3 hours ago, dkw said:

Lack of materials and huge inflation in costs is also a factor. We've seen steel prices go up by over 50% on a project I'm working on, and even electrical components, cables, building components. 

We ordered a VFD (frequency drive) 6 months ago to be delivered this month. Its now unlikely we get it this year.

I still remember the designs and the model for a new stadium in the 70s. Looked good , still does actually, but the only part that was built was the East Stand and almost brought the club to bankruptcy.

I dread us f**king it up again. And I still can't see that the outlay is justified by the increase in revenue. The extra money is less per season than a dodgy striker cost us and is on loan in Italy somewhere.

oh yeah, there was a building strike during the East Stand build, something is bound to go wrong. Always look on the dismal side !

Rebuild the team not the stadium. Reckon we'll win tomorrow ?

 

3 hours ago, bisright1 said:

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/chelsea-rekindles-1bn-stadium-plan-with-offer-to-purchase-land-19-12-2022/

Takes longer than a few months to publish concrete plans. But things are underway on that front. 

I like that.......   ' concrete plans" 😁😁

48 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

I don't think it's melodramatic. We are slipping down the table by the game. 

0-0, 1-1, followed it up with a humiliating 4-1 defeat to Brighton, then Arsenal cruised to a 1-0 win against us at Stamford Bridge. 

Lost 1-0 to City in the League cup, lost 1-0 to Newcastle, then 1-0 again to Villa. 

After the World Cup, nothing improves. We play one good half against Bournemouth to win 2-0, then the very next game, get dominated by Forest in the 2nd half and draw 1-1. Then we lose 1-0 to City at home, without them being anywhere near their best and we couldn't even test Ederson once. 

We haven't beaten a single side in the top 10 all season. The players look exhausted after 45 minutes of football. All teams need to do to get a result against us run a lot and press us. Our top scorer is Sterling with 6 goals, and he's one of the players getting the most criticism for his performances.

The trajectory we are on is the bottom half of the table.

Every team you listed is a top 10 side bar Forest. We beat villa 2-0, not sure what that loss is. We were arguably the better team against city for large parts despite us being injury ravaged.

We've had a run of fixtures against teams in form. That's why we slipped down the table ending now and we are going to pick up points. 

Let's see by the end of the season but if we are lower than 7th I'll be very surprised. 

19 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

Every team you listed is a top 10 side bar Forest. We beat villa 2-0, not sure what that loss is. We were arguably the better team against city for large parts despite us being injury ravaged.

We've had a run of fixtures against teams in form. That's why we slipped down the table ending now and we are going to pick up points. 

Let's see by the end of the season but if we are lower than 7th I'll be very surprised. 

The defeat to Villa was in a friendly. Yeah, it's only a friendly, but when results and performances have been bad for so long, you take a win wherever you can, just to instill a bit of confidence.

We weren't better than City at all. We put a bit of pressure on and created nothing and they had many gears in them, which that was proven by their 2nd half performance. Even Everton gave them more of a game than we did and they are sh*te. 

As for the excuse about teams being in good form, so what? If we can't be expected to beat teams in good form, then that shows how weak we are. It's not even true anyway, Brighton smashed us after failing to win 5 games in a row. Even City weren't in good form when we played them.

The fact that Forest aren't a top 10 team and still got something against us should tell you that even against those sides, we are now struggling.

Edited January 7, 20233 yr by Scott Harris

17 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

The defeat to Villa was in a friendly. Yeah, it's only a friendly, but when results and performances have been bad for so long, you take a win wherever you can, just to instill a bit of confidence.

We weren't better than City at all. We put a bit of pressure on and created nothing and they had many gears in them, which that was proven by their 2nd half performance. Even Everton gave them more of a game than we did and they are sh*te. 

As for the excuse about teams being in good form, so what? If we can't be expected to beat teams in good form, then that shows how weak we are. It's not even true anyway, Brighton smashed us after failing to win 5 games in a row. Even City weren't in good form when we played them.

The fact that Forest aren't a top 10 team and still got something against us should tell you that even against those sides, we are now struggling.

If you're counting friendlies then you really have lost all hope 🤣 

Just now, bisright1 said:

If you're counting friendlies then you really have lost all hope 🤣 

Normally I wouldn't, but when form is as bad as ours, I will take anything. I'll share what @OriginalS just shared on the other thread.

 

How can you say this isn't bottom half of the table trajectory?

