2 minutes ago, forbzy said:

Some suggestions that FFP may also be part of the decision as it would cost an estimated 10m to pay off the existing staff if they were to make a change now, not to mention the cost of hiring new staff. 

Didn't stop them from sacking Potter. 

Swear these muppets make sh*t up for clicks. 

Don’t want Jose anywhere near the bridge in a managerial position, some of you have very short memories, the club under his 2nd tenure was horrendous he lost the fans massively, and his reputation was on the line, best he smiles from a distance.

 Get one vof these younger PL managers in, at least they play some sort of football we understand, a new vocal captain is needed pronto, someone that will bollock the players at the way and style they play, who that is I ain’t sure?

That Liverpool-supporting air hostess has probably lost a few subscribers now LOL

4 minutes ago, Ballack & Blu said:

Don’t want Jose anywhere near the bridge in a managerial position, some of you have very short memories, the club under his 2nd tenure was horrendous he lost the fans massively, and his reputation was on the line, best he smiles from a distance.

 Get one vof these younger PL managers in, at least they play some sort of football we understand, a new vocal captain is needed pronto, someone that will bollock the players at the way and style they play, who that is I ain’t sure?

The really brave decision would be to start Gilchrist and give it to him. 

Would be a hell of a lot of responsibility on young shoulders though, and no guarantees he will prove good enough as a player either, but the cupboard is pretty bare so worth a shot and I reckon he'll swim rather than sink. None of the existing centre backs are exactly tearing up trees to the extent that they'd be missed LOL

I don't see much in the way of leadership skills in anyone else right now ... 

Edited February 5, 20242 yr by Sexyfootball

25 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Hence why Pochettino preferred Levi !

Pretty sure that Cucurella was bought with the intention that he was a starter ... you don't pay £56m for a back up full back, especially when you've given him £175K a week and handed him the #3 shirt.

In terms of our club team/squad "planning" (particularly bearing in mind wages being paid) you'd have to think that all five of our intended first choice defensive players are currently side-lined.

                   Sanchez

James ; Fofana ; Colwill ; Cucurella

 

You don’t then improve his backup’s wages to £250k/w. The whole LB situation is a mess; we are paying 2 LBs £420k/w, and they both look average.

5 minutes ago, Ballack & Blu said:

Don’t want Jose anywhere near the bridge in a managerial position, some of you have very short memories, the club under his 2nd tenure was horrendous he lost the fans massively, and his reputation was on the line, best he smiles from a distance.

 Get one vof these younger PL managers in, at least they play some sort of football we understand, a new vocal captain is needed pronto, someone that will bollock the players at the way and style they play, who that is I ain’t sure?

Without commenting what the owners are doing is either good or bad, they have to swallow their pride and hire him. He’s the total opposite of what we are doing.

Because let’s not kid ourselves- he has too much of an ego to accept an interim job to help Chelsea out of kindness. It’s either long-term with him or nothing.

1 hour ago, PloKoon13 said:

I can sympathise with this. I was thinking the other day that Chelsea might have passed the peak we'd ever get to in my lifetime. Given what we've seen and the successes we've had I thought... I could hardly complain. I've seen us win every single trophy, most of them more than once, and I remember wondering when I was a kid whether I'd ever see us win the league in my lifetime; I ended up seeing us win it five times before I was thirty. In an odd way, becoming world champions (especially after having f**ked it up the first time under FSW) felt like a fitting (if bittersweet) end to the Roman era.

On the other hand it feels defeatist to expect any less from the club after having been at the top (or near it) of world football for the past twenty years. With the resources at our disposal, the ownership and management have no excuse not to do better than the shambles they have given us so far. If the circumstances were different, if say we had just sold our best player by miles and had a transfer ban imposed on us when the squad was crying out for renewal, it would be easier to accept, there would be a valid reason. (Even if under those very circumstances Frank managed to get us into the top four and was an Anthony Taylor Specsavers prescription away from winning the FA Cup too).

It is difficult to accept that the reason we are in such a mess is the hubris and rank incompetence of the people running the club. They've completely cleared out a playing squad and a management infrastructure that consistently performed to a [relatively] high level, then replaced it with chaos and a squad full of expensive players on ridiculously long contracts who are (in the vast majority of cases) either useless, a poor fit, or poor in combination with each other. It's left us in a very difficult situation to unpick, and hasn't really given the manager a leg to stand on. I don't think Poch has done well at all, but it's hard not to feel for him under the circumstances. I'm not sure I would trust anyone to do much better. 

