2 hours ago, evissy said:

Talking about United struggling I think we are the closest club to draw parallels with. Both with rich recent history, expectations are through the roof and both are making horrible decisions in recruitment (jury is out for the current recruiters)

I feel it is somewhat helpful looking at Drogba, Terry, Lampard, Cech and winning CL and so on....but I feel our young players might feel they have to do it right away. Can anyone look beyond one or two seasons? Are we capable of such a thing; us and players? 

At united the "Ghosts" of Beckham, Ronaldo, Keane, Neville, Rooney, Ferguson and so on are constantly sh*tting on the team in public television. What chance do the new guys really have? I feel our rich history is doing the same to us. Someone like Brighton or even Newcastle have much easier to concentrate on football as everything they do right now is positive. 

I have a good feeling about Pochettino and I hope our owners really truly back him so he has even a small chance of taking this young crop to a new level.

United's squad is fully of sulkers and horrible owners that have run the club into the ground. It's got nothing to do with the old players calling them out on tv and expectations being so high. Player power at United is even worse than it was for us in the past. The likes of Rashford is treated like a god that gets compared to Mbappe, it's an insult to Mbappe. All he does is sulk when things get tough. Then there is Maguire, the media protect him and Sky will put up stats to make out like United are better with him in the team because he plays for England, but he's terrible, one of the worst CB's in the league easily. 

As for us, nobody expects any of these players to win trophies right now. You've mentioned this a few times now and I have said the same in the past. We don't expect to win trophies, we're 12th, and we'll probably drop to 14th or 15th in the next few weeks. That is sh*t, and if they can't deal with the pressure of finishing higher than 15th, then they aren't good enough and we have bought a bunch of Championship level players. Every player in the league is under pressure to perform, it's competitive football at the highest level.

9 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

United's squad is fully of sulkers and horrible owners that have run the club into the ground. It's got nothing to do with the old players calling them out on tv and expectations being so high. Player power at United is even worse than it was for us in the past. The likes of Rashford is treated like a god that gets compared to Mbappe, it's an insult to Mbappe. All he does is sulk when things get tough. Then there is Maguire, the media protect him and Sky will put up stats to make out like United are better with him in the team because he plays for England, but he's terrible, one of the worst CB's in the league easily. 

As for us, nobody expects any of these players to win trophies right now. You've mentioned this a few times now and I have said the same in the past. We don't expect to win trophies, we're 12th, and we'll probably drop to 14th or 15th in the next few weeks. That is sh*t, and if they can't deal with the pressure of finishing higher than 15th, then they aren't good enough and we have bought a bunch of Championship level players. Every player in the league is under pressure to perform, it's competitive football at the highest level.

Everyone (media) is talking about Chelsea and the 1bn squad. Nothing about them being young or seeing this as a project. This forum is full of people who can't or won't see us long term and can't understand we are losing games. The media narrative is very much the narrative here. The pressure on Pochettino and the players is measured to our rich past 100%. And the fact that we are one of the most hated clubs in the UK doesn't lift any of the pressure. De Zerbi and Brighton for example are expected to fall at some point so them winning is solely positive and compared to our project. There is absolutely no pressure. I think the outside pressure towards our young boys is not solely helpful. Same goes to Utd. 

3 hours ago, evissy said:

Everyone (media) is talking about Chelsea and the 1bn squad. Nothing about them being young or seeing this as a project. This forum is full of people who can't or won't see us long term and can't understand we are losing games. The media narrative is very much the narrative here. The pressure on Pochettino and the players is measured to our rich past 100%. And the fact that we are one of the most hated clubs in the UK doesn't lift any of the pressure. De Zerbi and Brighton for example are expected to fall at some point so them winning is solely positive and compared to our project. There is absolutely no pressure. I think the outside pressure towards our young boys is not solely helpful. Same goes to Utd. 

