ender said:

Perhaps, but trust them at your peril.

Don't have to trust them, half the Tory party support Chelsea (Westminster FC).

 

14 minutes ago, coco said:

Don't have to trust them, half the Tory party support Chelsea (Westminster FC).

 

Ah yes. David Mellor led the way didn't he? 😉

2 minutes ago, Stretford Ender said:

Ah yes. David Mellor led the way didn't he? 😉

oh yeah that dirty toe sucker 😄

 

Seen some reports  life long Chelsea fan Jamie Reuben is interested in putting a bid in. But he has a 10% stake in Newcastle.

Just now, coco said:

oh yeah that dirty toe sucker 😄

 

He should have got together with Sarah Ferguson. She was into that too.

I think the easiest way for the new owner to make a popular start is to bring Hazard back, it’s relatively cheap, if it’s a good decision is another question, but an American owner would likely do that as a first move, is good for merchandise (they love merchandise)

Edited March 9, 20224 yr by azpi28

An African owner would says 3bill is nothing to him, that he would sell Lukaku and bring in Ronaldo and Vincius jnr lol

https://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2022/3/9/22969289/very-serious-chairman-wontumi-submits-very-serious-bid-to-buy-chelsea-very-seriously

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

An African owner would says 3bill is nothing to him, that he would sell Lukaku and bring in Ronaldo and Vincius jnr lol

Sounds like a Nigerian 419 dodge.

3 hours ago, axman2526 said:

An African owner would says 3bill is nothing to him, that he would sell Lukaku and bring in Ronaldo and Vincius jnr lol

https://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2022/3/9/22969289/very-serious-chairman-wontumi-submits-very-serious-bid-to-buy-chelsea-very-seriously

 

Lol...where word 'serious' appears at least 3 times in that brief heading...I wouldn't trust that person to own/run your club.