4 hours ago, JM7 said:

Athletic are saying that she will be leaving this week - it was expected that she would leave after the window. Something must have happened. 

the Lukaku situation perhaps.

12 hours ago, Sindre said:

You can call it whatever you want but she absorbed the sporting director role into hers since 2017. And we've all seen what that have led to in the transfer market. Now, maybe it was Roman who made that decision or maybe it was Marina (they clearly work closely together) but it was one sh*te decision either way to not get a replacement for Emenalo.

She's been in charge of running the club for a long period of time right now. What has she done that's that great?

Do we have a good wage structure? No it's shambles.
Do we have a good transfer structure? No it's shambles.
Do we have a good scouting structure? See above
Have we done great commercially during her reign? No we have fallen behind our competitors here too.
Have we competed for Premier League titles since 2017? Not even close once.

What excactly has she done that's great?

Not quite. The sporting director role was split with more responsibilities going to the managers and scouting departments. 

Since Emenalo's departure it's pretty much worked like this - manager reports on what he wants, scouting identifies potential targets, manager picks preferences, Marina finds out which of those targets are doable/feasible tries to get it done. 

Wage structure - it's as good as can be expected given how much we've won over the last 18 years. It only looks poor given recent transfer failings. 

Transfer structure - not bad, but severely impacted by short-termism culture under Roman. Not much different from the structure in place at City (acquisitions aside). 

Scouting structure - pretty much the same as it has been for a long time. 

Commercial success - Nothing to do with Marina, but we're fine here too given the club size and reputation. 

She's had some very good dealings with incomings and outgoings (specifically related to her role) - Luiz, Hazard, Havertz, Kante to name but a few. And pretty much been the best selling club during her tenure. 

But instead of me telling you what she's done that's been great, you can instead read some quotes from people who have actually worked with her - on both sides of the table. 

 

Marina is someone who misses the forest for the trees.

She is great at optimising individual transactions, so she probably gets 10-20% more for our player sales than otherwise, but her talent scouting is terrible, we get mostly the wrong players in.  In the long run she has hindered us more than helped us.

 

“It's definitely over between Marina Granovskaia and Chelsea. The separation is imminent with an official statement expected very soon - agents and clubs in talks with Chelsea have been informed too. 🚨🔵 #CFC 

New owner Todd Boehly is taking care of the negotiations.”

Edited June 21, 20224 yr by JM7

1 hour ago, Whiskyjack said:

Marina is someone who misses the forest for the trees.

She is great at optimising individual transactions, so she probably gets 10-20% more for our player sales than otherwise, but her talent scouting is terrible, we get mostly the wrong players in.  In the long run she has hindered us more than helped us.

 

You think Marina is scouting players??

33 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

You think Marina is scouting players??

The scouts give the report but she's the one with the biggest final say on transfers.  Or do you think it's the scouts that sign the players?

If she can't execute on say scouted option 1, then she should be showing more patience, instead of panic buying option c or d.

Liverpool waited 18 months for VVD.

City didn't get a striker last year, so they waited a year.

We didn't get what we wanted, so panic bought the likes of Kepa and Lukaku just to plug holes with expensive but suboptimal pieces.

She is the one with the most authority outside of Roman on transfers, so it's on her.

 

9 hours ago, HazardousChoice said:

What are you talking about?

Kepa was linked with Real Madrid 6 months prior to us signing him when he had an £18m release clause because he was seen as a potential young home grown backup to Navas/Courtois.

Zidane and the Madrid execs then decided against the signing because they didn't think Kepa was good enough to be a back up for them and didn't think he was worth his £18m release clause.

The rest of your post is irrelevant waffle, him being a waste of money and his position in the Bilbao squad has nothing to do with how poorly Marina negotiated to give him 170K a week.

I'm not even commenting on the transfer fee or what a monumental disaster must have occurred within our scouting department that we even looked at Kepa who was average for Bilbao.   People scapegoat Courtois but we really shouldn't have been so poorly prepared when it came to signing a replacement.  For a club of our size not having a backup plan in such a key position was embarrassing.