You're absolutely spot on Evissy! People keep focusing on the money spent as if it must mean instant success when it's impossible. I understand some fans on here don't like our methods in the market and blame Todd, completely understandable. But our rivals don't care about that, they see the price tag and they have to keep harping on about it, almost every game the commentary team has to point it out. I've seen it 4 separate times now where Sky has brought up our Team value compared to the opposition Team value, mostly from that w**ker Carragher. 

But I think this is also the consequence of not having strong Chelsea punditry. 

What pundits do we have in popular positions? Off the top of my head you've got Jason Cundy on Talksport who's extremely negative, the guy used to say Eden Hazard wasn't world class ffs. Then you've got that absolute d**khead on ESPN Craig Burley who is even more negative of Chelsea, I don't even think he's a fan. When we won the Club World Cup he just slagged us off and called it a meaningless trophy and City are doing it much better blah blah blah. 

If this was United, Arsenal, Tottenham, or Liverpool you would see far more sympathy and people jumping to their defence because they've got more and better punditry that stick their necks out on the line to defend the team. We don't have that, Jose was saying this back in 2015/16 because nobody in the media was jumping to our defence on the lack of penalties we were receiving. The season we won the league we had something ridiculous like 3 penalties, all because Sky and MOTD did a hit piece on one game where Willian and Oscar dived in the box. 

11 hours ago, reparto corse said:

I think the reality is much more straight forward. United and Chelsea are in a similar position right now because both are run into the ground by idiotic owners. They serve as a great example of how bad transfer decisions ruin a squad.

That is complete nonsense. Bohely etc have made mistake but the idea they are running the team into the ground is off the air.  The owners' problem, if they have one, was just not knowing enough, they have made a lot of "space cadet" mistakes. 

I personally think the idea of rebuilding the team with a new generation of very young players is a fantastic idea. Every week instead of watching the team get older and closer to the end, as we have been doing for years and years we now watching a team that will get better and better for at least the next two seasons.

If I wanted to criticise the owners, and that should be in the owner thread not here, my first complaint would be that they should pick the manager very carefully right at the start. Secondly I would have said that they didn't pay enough attention to the medical history of the players they bought. Fofana and Nkunku were meant to be two of the absolute stars and essentially that is a material part of the transfer budget straight down the drain. I won't be surprised if Fofana never plays all that much at the level we expected.

Lavia hasn't played. Chukwumeka has barely played. Madueke is injured every second week. Mudryck is so quick it's almost definitional he will have hammy issues.  I suspect Caicedo is not at his best due to some underlying knee issue, but that is just speculation.

There is a pattern here of buying injured players that I don't like. At the least we have to prove we have the medical department to get them back on their feet. By contrast even though Maddison is fragile he turns up every week.

But the truth is once we sort through our lucky dip assortment and add another striker, so that Jackson can become Anelka and not Drogba then we will have a very exciting team. I still think that had we avoided the injuries to Nkunku and Chukky that we would be well in the top  4 mix. But we aren't, so it will take more time. 

Relevant to this thread I still think Poch could in general be more aggressive. Maatsen should have had a run against Rovers. Chilwell should never be winger. Disasi  should never be right back other than an emergency. We should play a front three plus Palmer, but if Sterling is right wing, then left wing needs to start deeper and provide some cover for Palmer's lack of defensive work.

5 hours ago, ozboy said:

Relevant to this thread I still think Poch could in general be more aggressive. Maatsen should have had a run against Rovers. Chilwell should never be winger. Disasi  should never be right back other than an emergency. We should play a front three plus Palmer, but if Sterling is right wing, then left wing needs to start deeper and provide some cover for Palmer's lack of defensive work.

I've come around to think this is the biggest and only issue. These decisios were illogical to the point of lunacy. Many including myself tried to defend these issues as some sort of tactic but it is merely clutching at straws.

Pundits, fans, the tea lady and her dog all knew that Chelsea's problem was scoring goals. Making the team more defensive and less aggressive, no matter the personnel available, was never, ever going to work.

