7 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

What is the actual point of a manager then if the solution to everything is, "Sign experienced players"?

This isn't 2010. 

Ange talked about how Romero help vdv. TT talked about how silva n jorgi made Chalobah life easy. 

Manager is not magician. 

4 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Ange talked about how Romero help vdv. TT talked about how silva n jorgi made Chalobah life easy. 

Manager is not magician. 

I get that, but my point was you can only rely on experience for so much if the manager isn't doing his job. This isn't 2010. Poch can't even extract performances from our experienced players. 

38 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

I get that, but my point was you can only rely on experience for so much if the manager isn't doing his job. This isn't 2010. Poch can't even extract performances from our experienced players. 

Even at 2010 the experienced squad had the privilege to work under some of the best managers ever like Jose, Ancelotti...

Our new squad had the experience to learn from basically this:

And this:

https://bvmsports.com/2023/09/27/chelsea-head-coach-mauricio-pochettino-believes-in-the-positive-energy-of-lemons/

Chelsea head coach Mauricio Pochettino believes in the positive energy of lemons

It's not the same club anymore, just a big gamble of the new owners that live in a completely different world far away from any pitch, idk if you saw the series called Succession but at some point the youngest son of the owner of a big billion dollar company actually buys Hearts FC believing that his dad loves that club and it turns out his dad first and foremost couldn't care less about "soccer" but even if he did his team would be Hibs, so the rival club basically... Our owners made the mistake, I fear they wanted to buy Brighton but had too much champagne during their flight...

Edited April 11, 20242 yr by Gol15

51 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

Ziyech was a proven player. Barkley was a proven player. Drinkwater was a proven player. 

I don't know who people are expecting us to sign if we go after "proven players". James ward prowse? 

I thought both Barkley and Drinkwater had injury problems before joining us.

Ziyech theoretically was a better buy though he never seemed happy and he did have some good matches though never considered him a good buy. 

24 minutes ago, strider6004 said:

I thought both Barkley and Drinkwater had injury problems before joining us.

Ziyech theoretically was a better buy though he never seemed happy and he did have some good matches though never considered him a good buy. 

I'd agree on Ziyech. Barkley and Drinkwater were signed as squad fillers. Barkley did OK on a few occasions but at the time he was never quite good enough to be a starter. Drinkwater was a disaster.

I would argue the best example of experience vs. potential was this past summer. 2 midfielders were touted for 100m+. We went for the potential in Caicedo and it remains to be seen if he will fulfill the promise he showed but we massively overpayed. Arsenal went for proven experience in Rice and he has been a key factor in their improvement this season.

Wouldn't say Arsenal are any better than they were last season.

Knocked out of both domestic cups relatively early.

-3 on points this time last season. 

On the verge of getting knocked out of a European quarter final again. 

 

 

 

 

21 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Wouldn't say Arsenal are any better than they were last season.

Knocked out of both domestic cups relatively early.

-3 on points this time last season. 

On the verge of getting knocked out of a European quarter final again.

 

I think Arsenal have a great bench now and that helps.

22 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Wouldn't say Arsenal are any better than they were last season.

Knocked out of both domestic cups relatively early.

-3 on points this time last season. 

On the verge of getting knocked out of a European quarter final again. 

 

 

 

 

Remains to be seen if they will win anything this season. But I think their midfield has looked a lot stronger since Rice joined them. Personally I think the strange decision to recruit Raya cost them quite a bit. Felt similar to our signing of Robert Sanchez.

4 minutes ago, forbzy said:

Remains to be seen if they will win anything this season. But I think their midfield has looked a lot stronger since Rice joined them. Personally I think the strange decision to recruit Raya cost them quite a bit. Felt similar to our signing of Robert Sanchez.

Rice is a better aggressor than Xhaka but isn't better on the ball. There's a reason Arteta has now partnered Jorginho alongside Rice vs having Rice as a lone DM. 

A settled system does a player a world of good. Caicedo would flourish at Arsenal let's be honest. 

1 hour ago, forbzy said:

I'd agree on Ziyech. Barkley and Drinkwater were signed as squad fillers. Barkley did OK on a few occasions but at the time he was never quite good enough to be a starter. Drinkwater was a disaster.

I would argue the best example of experience vs. potential was this past summer. 2 midfielders were touted for 100m+. We went for the potential in Caicedo and it remains to be seen if he will fulfill the promise he showed but we massively overpayed. Arsenal went for proven experience in Rice and he has been a key factor in their improvement this season.

I think we'd have tried to sign Rice and he'd have still gone to Arsenal. 

I think in hindsight we might have gone for Rice. But at the time it would have been 120m for Rice or 80m for Caicedo. 

Remember when Rice was sold we weren't offering more than 80m and no one else was bidding for him. 

1 hour ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Rice is a better aggressor than Xhaka but isn't better on the ball. There's a reason Arteta has now partnered Jorginho alongside Rice vs having Rice as a lone DM. 

A settled system does a player a world of good. Caicedo would flourish at Arsenal let's be honest. 

Perhaps. But Caicedo is young and also dealing with the expectations that come with a massive transfer fee. That would have happened wherever he went and may well have led to similar challenges. Hopefully he will settle in the seasons ahead, but he had limited first team experience before joining us. I think one full season at Brighton. So remains to be seen whether he ultimately fulfills the potential that led to the massive transfer fee. 