How do you resolve that as a fan? Do you accept that we will be mediocre for at least the next decade, knowing that we've seen it all? Better for peace of mind but hardly the heady stuff of childhood dreams. Having to accept probably getting battered home and away by Liverpool, Arsenal, Man Utd, Man City, likely Newcastle year after year? (God forbid even Tottenham). Or do we keep trying to kick against the pricks and protest in vain, knowing that the feckless owners will never, ever give a single sh*t what we have to say?

Really good post. 

1 minute ago, ducavis said:

You don’t then improve his backup’s wages to £250k/w. The whole LB situation is a mess; we are paying 2 LBs £420k/w, and they both look average.

I think they just wanted to extend his contract ... he's not on £250K according to Capology, but it is more than Cucurella. They have it at £200K (slightly up from the  £190K he got when he signed from Leicester). I think they will look to sell Chilly in the summer. 

Agree it is a mess. Both paid far too much.

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

We did?

No Sanchez, who Poch picks as his number 1 regardless of how we feel

No James, first choice RB

No Wes Fofana, first choice CB

No Colwill, who Poch always picks.

No Cucurella, better LB option for Chilwell when defending.

Imo Poches first choice back 4 would be James, Fofana, Colwill and Cucurella.

No DM option with both Lavia and understudy Ugochukwu out.

Did I forget anyone? Not sure. Either way that is either 5 or 6 (if Cucu is preferred to Ben) absent and all of them are defensive options.

But in reality though

Sanchez doesn't or should get ahead of Petrovic

James is first choice for 10 games a season if we are lucky

Fofana just can't yet be classed as first choice, he's played bugger all football for us.

Colwill, fair do's. Would be fisrt choice, i had missed him.

Cucrella - Would he start ahead of a fit Colwill or a fit Chilwell. Not convinced, especially as they tried to offload him to Man Utd.

Lavia - Again we are yet to even see and Ugochukwu would not be getting a start if all were fit so can't be first choice.

Whilst i agree that these are defensive options not available to Poch, its a bit of a stretch for us to give him a pass on these as Lavia, Ugochukwu, James and Fofana would have only have had a limited amount of time working with Poch and his team to this point anyway (in fact Lavia probably still has to sign the visitors book when he arrives at Cobham, nobody has seen him play yet)

One of the biggest issues is that we’ve wasted £1bn. You give City that kind of money and they’ll do alot better. 
 

When you look at the misses, you have to consider whether they would make it into City’s team or not.
 

Of the signings that we we’ve made, only 4 players I would consider “hits” - that is AWFUL.

 

HITS:

Palmer

Petrovic 

Gusto

Nkunku 

JURYS OUT:

Chuck (has looked decent)

Fofana

Lavia (injured)

Enzo (not horrendous but not shown £105m worth)

Caciedo (see above)

Jackson (debated whether to put him in miss)

MISSES:

Sterling

Madueke 

Mydryk 

Disasi (might be slightly harsh on him)

Sanchez 

Badishelle (started well but has faded)

Cucurella 

13 players who are either bad signings or haven’t shown enough.  Terrible. I don’t believe the quality of the players is good enough. 

Edited February 5, 20242 yr by JM7

None of those Hits would get into the City side.

I'd probably have Gusto and Nkunku in the Jury's Out category ...

Just now, Sexyfootball said:

None of those Hits would get into the City side.

I'd probably have Gusto and Nkunku in the Jury's Out category ...

Yeah I wondered whether I was being generous given that Palmer couldn’t get into City’s side. That shows the competition and quality that they have. At Chelsea, we can’t do without him. Levels. 

13 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

But in reality though

Sanchez doesn't or should get ahead of Petrovic

James is first choice for 10 games a season if we are lucky

Fofana just can't yet be classed as first choice, he's played bugger all football for us.

Colwill, fair do's. Would be fisrt choice, i had missed him.

Cucrella - Would he start ahead of a fit Colwill or a fit Chilwell. Not convinced, especially as they tried to offload him to Man Utd.

Lavia - Again we are yet to even see and Ugochukwu would not be getting a start if all were fit so can't be first choice.

Whilst i agree that these are defensive options not available to Poch, its a bit of a stretch for us to give him a pass on these as Lavia, Ugochukwu, James and Fofana would have only have had a limited amount of time working with Poch and his team to this point anyway (in fact Lavia probably still has to sign the visitors book when he arrives at Cobham, nobody has seen him play yet)

Missing his first choice backline and DM for most of the season is a blow, and woild be for anyone. Remember how bad pool were when Klopp lost most of his?

Is not really thar big a stretch. On the defensive side of things James is way better, so is Fofana, so is Colwill, so is Cucurella.

Sanchez I agree don't rate him, bit Poch does.

And Lavia was signed to be the guy there, how good he is we are yet to see, but likely better than what we have in midfield who cannot defend against championship players.

