46 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

Can I be the first to wheel out ‘he hasn’t had a proper pre-season’ excuse?

Not his players, not his team yet. Needs a couple of windows...to ship out the current generational talents and bring in the next batch of continental superstars that can't hack it here.

2 minutes ago, Zeta said:

Win titles? We haven't been in a title race for about 5-6 years. We're a side that just tries to finish top 4 these days.

Precisely !

After 11 games, City have scored 36 goals to our 16 ... we've actually scored less goals than frigging Leicester who are bottom LOL.

We've simply got to be more ambitious in games if we aspire to rival City, which absolutely SHOULD be the objective, especially for what is being spent on players and wages.

Getting top 4 with these players would be a good achievement I think.

Our midfield needs major surgery and as for attacking, we have scored less goals than Leicester City.

And they are bottom of the league!

This is not gonna be a quick fix.

There is a lot of players here that wouldn’t get anywhere near the starting 11 at a club like City.

I am personally prepared to reserve judgment on Potter until this season is finished.

 

It looks like it wasn’t Tuchel’s fault after all, who would have said it? Maybe the players are just not good enough or too comfortable in the team. The only ones making an impression are Broja and Carney, when they get the chance. It’s the players that are wrong, not the coaching. 

3 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Precisely !

After 11 games, City have scored 36 goals to our 16 ... we've actually scored less goals than frigging Leicester who are bottom LOL.

We've simply got to be more ambitious in games if we aspire to rival City, which absolutely SHOULD be the objective, especially for what is being spent on players and wages.

I blame Werner. No goals or assists in months. 😑

I blame Malouda not passing the ball!

13 minutes ago, RMH said:

It looks like it wasn’t Tuchel’s fault after all, who would have said it? Maybe the players are just not good enough or too comfortable in the team. The only ones making an impression are Broja and Carney, when they get the chance. It’s the players that are wrong, not the coaching. 

Been said for ages. Players always get away with it and pur recruitment is poor.

Even with new owners this has not changed. We just add more average players like Cucurella, Sterling, Koulibaly etc or worse players we won't even play. 

Only Carney and Fofana have looked good buys so far.

5 minutes ago, Droy said:

It's of course quality that matters but the man is quite obviously making junior mistakes every single game so where is the quality? Brighton is the club where you get away with that, here you don't.

We genuinely look like crap. Compare this to how we looked one year ago and it's crazy how much we have regressed.

You looked sh*te six months ago, you looked sh*te two months ago and you kind of look sh*te now. The downside with building a squad with about a dozen 30+ players is that they're not going to get better - they're going to get worse. You can sack and hire managers all day and it won't change the fact that you get a downwards spiral if your best players are aging. Not Tuchels fault and not Potters fault, but the main reason why you've struggled: a poorly built squad. There's quite a bit of potential in it, but if you want to win sh*t today, you need players who are good today rather than yesterday or tomorrow. If you can't get that, you should go with what might be good tomorrow - and as the Aubameyang transfer signalled, its not how the club has done it up until now.

8 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

As a connoisseur of Potter teams, which of our players do you see as a good fit for what GP wants his teams to do, and which players are on borrowed time ?

Chalobah and Gallagher will be key players before this season is over, along with obvious ones such as Mount and James. Broja is the right kind of player, but is further away from being able to be the main striker in Chelsea. Havertz got potential to be a key player in a GP side, as do Pulisic who is a lot better than some people here seem to think. One trick ponys like Sterling and Aubameyang are not flexible and/or intelligent enough to be as adaptive as GP requires his players to be. Generally speaking 3-4 of the 30+ players would optimally after the next summer but it is far more difficult to sell players than to buy ones. Ziyech is the right kind of player, but if you're an immature person you're not getting old in a GP team.

I imagine GP is fairly happy with the keepers and defenders, though in the long run he might want another option for James (Gallagher will most certainly play there a lot this season) to be able to move Connor into midfield. In midfield I think he wants a defensive midfielder who brings a bit more ball-winning ability than Jorginho and up front another winger option as well as a new centre forward would probably be ideal, but might be difficult as long as Aubameyang is around.

Mind, I don't really know what you've got in your academy, but with GP around, the academy will be more relevant and not just you gathering players to sell or loan elsewhere.