As for pointing fingers? It's the Marina thread and she's been disastrous for us.  Hopefully she's gone within the week and we can all put the nightmare of her being associated with the club behind us.  

It's going to take a lot longer to undo all the damage she's caused though many of the contracts she signed we won't be able to shift.

Actually Kepa's ludicrous contract will likely be the last Marina masterclass left staining the squad.

Kepa renewed with Athletic and Real Madrid lost interest. It's also true that they were going for Kepa because of our reluctance to sell Courtois (Zidane preferred Courtois but was adamant that he did not want Navas). Now, it was Sarri who wanted Kepa, and Marina had to pay the 80m to get him his target, there was no other way. As to what you say about him being mediocre at Athletic, well, you basically have no clue about what you're saying. Athleticzales were annoyed about him leaving but happy about the money the sale left to the Club, they were saying that going to Madrid for less money would have been really bad. They weren't devastated because they had Simon coming up, who's turned up to be a good keeper and now is in the Spanish national team too. So get you facts right before you speak.

2 minutes ago, RMH said:

Now, it was Sarri who wanted Kepa, and Marina had to pay the 80m to get him his target, there was no other way.

She didn't have to do anything. We don't hire managers, we have hired head coaches and the real power have been with Granovskaia. She was the one who didn't want to pay Roma what they wanted for a far superior goalkeeper in Allison and when Liverpool swooped in she panicked and decided to pay far more, a world-record fee for Kepa.

Zidane himself was the one who blocked Real Madrid from signing Kepa on the cheap btw. He said so himself.

 

8 minutes ago, Whiskyjack said:

The scouts give the report but she's the one with the biggest final say on transfers.  Or do you think it's the scouts that sign the players?

If she can't execute on say scouted option 1, then she should be showing more patience, instead of panic buying option c or d.

Liverpool waited 18 months for VVD.

City didn't get a striker last year, so they waited a year.

We didn't get what we wanted, so panic bought the likes of Kepa and Lukaku just to plug holes with expensive but suboptimal pieces.

She is the one with the most authority outside of Roman on transfers, so it's on her.

 

She doesn't do the scouting. As @venom2011 has pointed out, the coach indicates his needs, scouts identify targets, and most likely they identify a list of potential transfers for the same position (as any good business would do, they need a plan b in place), she then negotiates and decides based on the financial aspects of the transfer list. Sometimes the coach gets their no 1 choice and it works out (Kante, Kovacic, Chilwell, Jorginho to name a few recent ones), other times she gets the no 1 preference but they flop (e.g. Kepa, Higuain and not sure if Bakayoko or Lukaku, but that is another debate), and then there are the plan b and c cases that have failed (Drinkwater, Lukaku ?, Saul...).

But to say that Marina has a "terrible scouting talent" is just wanting to get the blame on Marina for even something she's not responsible for at the Club.

From memory, I would say that the kepa situation was courtois fault. It looked like he was going to renew and Madrid had landed on kepa to replace navas as their goalkeeper when courtois handed a transfer request in with one year remaining on his contract towards the end of the window. Allison had just moved to Liverpool so there wasn't that many options for us to go with. Kepa and athletic knew that Chelsea were bent over a barrel and took advantage and i can't blame them for that.

I appreciate that some transfers didn't come off but last season a lot of people were expecting Lukaku to be successful after working out his weight problem at inter. 

The season before I can't have been the only person to be rubbing my hands (at the time) that Chelsea paid less money for Werner than Liverpool did for Jota at the time.

Havertz looked like (and still could be) a generational talent.

We signed chilwell for 45 million where Leicester wanted Harry Maguire money (which United paid) And we paid almost half of Maguire cost.

We still managed to sell courtois for 30 million even though he had handed in a transfer request and had 1 year left on his contract and waited until the end of the window to do so.

Moratta was a flop but we managed to make the money back.

We managed to get a profit on Costa, after all the bad press and it being clear that he didn't have a future here. 