13 hours ago, Victor90 said:

You're absolutely spot on Evissy! People keep focusing on the money spent as if it must mean instant success when it's impossible. I understand some fans on here don't like our methods in the market and blame Todd, completely understandable. But our rivals don't care about that, they see the price tag and they have to keep harping on about it, almost every game the commentary team has to point it out. I've seen it 4 separate times now where Sky has brought up our Team value compared to the opposition Team value, mostly from that w**ker Carragher. 

But I think this is also the consequence of not having strong Chelsea punditry. 

What pundits do we have in popular positions? Off the top of my head you've got Jason Cundy on Talksport who's extremely negative, the guy used to say Eden Hazard wasn't world class ffs. Then you've got that absolute d**khead on ESPN Craig Burley who is even more negative of Chelsea, I don't even think he's a fan. When we won the Club World Cup he just slagged us off and called it a meaningless trophy and City are doing it much better blah blah blah. 

If this was United, Arsenal, Tottenham, or Liverpool you would see far more sympathy and people jumping to their defence because they've got more and better punditry that stick their necks out on the line to defend the team. We don't have that, Jose was saying this back in 2015/16 because nobody in the media was jumping to our defence on the lack of penalties we were receiving. The season we won the league we had something ridiculous like 3 penalties, all because Sky and MOTD did a hit piece on one game where Willian and Oscar dived in the box. 

You're right but we do have Pat Nevin on BBC who tries to put in a good word for us - One that's been getting on my wick recently is Andy ff'ing Townsend who seems to be constantly slagging us off rather than saying anything positive... !

9 hours ago, ozboy said:

But the truth is once we sort through our lucky dip assortment and add another striker, so that Jackson can become Anelka and not Drogba then we will have a very exciting team. I still think that had we avoided the injuries to Nkunku and Chukky that we would be well in the top  4 mix. But we aren't, so it will take more time. 

We've said that for a while though haven't we. A year or so ago it was Enzo coming in that was going to change our fortunes completely.
Obviously we all hope it will click for us and that we are able to bring in the reinforcements we need but there are a lot of questions in the air right now.

I assume most Chelsea fans are nervous about our upcoming run. We certainly won't have a new striker or goalkeeper for it and for me it could very well make or break this particular project. The longer we keep on losing the lower confidence and morale is going to drop and the harder its going to be to claw our way out of it. And it's already been 14 months...

I think we are fast moving beyond the place where one or two players are going to change all that much.
Cole Palmer is looking really good but we are still losing aren't we. And if, after the next five games it's been established that the only thing we have to play for this season is to avoid relegation I would seriously question how our squad is going to handle that.

 

Edited November 3, 20232 yr by OriginalS

 

6 hours ago, OriginalS said:

I think we are fast moving beyond the place where one or two players are going to change all that much.
Cole Palmer is looking really good but we are still losing aren't we.

I mean our record is 4-1-1 since he's been starting games.

16 hours ago, ozboy said:

That is complete nonsense. Bohely etc have made mistake but the idea they are running the team into the ground is off the air.  The owners' problem, if they have one, was just not knowing enough, they have made a lot of "space cadet" mistakes. 

I personally think the idea of rebuilding the team with a new generation of very young players is a fantastic idea. Every week instead of watching the team get older and closer to the end, as we have been doing for years and years we now watching a team that will get better and better for at least the next two seasons.

If I wanted to criticise the owners, and that should be in the owner thread not here, my first complaint would be that they should pick the manager very carefully right at the start. Secondly I would have said that they didn't pay enough attention to the medical history of the players they bought. Fofana and Nkunku were meant to be two of the absolute stars and essentially that is a material part of the transfer budget straight down the drain. I won't be surprised if Fofana never plays all that much at the level we expected.

Lavia hasn't played. Chukwumeka has barely played. Madueke is injured every second week. Mudryck is so quick it's almost definitional he will have hammy issues.  I suspect Caicedo is not at his best due to some underlying knee issue, but that is just speculation.

There is a pattern here of buying injured players that I don't like. At the least we have to prove we have the medical department to get them back on their feet. By contrast even though Maddison is fragile he turns up every week.