There's a lot of work to do but the potential is exciting. Just ship a few of the older players and bring in a handful of reasonably young but fully developed players and the team should be able to challenge for the Premier League title in two years. It won't go any faster than that.

I've already lowered my expectations to top 4 the moment Tuchel left. We are essentially starting all over again from where we were at the start of Frank's second season. Potter still has a lot of work to do on this teams scoring ability.

13 minutes ago, Mod said:

I blame Malouda not passing the ball!

I blame Ramires!

4 minutes ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

I've already lowered my expectations to top 4 the moment Tuchel left. We are essentially starting all over again from where we were at the start of Frank's second season. Potter still has a lot of work to do on this teams scoring ability.

We ain't getting top 4. Lower them more.

After the game Potter praised our effort, calling it excellent. He also admitted we were not good enough to win the game and we need "a lot more work".

He praised the performances of Kepa, Kova and Trev.

27 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

We simply don't shoot enough to be able to score enough goals to put games to bed. 16 goals in 11 games is all we have managed in the PL this season. You are never going to win titles if that is all you can do ... 

I really do believe it's even more basic than that. Firstly there is a fundamental disinclination of players to more in the running off the ball. Therefore all of the passing has to be spot on, which it rarely is. As such instead of players taking one touch and boom, it's three touches just to get the ball under, passes not into runs, passes behind the player or to the wrong foot. This then undermines the whole flow and pattern of the move. Everything becomes forced and normally players just bottle out and shift it to the next bloke.

Just care of the ball and attention by each individual to the quality of their own play would be a start for me.

1 minute ago, axman2526 said:

We ain't getting top 4. Lower them more.

Liverpool, Spurs and United are either at the same level as us or playing worse so I honestly don't think top 4 should be hard. It should be the bare minimum.

@SwedishEntitytell me of this is right.

Ideally GP would be able to get rid of:

 

Mendy (terrible as a sweeper keeper)

 

Silva (due to age my guess)

 

Zakaria

Kante (due to injuries so he can have someone he can play)

 

Ziyech

Sterling

Aubameyang 

 

Anyone I miss or who should not be on there?

7 minutes ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

Liverpool, Spurs and United are either at the same level as us or playing worse so I honestly don't think top 4 should be hard. It should be the bare minimum.

Hmm

 

Let's see if we agree on these

 

1st City

 

After them we finish behind Arsenal with their soon to be 9 point advantage too much to overcome.

 

Spurs have goalscorers in Kane and Son, we only have 16 goals on 11 games, worse than Leicester who are bottom. Spurs also have Conte. They will get top 4 with those combinations, dropped points to top 6 don't matter while you put the other 14 sides to the sword.

 

I Disagree with you United are better than us under their new boss.

 

That leaves one spot, and you forgot Newcastle are there too. 

Edited October 22, 20223 yr by axman2526

2 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

@SwedishEntitytell me of this is right.

Ideally GP would be able to get rid of:

 

Mendy (terrible as a sweeper keeper)

 

Silva (due to age my guess)

 

Zakaria

Kante (due to injuries so he can have someone he can play)

 

Ziyech

Sterling

Aubameyang 

 

Anyone I miss or who should not be on there?

While Thiago SIlva is old as feck, he is also pure class and if he can accept maybe getting less game time, I can easily see GP wanting to keep him for another year. Young defenders like Fofana, Cucurella and Chalobah can probably learn endless amounts of things from him. But of course he's also a little bit of a problem as a lot of times you're going to have to play three central defenders. If you have play four at the back, you need pacy defenders because your main vulnerability will be runs between the CBs and FBs - something the extra man at the back deals with.

The others you mention are quite likely indeed players GP might not want around for long. Surprised to hear that Jorginho might be negotiating a new contract since I don't really think he has the mobility and physicality to be part of the mid-term plans for the club.

26 minutes ago, SwedishEntity said:

You looked sh*te six months ago, you looked sh*te two months ago and you kind of look sh*te now. The downside with building a squad with about a dozen 30+ players is that they're not going to get better - they're going to get worse. You can sack and hire managers all day and it won't change the fact that you get a downwards spiral if your best players are aging. Not Tuchels fault and not Potters fault, but the main reason why you've struggled: a poorly built squad. There's quite a bit of potential in it, but if you want to win sh*t today, you need players who are good today rather than yesterday or tomorrow. If you can't get that, you should go with what might be good tomorrow - and as the Aubameyang transfer signalled, its not how the club has done it up until now.