That's just off the top of my head, I know she's not perfect but to say she was completely useless is a bit baffling to me 

26 minutes ago, Whiskyjack said:

The scouts give the report but she's the one with the biggest final say on transfers. 

 

No she isnt, its been reported loads of times theres an actual transfer committee, at no point does she have final say in anything.

This weird hatred is just odd, and its the bellend twatter users pushing it as usual, including that f**kwit who's arrived on here lately. That's not aimed at you by the way, your posts was sensible, if misguided. 

Edited June 21, 20224 yr by dkw

1 minute ago, RMH said:

she then negotiates and decides based on the financial aspects of the transfer list.

Alright, so then she does decide then? And I think that's the argument most people make. She's had the final word on transfers during her time here and it's been a catastrophe in the market.

As the director she was also responsible for our scouting department in the end. As a matter of fact she was ultimately responsible for having the right people in the right place at this football club and if our scouting department is or was that bad then she should have replaced them a long time ago.

She leaves this club in a much worse position than she found it in. That's the bottom line really. She took us from the best club in the country when she started to a club that's flailing far behind the top teams when she left. She also leaves a squad that's in a shambolic state and in no position to compete any time soon either.

 

9 minutes ago, dkw said:

No she isnt, its been reported loads of times theres an actual transfer committee,

Where? Never seen it myself.

All i've seen is plenty and plenty of articles about Marina's absolute power at the club.

9 minutes ago, Sindre said:

She didn't have to do anything. We don't hire managers, we have hired head coaches and the real power have been with Granovskaia. She was the one who didn't want to pay Roma what they wanted for a far superior goalkeeper in Allison and when Liverpool swooped in she panicked and decided to pay far more, a world-record fee for Kepa.

Zidane himself was the one who blocked Real Madrid from signing Kepa on the cheap btw. He said so himself.

 

As I have already mentioned, Real Madrid (Florentino) wanted him but (I also mention) Zidane preferred Courtois who we were reluctant to let go. There was a bit of a riff between Zidane and Real Madrid over that (as there was over other things between the club and Zidane, such as Navas btw). They were getting him for 20m€ as that is what Kepa's rescission clause was before he resigned with Athletic. So with the uncertainty Kepa signed an improved new contract with 80m€ rescission clause, at which point Florentino decided against it. Courtois forced our hand to go to Real Madrid and the Club had to act swiftly to get a keeper. They got Kepa as he was the preferred by the coach and possibly with the ok from the scouting team. had she done nothing, as you say first thing, we would have had no keeper.

So, if we don't get the player that the coach wants, the board and Marina is dammed, and if they do get the player the coach wants, they are also damned. But you fail to mention that he was on the top list so, therefore, scouts would have presumably given the ok.

We didn't get Alison, he later said that he chose Liverpool because we weren't playing the CL and Liverpool had more 'istory

https://talksport.com/football/470676/liverpool-goalkeeper-alisson-chelsea-history/

That may be true or not (players tend to praise their current teams except if your name is Lukaku), but to blame all flops on Marina and not praise her for the good deeds she's done, I call it bias and scapegoating.

8 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Alright, so then she does decide then? And I think that's the argument most people make. She's had the final word on transfers during her time here and it's been a catastrophe in the market.

As the director she was also responsible for our scouting department in the end. As a matter of fact she was ultimately responsible for having the right people in the right place at this football club and if our scouting department is or was that bad then she should have replaced them a long time ago.

She leaves this club in a much worse position than she found it in. That's the bottom line really. She took us from the best club in the country when she started to a club that's flailing far behind the top teams when she left. She also leaves a squad that's in a shambolic state and in no position to compete any time soon either.

 

So Chilwell, Kante, Kovacic, Mendy, Thiago, Jorginho, Rudiger, even Havertz are all a disaster?

Wow my head is going to explode reading some of these comments. What is so difficult to understand about her being the negotiator and not the talent identifier?

She has done some good deals - like selling Hazard, Oscar, Mata, Costa all for good sums. For me, she seems better at selling players than buying them. She seems good at commanding good fees for players. Unfortunately, some of the fees we’ve paid for players have been terrible. 
 