But the truth is once we sort through our lucky dip assortment and add another striker, so that Jackson can become Anelka and not Drogba then we will have a very exciting team. I still think that had we avoided the injuries to Nkunku and Chukky that we would be well in the top  4 mix. But we aren't, so it will take more time. 

Relevant to this thread I still think Poch could in general be more aggressive. Maatsen should have had a run against Rovers. Chilwell should never be winger. Disasi  should never be right back other than an emergency. We should play a front three plus Palmer, but if Sterling is right wing, then left wing needs to start deeper and provide some cover for Palmer's lack of defensive work.

Great post and thoughts.  Well said. 

16 hours ago, ozboy said:

That is complete nonsense. Bohely etc have made mistake but the idea they are running the team into the ground is off the air.  The owners' problem, if they have one, was just not knowing enough, they have made a lot of "space cadet" mistakes. 

I personally think the idea of rebuilding the team with a new generation of very young players is a fantastic idea. Every week instead of watching the team get older and closer to the end, as we have been doing for years and years we now watching a team that will get better and better for at least the next two seasons.

If I wanted to criticise the owners, and that should be in the owner thread not here, my first complaint would be that they should pick the manager very carefully right at the start. Secondly I would have said that they didn't pay enough attention to the medical history of the players they bought. Fofana and Nkunku were meant to be two of the absolute stars and essentially that is a material part of the transfer budget straight down the drain. I won't be surprised if Fofana never plays all that much at the level we expected.

Lavia hasn't played. Chukwumeka has barely played. Madueke is injured every second week. Mudryck is so quick it's almost definitional he will have hammy issues.  I suspect Caicedo is not at his best due to some underlying knee issue, but that is just speculation.

There is a pattern here of buying injured players that I don't like. At the least we have to prove we have the medical department to get them back on their feet. By contrast even though Maddison is fragile he turns up every week.

But the truth is once we sort through our lucky dip assortment and add another striker, so that Jackson can become Anelka and not Drogba then we will have a very exciting team. I still think that had we avoided the injuries to Nkunku and Chukky that we would be well in the top  4 mix. But we aren't, so it will take more time. 

Relevant to this thread I still think Poch could in general be more aggressive. Maatsen should have had a run against Rovers. Chilwell should never be winger. Disasi  should never be right back other than an emergency. We should play a front three plus Palmer, but if Sterling is right wing, then left wing needs to start deeper and provide some cover for Palmer's lack of defensive work.

Are you getting paid by Todd to write stuff like that? The owners are destroying Chelsea football club. I can't believe there are people here defending them. You should be ashamed of yourself.

1 hour ago, Sconnie Blue said:

 

He should be sacked immediately

Apparently Pochettino has upset sections of the fan base by saying he is "happy" Spurs are doing so well 

On 02/11/2023 at 17:11, Victor90 said:

You're absolutely spot on Evissy! People keep focusing on the money spent as if it must mean instant success when it's impossible. I understand some fans on here don't like our methods in the market and blame Todd, completely understandable. But our rivals don't care about that, they see the price tag and they have to keep harping on about it, almost every game the commentary team has to point it out. I've seen it 4 separate times now where Sky has brought up our Team value compared to the opposition Team value, mostly from that w**ker Carragher. 

But I think this is also the consequence of not having strong Chelsea punditry. 

What pundits do we have in popular positions? Off the top of my head you've got Jason Cundy on Talksport who's extremely negative, the guy used to say Eden Hazard wasn't world class ffs. Then you've got that absolute d**khead on ESPN Craig Burley who is even more negative of Chelsea, I don't even think he's a fan. When we won the Club World Cup he just slagged us off and called it a meaningless trophy and City are doing it much better blah blah blah. 

If this was United, Arsenal, Tottenham, or Liverpool you would see far more sympathy and people jumping to their defence because they've got more and better punditry that stick their necks out on the line to defend the team. We don't have that, Jose was saying this back in 2015/16 because nobody in the media was jumping to our defence on the lack of penalties we were receiving. The season we won the league we had something ridiculous like 3 penalties, all because Sky and MOTD did a hit piece on one game where Willian and Oscar dived in the box. 