Chalobah and Gallagher will be key players before this season is over, along with obvious ones such as Mount and James. Broja is the right kind of player, but is further away from being able to be the main striker in Chelsea. Havertz got potential to be a key player in a GP side, as do Pulisic who is a lot better than some people here seem to think. One trick ponys like Sterling and Aubameyang are not flexible and/or intelligent enough to be as adaptive as GP requires his players to be. Generally speaking 3-4 of the 30+ players would optimally after the next summer but it is far more difficult to sell players than to buy ones. Ziyech is the right kind of player, but if you're an immature person you're not getting old in a GP team.

I imagine GP is fairly happy with the keepers and defenders, though in the long run he might want another option for James (Gallagher will most certainly play there a lot this season) to be able to move Connor into midfield. In midfield I think he wants a defensive midfielder who brings a bit more ball-winning ability than Jorginho and up front another winger option as well as a new centre forward would probably be ideal, but might be difficult as long as Aubameyang is around.

Mind, I don't really know what you've got in your academy, but with GP around, the academy will be more relevant and not just you gathering players to sell or loan elsewhere.

There's a lot of work to do but the potential is exciting. Just ship a few of the older players and bring in a handful of reasonably young but fully developed players and the team should be able to challenge for the Premier League title in two years. It won't go any faster than that.

Great post. Thanks

4 minutes ago, SwedishEntity said:

While Thiago SIlva is old as feck, he is also pure class and if he can accept maybe getting less game time, I can easily see GP wanting to keep him for another year. Young defenders like Fofana, Cucurella and Chalobah can probably learn endless amounts of things from him. But of course he's also a little bit of a problem as a lot of times you're going to have to play three central defenders. If you have play four at the back, you need pacy defenders because your main vulnerability will be runs between the CBs and FBs - something the extra man at the back deals with.

The others you mention are quite likely indeed players GP might not want around for long. Surprised to hear that Jorginho might be negotiating a new contract since I don't really think he has the mobility and physicality to be part of the mid-term plans for the club.

Thanks for your detailed replies.

Yeah Jorgi needs to go unless we keep him around as a back up player or system player for certain opponents. Maybe similar to Dave's new deal. (Caser Azpilicueta, we just call him Dave)

There is a lot of predictable knee jerk, which is fair enough

We started sh*t. Potter made is better. We almost won the game, then threw it away. 

I'll take it. I'm pissed off that we've lost 3 points against the top 6 twice. 

We need a game winner. We don't have a hazard/Salah/haaland if we had that we would be title challengers. 

But in the mean time I'm optimistic. 

 

The first 30 minutes was the worst performance I've seen from us in a long time. Tactically awful. At least Potter saw his mistake and changed things up. It was even from that point. Embarrassing though that the tactics at the start of the match were so bad. 

Happy with a point on the balance of the game, even though we should have pinched three points after such a late pen.

Not having an extra defender on the bench to come on at the end perhaps hurt us. 

33 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

After the game Potter praised our effort, calling it excellent. He also admitted we were not good enough to win the game and we need "a lot more work".

He praised the performances of Kepa, Kova and Trev.

Excellent? really? His brain must still be at Brighton if he thinks that. That wasn't excellent, we didn't test De Gea once in the entire game.

58 minutes ago, 2211 said:

Getting top 4 with these players would be a good achievement I think.

Our midfield needs major surgery and as for attacking, we have scored less goals than Leicester City.

And they are bottom of the league!

This is not gonna be a quick fix.

There is a lot of players here that wouldn’t get anywhere near the starting 11 at a club like City.

I am personally prepared to reserve judgment on Potter until this season is finished.

 

The midfield is the one area we are strong. We have to play 5 at the back because our best defender is 38 so needs extra cover. Our forwards lack any kind of creativity, bar Mount. Very unlucky that Koulibaly, fofana and James are out as they are all starters for me. We desperately need someone higher up the pitch who can pick a pass and create something out of nothing. A Totti, Guti or Kaka type

 

2 minutes ago, DannyVblue said:

The midfield is the one area we are strong.

Our midfield is pure 100% sh*te.