One thing she has been responsible for is our upside down pay scales where our least deserving players earn the most money and our best performers, earn the least. 
 

I suppose, everything comes to an end at some point and maybe it’s time for a change. 

I guess my point is some of those transfers she didn't actually need to make because we were out of position. If you are out of position you don't need to go all in. Courtois f**ked us but we didn't have to spend 80m pounds and emergency buy Kepa, we could have reassessed next transfer window.

I'm pretty sure Lukaku was not #1 target last season either, the rumour mill started with Haaland and Kane, and only when those became unrealistic did we "settle" for Lukaku.

And Marina isn't the "sole authority" on transfers sure but I suspect she had a veto right (the coach would no doubt have had one too), and she probably had the most authority on the committee.

I don't hate Marina at all, I think she was competent, but just think she was no more than that, certainly extremely good at negotiating individual transactions but struggled at efficient use of resources to put together a cohesive team.  And if people say that wasn't her job, I don't know who's job it was then, it certainly wasn't all on her, but it was probably more her job than anybody elses?

6 minutes ago, Whiskyjack said:

I guess my point is some of those transfers she didn't actually need to make because we were out of position. If you are out of position you don't need to go all in. Courtois f**ked us but we didn't have to spend 80m pounds and emergency buy Kepa, we could have reassessed next transfer window.

I'm pretty sure Lukaku was not #1 target last season either, the rumour mill started with Haaland and Kane, and only when those became unrealistic did we "settle" for Lukaku.

And Marina isn't the "sole authority" on transfers sure but I suspect she had a veto right (the coach would no doubt have had one too), and she probably had the most authority on the committee.

I don't hate Marina at all, I think she was competent, but just think she was no more than that, certainly extremely good at negotiating individual transactions but struggled at efficient use of resources to put together a cohesive team.  And if people say that wasn't her job, I don't know who's job it was then, it certainly wasn't all on her, but it was probably more her job than anybody elses?

And go into the 18/19 season with Caballero as the first choice keeper and Green as second?

17 hours ago, HazardousChoice said:

Have you forgot to take your medication?  What kind of weirdo takes criticism of Marina's business deals which were quite frankly horrible and tries to twist it into some kind of argument that people have an agenda against Women?  No words. 

God bless your doctors.

Maybe ask them to remind you of the Kounde deal that easy to complete last summer as Sevilla set the price they wanted, a deadline and Kounde wanted to come.  Unfortunately Marina wanted to sell Zouma first and missed their deadline and we missed out.  

Madrid spending 40m on talented but unproven teenagers is nowhere near as bad as spending 58m on players that have already proven themselves not to be good enough like Pulisic had after his 4 poor seasons at Dortmund.   Marina's lack of negotiating ability is reflected in the fees we've paid for incoming players and the terrible contracts we've offered over her tenure far more than it is reflected by an irrelevant award.

One she only received out of sympathy and pity.  As stated previously Marina is like the slow kid at the school sports day who all the other parents clap and cheer long after the others have finished the race.   The other Directors probably gave it her out of sympathy given how badly they've all fleeced her for years.

I get Marina is a big part of the life you've imagined but putting aside your unrequited love ignoring her gender and solely focusing on the business deals she's completed for Chelsea.

Her record of failure speaks for itself unfortunately and it's a big part of why we've fallen behind City and Liverpool.  Both of which would never consider hiring Marina.

I don't have any medication or doctors but nice to see that you think mental health is a good sticking point to use against someone in an argument, says a lot about your character. I'm sure your parents would be proud.

We didn't need Kounde last season, we went into the last season with 6 CB's in the squad. You've spent post after post on here moaning that she pays too much with regards release clauses and now you're moaning that she hasn't paid a release clause? It's very likely we get Kounde this summer for much less so it's a moot point. 

Pulisic 4 poor seasons at Dortmund? Look, it's absolutely fine to admit you didn't watch him at Dortmund and you've just been on Wikipedia to look at his stats. Pulisic was the most promising teenager in Europe. Dortmund's youngest ever player in the CL, their youngest CL scorer. 