2 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

Normally I wouldn't, but when form is as bad as ours, I will take anything. I'll share what @OriginalS just shared on the other thread.

 

How can you say this isn't bottom half of the table trajectory?

It's why I don't agree with those who thinks we should give Potter a ton of time no matter what. Like the "we can only judge him after two transfer windows" kind of argument.

He's obviously got more than enough talent to not have us 20th in shots and SOT so he needs to prove he can get anything out of the squad he's got before we massively support him in the market.

In my opinion he should have two or three months to turn it around. Clearly should get another chance when some important players are back from their injuries but if things doesn't take a turn for the better (a lot better) when for example James is back he needs to be in trouble.

4 hours ago, dkw said:

Lack of materials and huge inflation in costs is also a factor. We've seen steel prices go up by over 50% on a project I'm working on, and even electrical components, cables, building components. 

We ordered a VFD (frequency drive) 6 months ago to be delivered this month. Its now unlikely we get it this year.

I had about 4 months of having to monitor loads of places stock levels to get a pretty standard piece of kit in which time its value nearly doubled. It’s madness right now. 

Potter needs to go Ten Hag on the squad. High standards and get rid of the ones coasting. Play some of the younger players to bring some energy to the side. Get James, Chilwell & Kante fit and cross your fingers.

26 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

Normally I wouldn't, but when form is as bad as ours, I will take anything. I'll share what @OriginalS just shared on the other thread.

 

How can you say this isn't bottom half of the table trajectory?

Don't know about you but I have never seen Chelsea win the Championship league title before. 

And we do love to make history.

24 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

Normally I wouldn't, but when form is as bad as ours, I will take anything. I'll share what @OriginalS just shared on the other thread.

 

How can you say this isn't bottom half of the table trajectory?

I think if you're going to count losing to villa in a friendly you have to count us thumping Brentford 

We've had an unfortunate fixture list recently, but that's going full circle now. Forest was a bad performance but I have the expectation that we are going to get 12-15 points in our next 6 games. 

And then we've got Leeds, Everton and Leicester in March. 

If we're sitting 10th at the end of March ill be shocked. 

28 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

Normally I wouldn't, but when form is as bad as ours, I will take anything. I'll share what @OriginalS just shared on the other thread.

 

How can you say this isn't bottom half of the table trajectory?

From what I remember under Tuchel last season we were 3rd in expected goals and shots/shots on target. Would be interesting to compare Tuchel's first 6 games this season with Potter's 11 games in charge.

4 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

I think if you're going to count losing to villa in a friendly you have to count us thumping Brentford 

We've had an unfortunate fixture list recently, but that's going full circle now. Forest was a bad performance but I have the expectation that we are going to get 12-15 points in our next 6 games. 

And then we've got Leeds, Everton and Leicester in March. 

If we're sitting 10th at the end of March ill be shocked. 

Me too. Think we will be 13th or 14th.

No sh*t Graham, we’re fully aware, it’s not as if its noticeable or anything!

 

1 hour ago, Mod said:

No sh*t Graham, we’re fully aware, it’s not as if its noticeable or anything!

 

If I didn't know better, I could read this as the manager openly saying that now that he's at the club and the previous owner obviously isn't, that we won't be winning trophies anymore. Isn't this kind of a statement a very strange thing to say? Like shooting yourself in the foot??

3 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

If I didn't know better, I could read this as the manager openly saying that now that he's at the club and the previous owner obviously isn't, that we won't be winning trophies anymore. Isn't this kind of a statement a very strange thing to say? Like shooting yourself in the foot??

No if you read the interview he's saying that he joined because the owners committed to him they'd give him the time to build a team. Unlike Roman where success was needed instantly. 

He also mentioned how he tries to stay calm in media interviews but that doesn't mean he doesn't get angry behind closed doors. Which is what I've told you before, Potter in a media interview isn't Potter with the team or owners. 

I'd like the journos to ask better questions than "are you worried about getting sacked" and ask "at Brighton you struggled to create chances, now the same is true at Chelsea, how are you going to resolve this?"

But hey, journos will just continue to ask sh*t questions. 

 

Edited January 7, 20233 yr by bisright1

7 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

No if you read the interview he's saying that he joined because the owners committed to him they'd give him the time to build a team. Unlike Roman where success was needed instantly. 

He also mentioned how he tries to stay calm in media interviews but that doesn't mean he doesn't get angry behind closed doors. Which is what I've told you before, Potter in a media interview isn't Potter with the team or owners. 