Don't let @Victor90anti Poch agenda colour your view  ;)

17 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

But in reality though

Sanchez doesn't or should get ahead of Petrovic

This is going to be an interesting one, because everyone's perception, including myself, is that Petrovic is a much safer set of hands, and yet he is currently behind Sanchez when you look at the main keeper stats like save % and that stat that evaluates whether you've kept out more potential goals than you statistically should have done ... 

If they looking at data as an important decision-making factor, and Ben Roberts chips in, I can see Sanchez getting back in the side. Should be fun on here if that happens LOL

Yeah but how many of those saves were directly from Sanchez bozo moments?

2 hours ago, axman2526 said:

We did?

No Sanchez, who Poch picks as his number 1 regardless of how we feel

No James, first choice RB

No Wes Fofana, first choice CB

No Colwill, who Poch always picks.

No Cucurella, better LB option for Chilwell when defending.

Imo Poches first choice back 4 would be James, Fofana, Colwill and Cucurella.

No DM option with both Lavia and understudy Ugochukwu out.

Did I forget anyone? Not sure. Either way that is either 5 or 6 (if Cucu is preferred to Ben) absent and all of them are defensive options.

Fair enough, 

but is Fofana considered a first choice CB? I've not really seen him play enough to justify the hype if I'm being honest. I don't think Colwill is a first choice CB either even though I believe he should be. Cucu completely disagree, most of us prefer Petrovic to Sanchez. James, Lavia, fair enough, but we still have Enzo and Caicedo fit so it's not as if we're playing players out of position to fill in the gaps.

My point is, we have a squad that's good enough to be doing much better than that. 

2 minutes ago, Victor90 said:

Fair enough, 

but is Fofana considered a first choice CB? I've not really seen him play enough to justify the hype if I'm being honest. I don't think Colwill is a first choice CB either even though I believe he should be. Cucu completely disagree, most of us prefer Petrovic to Sanchez. James, Lavia, fair enough, but we still have Enzo and Caicedo fit so it's not as if we're playing players out of position to fill in the gaps.

My point is, we have a squad that's good enough to be doing much better than that. 

Why did we spend £90 million on a CB that had been out for a year with a broken leg? Insane decision making

Just now, Drogba1 said:

Why did we spend £90 million on a CB that had been out for a year with a broken leg? Insane decision making

You're asking me? No f**king idea. 

Even the players I'm happy we've signed and rated I still believe we massively overpaid for them. 

18 minutes ago, Victor90 said:

Fair enough, 

but is Fofana considered a first choice CB? I've not really seen him play enough to justify the hype if I'm being honest. I don't think Colwill is a first choice CB either even though I believe he should be. Cucu completely disagree, most of us prefer Petrovic to Sanchez. James, Lavia, fair enough, but we still have Enzo and Caicedo fit so it's not as if we're playing players out of position to fill in the gaps.

My point is, we have a squad that's good enough to be doing much better than that. 

Thank the Disasi signing in response to Fofanas return to the treatment room answers that he was going to be first choice.

Squad should be doing better, basically we all agree with that. Could we all be wrong though and these players just are not that good?

6 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Thank the Disasi signing in response to Fofanas return to the treatment room answers that he was going to be first choice.

Squad should be doing better, basically we all agree with that. Could we all be wrong though and these players just are not that good?

Be funny if we were actually overachieving right now LOL

Poch pretty much has to drop Silva. You simply can’t have silvas wife criticizing in public.She wouldn’t be doing it, if it didn’t reflect his view. 

6 minutes ago, ozboy said:

Poch pretty much has to drop Silva. You simply can’t have silvas wife criticizing in public.She wouldn’t be doing it, if it didn’t reflect his view. 

Agreed. At this point if the club backs Poch then Silva has to be dropped.

6 minutes ago, ozboy said:

Poch pretty much has to drop Silva. You simply can’t have silvas wife criticizing in public.She wouldn’t be doing it, if it didn’t reflect his view. 

Agreed, although Andy Jacobs of Talksport has put a slightly different slant on it. Of course it might be tongue in cheek but he opined that it might be a call for a change to a back three which suits her husband more before it's too late and he is burnt out and his career with us is over.

It's a stretch but it is a different view.

7 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

Agreed, although Andy Jacobs of Talksport has put a slightly different slant on it. Of course it might be tongue in cheek but he opined that it might be a call for a change to a back three which suits her husband more before it's too late and he is burnt out and his career with us is over.

It's a stretch but it is a different view.

That would make a lot of sense to me, Thiago Silva really doesn’t strike me as the type to go behind the manager’s back.

I hope Pochettino has the chance to work with the full healthy squad. He has not had that pleasure.