People don't receive awards out of pity in a professional environment, you'll learn this when you leave school and get a job. You keep telling yourself whatever you need to though to make yourself feel better.

Her record of failure includes every single possible trophy available to us in that time. Lets hope the next 10 years of failure are just as successful.

This forum is a much healthier place when kids of twitter, like yourself, keep away. Won't be long until you're in the match day thread using terms like Pason Pount. 

19 minutes ago, JM7 said:

I suppose, everything comes to an end at some point and maybe it’s time for a change. 

I think this is the most important thing here.

I agree it's time for a change under the ownership, just wish certain members of the forum can do this without slating members of staff that have served the club during a period that we've won so many important trophies. I'd love to see how they would have coped before the Abromovic money. I would bet my money most would be City or Utd fans these days depending on their age.

5 minutes ago, RMH said:

And go into the 18/19 season with Caballero as the first choice keeper and Green as second?

They would have performed better.  I mean, we are talking about the guy who has the record for the worst save percentage in premier league history here.  

19 minutes ago, JM7 said:

She has done some good deals - like selling Hazard, Oscar, Mata, Costa all for good sums. For me, she seems better at selling players than buying them. She seems good at commanding good fees for players. Unfortunately, some of the fees we’ve paid for players have been terrible. 
 

One thing she has been responsible for is our upside down pay scales where our least deserving players earn the most money and our best performers, earn the least. 
 

I suppose, everything comes to an end at some point and maybe it’s time for a change. 

Your first para, sums the situation up. She appears to be bloody good at selling players (Rudiger excepted), but bloody useless at buying them. I don't think for one minute she has any input on the players that the Club buys, but it is her responsibility to negotiate the fee, the salary, the bonuses and The contracts, and I am afraid she has let herself and us down. I admit to thinking she was doing a blinding job - persuaded maybe by her being the Media's darling, the Powerbroker at Chelsea under RA and the sometimes unbelievable deals she managed to do when selling players. But since she took over purchasing from Emanalo, it has been a total sh*te show !! I really hope we don't drag this out as it is clear that we are neither buying or selling anybody until this is resolved.

2 minutes ago, coombsie said:

Your first para, sums the situation up. She appears to be bloody good at selling players (Rudiger excepted), but bloody useless at buying them. I don't think for one minute she has any input on the players that the Club buys, but it is her responsibility to negotiate the fee, the salary, the bonuses and The contracts, and I am afraid she has let herself and us down. I admit to thinking she was doing a blinding job - persuaded maybe by her being the Media's darling, the Powerbroker at Chelsea under RA and the sometimes unbelievable deals she managed to do when selling players. But since she took over purchasing from Emanalo, it has been a total sh*te show !! I really hope we don't drag this out as it is clear that we are neither buying or selling anybody until this is resolved.

You're just seeing the glass half empty. There have been flops but there have been good purchases, Kova, Jorginho, Thiago Silva, Rudi, Mendy, Kante, Chilwell, Pedro, Alonso... These all have been negotiated by her as well, and we don't complain about them (well, Jorginho we do complain but that's another story and other reasons involved).

Nothing is black or white, a balanced view would be more appropriate.

1 minute ago, RMH said:

You're just seeing the glass half empty. There have been flops but there have been good purchases, Kova, Jorginho, Thiago Silva, Rudi, Mendy, Kante, Chilwell, Pedro, Alonso... These all have been negotiated by her as well, and we don't complain about them (well, Jorginho we do complain but that's another story and other reasons involved).

Nothing is black or white, a balanced view would be more appropriate.

Yeah balanced view for me would suggest she was mediocre - middle of the pack.  Not great, but could have been much worse.  In any event not a big loss.

Investment committees where nobody takes responsibility for failed transfers  dont really work.  

Hopefully going forward we give all the authority to the manager, and identify a manager with the scouting talent to match his tactics (fingers crossed Tuchel is that guy!).