I'd like the journos to ask better questions than "are you worried about getting sacked" and ask "at Brighton you struggled to create chances, now the same is true at Chelsea, how are you going to resolve this?"

But hey, journos will just continue to ask sh*t questions. 

 

I found the article and still think that it's pretty risky to talk about these things in that manner, no matter how you put it he's basically open about the fact that he won't win us nothing anytime soon but that he won't lose his job because of it.

Fine I get it, we're in the process of rebuilding but we have been that since Conte was here and every manager after him finished top 4 and we played cup finals and Tuchel even managed to win the CL.

Just cause we're rebuilding it doesn't mean that we should suddenly go from fighting for top 4 no matter what, to be happy with being a top 10 team. Potter might think it's just all resonable to expect us to be a top 10 team cause he needs to rebuild but Tuchel, Lampard and Sarri didn't think in that way at all.

Didn't see it posted, but here is the recent interview with Potter. I thought it was a good interview and explained the situation well.

 

 

1 minute ago, Gol15 said:

I found the article and still think that it's pretty risky to talk about these things in that manner, no matter how you put it he's basically open about the fact that he won't win us nothing anytime soon but that he won't lose his job because of it.

Fine I get it, we're in the process of rebuilding but we have been that since Conte was here and every manager after him finished top 4 and we played cup finals and Tuchel even managed to win the CL.

Just cause we're rebuilding it doesn't mean that we should suddenly go from fighting for top 4 no matter what, to be happy with being a top 10 team. Potter might think it's just all resonable to expect us to be a top 10 team cause he needs to rebuild but Tuchel, Lampard and Sarri didn't think in that way at all.

Every manager under Roman signed players with the mindset that they needed to win a trophy immediately. That's not rebuilding. That's papering over cracks. 

Rebuilding takes time and it means taking your medicine by not buying players to fix a gap, but buying players that will benefit the squad long term. 

But no it doesn't mean we should be happy being top 10. I won't be happy if we finish 10th and neither will Potter. This team is good enough to finish 6th or 7th, and I think it will. And next season we shouldnt be happy if we finish outside the top 4, because we need to see improvement.

But more importantly, it means that Potter will need to finish higher and higher each year. If we aren't competing for the league in 2-3 years time, he's failed. And that's not a small ask as we haven't competed for the league since 16/17.  

If we aren't in the title race 24/25, Potter will be fired, I have no doubt. No manager has been fired for that lofty a reason at Chelsea since Ancelotti. Everyone since has been fired because they aren't finishing top 4.

3 hours ago, Gol15 said:

If I didn't know better, I could read this as the manager openly saying that now that he's at the club and the previous owner obviously isn't, that we won't be winning trophies anymore. Isn't this kind of a statement a very strange thing to say? Like shooting yourself in the foot??

One thing I don't think anyone can give criticism to Potter for is him not being honest. He is a very straight forward person.

It seems Potter has shown some character in the presser...I can't find that presser anywhere...anyone seen it? Has it been videoed?

Just found it above....😅

Edited January 8, 20233 yr by evissy

8 hours ago, enigma said:

Didn't see it posted, but here is the recent interview with Potter. I thought it was a good interview and explained the situation well.

 

 

 

6 minutes ago, evissy said:

It seems Potter has shown some character in the presser...I can't find that presser anywhere...anyone seen it? Has it been videoed?

Above 

9 hours ago, Gol15 said:

If I didn't know better, I could read this as the manager openly saying that now that he's at the club and the previous owner obviously isn't, that we won't be winning trophies anymore. Isn't this kind of a statement a very strange thing to say? Like shooting yourself in the foot??

Exactly. I am really not sure what point he is trying to make. Is he implying that without a Russian oligarch we won't be able to buy ourselves out of trouble. What whilst we potentially stand on the crest of the biggest player spend across two windows in our history. Is he stating that we now need to get used to mediocrity from the performances now that the owner has changed. No sh*t. Or is he saying that it is more stable for the manager now that Boehly is in charge. If so I would keep quiet about it and count your blessings Graham....oh and the 12m each year of course.

Carragher said something that was right the other day. He said with United, the assumption was that they were 5 years away from City. However, the right manager like Ten Hag and you’re alot closer than you think.  
 

Tuchel showed that as well. He may not have dominated the league but we got closer. 

13 hours ago, Mod said:

No sh*t Graham, we’re fully aware, it’s not as if its noticeable or anything!

 

Given his generally aloof nature, maybe he himself realised this just yesterday.