We had years of success without having to have pundits on our side.

If everyone was against us I wouldn't have it any other way, because it meant we were successful. 

I don't think anyone is much bothered about us at the moment.

About time we attracted some real venom, starting Monday

Come on you BLUES!

10 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Apparently Pochettino has upset sections of the fan base by saying he is "happy" Spurs are doing so well 

If he's actually said that, he's burnt his bridges!

12 minutes ago, Modueke said:

If he's actually said that, he's burnt his bridges!

 

25 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Apparently Pochettino has upset sections of the fan base by saying he is "happy" Spurs are doing so well 

I don't understand why he didn't say he was furious that Spurs are doing so well .

15 hours ago, Bebe1980 said:

You're right but we do have Pat Nevin on BBC who tries to put in a good word for us - One that's been getting on my wick recently is Andy ff'ing Townsend who seems to be constantly slagging us off rather than saying anything positive... !

Well, Andy would fit in well on here then 

7 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

 

I don't believe anything from that PYS account.

12 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

I don't understand why he didn't say he was furious that Spurs are doing so well .

A Jose 'I only talk about my team, they are not my team' would have done perfectly!

6 minutes ago, Modueke said:

A Jose 'I only talk about my team, they are not my team' would have done perfectly!

Who knows what Poch is saying, it could be anything, I can't understand him anyway 

On 02/11/2023 at 17:11, Victor90 said:

You're absolutely spot on Evissy! People keep focusing on the money spent as if it must mean instant success when it's impossible. I understand some fans on here don't like our methods in the market and blame Todd, completely understandable. But our rivals don't care about that, they see the price tag and they have to keep harping on about it, almost every game the commentary team has to point it out. I've seen it 4 separate times now where Sky has brought up our Team value compared to the opposition Team value, mostly from that w**ker Carragher. 

But I think this is also the consequence of not having strong Chelsea punditry. 

What pundits do we have in popular positions? Off the top of my head you've got Jason Cundy on Talksport who's extremely negative, the guy used to say Eden Hazard wasn't world class ffs. Then you've got that absolute d**khead on ESPN Craig Burley who is even more negative of Chelsea, I don't even think he's a fan. When we won the Club World Cup he just slagged us off and called it a meaningless trophy and City are doing it much better blah blah blah. 

If this was United, Arsenal, Tottenham, or Liverpool you would see far more sympathy and people jumping to their defence because they've got more and better punditry that stick their necks out on the line to defend the team. We don't have that, Jose was saying this back in 2015/16 because nobody in the media was jumping to our defence on the lack of penalties we were receiving. The season we won the league we had something ridiculous like 3 penalties, all because Sky and MOTD did a hit piece on one game where Willian and Oscar dived in the box. 

The media and pundits haven't stopped criticising Utd all week .

And yet Utd are 3 points better off than we are.

51 minutes ago, Modueke said:

If he's actually said that, he's burnt his bridges!

Apparently he did, but I have not watched the presser to say for sure.

End of the day he is a Spurs man, they are his club after his 6 years there. Plenty of their fans call him agent Poch now and are delighted with the job he is doing with us lol.

If he'd said it whilst doing a great job with us then there'd be nothing wrong with it.

 

But given he's only won 12 points in 10 games so far, he should probably be trying his best to keep our fans on side. 

1 hour ago, Drogba1 said:

If he'd said it whilst doing a great job with us then there'd be nothing wrong with it.

 

But given he's only won 12 points in 10 games so far, he should probably be trying his best to keep our fans on side. 

Well whatever the result of Monday he will be happy right? We win he wins, we lose he wins as well.

15 hours ago, Modueke said:

A Jose 'I only talk about my team, they are not my team' would have done perfectly!

José talked about other teams all the time ! . But yeah, that would have been the better answer, agreed