The key to experience players is their mindset/ leadership. Don’t need an armband to call players out, to dig deep during games. We had so many players on the pitch that were either international captains or captains at their previous club see 

Watching the Leverkusen game and it's crazy how much better they are than us, just by having a solid structure in possession. West Ham have barely left their box all game. 33 shots to 1.

6 hours ago, bisright1 said:

I think we'd have tried to sign Rice and he'd have still gone to Arsenal. 

I think in hindsight we might have gone for Rice. But at the time it would have been 120m for Rice or 80m for Caicedo. 

Remember when Rice was sold we weren't offering more than 80m and no one else was bidding for him. 

Lampard desperately wanted Rice years back, he obviously never had a real intention of coming here to begin with.

Caicedo and Lavia wanted to come, that's the difference, the price is not even the problem. We got what we wanted in the end, it's insane how much we got all things considered, the only problem is that the people behind the scenes don't know how to make a team out of our players.

16 hours ago, bisright1 said:

Ziyech was a proven player. Barkley was a proven player. Drinkwater was a proven player. 

I don't know who people are expecting us to sign if we go after "proven players". James ward prowse? 

Signing experience player is not about signing random old player 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫. What is the point of that. The idea is to sign player who as Alonso said give consistent performance every game. It is that simple. 

A very good example this season is Nkunku. Watch how easy Nkunku make the game for mudryk. Of course it lasted just 2 games 😭😭😭

 

 

 

7 hours ago, Drogba1 said:

Watching the Leverkusen game and it's crazy how much better they are than us, just by having a solid structure in possession. West Ham have barely left their box all game. 33 shots to 1.

We have similar levels of possession but it's stagnant and impotent because we have so little movement off the ball and such careless, poor touch and control of the ball. The movement off the ball by all Leverkusen players, darting in an around the low block, showing for and passing into little give and go's, and constantly probing is so much more intense and tiring for the West Ham defence to deal with and to maintain concentration and not get caught out.

11 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

We have similar levels of possession but it's stagnant and impotent because we have so little movement off the ball and such careless, poor touch and control of the ball. The movement off the ball by all Leverkusen players, darting in an around the low block, showing for and passing into little give and go's, and constantly probing is so much more intense and tiring for the West Ham defence to deal with and to maintain concentration and not get caught out.

Adding movement into your offense is not hard. The hard part is how you keep the ball when the movement happen and how do you defend when you lose the ball when your are out of position because of the movement. 

 

37 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Adding movement into your offense is not hard. The hard part is how you keep the ball when the movement happen and how do you defend when you lose the ball when your are out of position because of the movement. 

 

Clearly it is hard for this sh*t management team. It seems to be pretty universal to me that virtually the entire fanbase are fed up with this passive, stagnant, error riddled sh*t style of football. 

Be great if we had someone like Klopp instead of Pochettino, because we all saw last night what a difference the manager makes when he is missing 4 or 5 of his best XI ... and those players selected throw in a bucket load of mistakes ...

When you have that to deal with for the entire season ... 

1 hour ago, WhiteWall said:

Clearly it is hard for this sh*t management team. It seems to be pretty universal to me that virtually the entire fanbase are fed up with this passive, stagnant, error riddled sh*t style of football. 

Actually playing with tons of movement increase chance for error a lot more. 

The question will be if we make tons of movement, can whoever behind the ball put out the fire? It is hard to train this, you really rely on player individual quality this is why pragmatic manager like Pep doesn't like tons of movement and really encourage his team to do tactical foul. 

 

 

2 hours ago, WhiteWall said:

Clearly it is hard for this sh*t management team. It seems to be pretty universal to me that virtually the entire fanbase are fed up

Spoiler

with this passive, stagnant, error riddled sh*t style of football. 

 

This exactly.

Edited April 12, 20242 yr by Kev56

7 hours ago, Bob stark said:

Signing experience player is not about signing random old player 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫. What is the point of that. The idea is to sign player who as Alonso said give consistent performance every game. It is that simple. 

A very good example this season is Nkunku. Watch how easy Nkunku make the game for mudryk. Of course it lasted just 2 games 😭😭😭

And another idea is to have a manager that is actually good enough to implement his ideas and to extract performances on the pitch. Not 9 months of excuses. 

Bayer were relegation candidates before Alonso took over. 

8 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

And another idea is to have a manager that is actually good enough to implement his ideas and to extract performances on the pitch. Not 9 months of excuses. 

Bayer were relegation candidates before Alonso took over. 

Look at Arne Slot at Feyenoord

6 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

Look at Arne Slot at Feyenoord

The whole 'sacking Poch won't change anything' narrative really only derives concern whether our co-directors are competent enough to actually earn their money and bring in the right man. 

36 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

And another idea is to have a manager that is actually good enough to implement his ideas and to extract performances on the pitch. Not 9 months of excuses. 

Bayer were relegation candidates before Alonso took over. 

Sure.

But manager is not stupid. If you are alonso, no way you will come to Chelsea.

Every single manager know system/tactic is all about the player, Alonso said he want consistent player for leverkusen he got xhaka and grimaldo. 

This season we needed a st. We signed a player who last year played as winger for Villarreal. We need a midfielder to complement Enzo, we signed Caicedo who is not a  physical monster. We have Mudyrk, madueke and Jackson already in the squad. The board signed Palmer. 

 

 

 

Edited April 12, 20242 yr by Bob stark