I get it that the squad needs refreshing but it feels that we're overdoing it a bit. At the rate Todd is going by the end of the transfer window we'll have only Thiago Silva, Kepa, Chilwell and Sterling in the 'over 25' group, and probably close to 80% of the first team squad will be around 21-22 years old, most of them unproven in the PL. It may look good on paper, but I doubt it's going to work. We need experience, on and off the pitch. ManU bringing in Casemiro is the kind of move I'm talking about. Surprised no one's talking about it.

Also, on an unrelated note, I've been unable to access the site over the last few weeks due to some popup asking me to disable Adblock which I did on several occasions and yet nothing changed and I couldn't share my invaluable wisdom with the forum and it's clearly in dire need of it. I don't know if it's part of some elaborate plan of the UK government to keep me from having any contact with my former club/fanbase, but it's very irritating. Texted about it to Marina and Bruce and they're having the same problem. Only managed to post this by using Firefox private browser but the pop up ad still keeps appearing. If you won't hear from me again, it probably means I was on my last remaining yacht somewhere in the Mediterranean, shooting my way out of the MI6/KGB ambush, ran out of ammo, swallowed a cyanide pill and they found my lifeless body in a full Chelsea kit with the letters "KTBFFH" scratched in a note found nearby.

Agree with you.
Think they are repeating their initial mistakes by doing too much too fast.

 

Just now, OriginalS said:

Agree with you.
Think they are repeating their initial mistakes by doing too much too fast.

 

Fastest transformation of a top club's first team squad that I can recall ... when the dust settles it is quite likely that up to 26 out of the 33 players that represented the club in 21/22 will no longer be with us ! Clearlake obviously hell bent on making it THEIR club, to the extent that players signed by Abramovich are being cleared out wholesale.

I think we are still ok for goalkeeping and defence, but the midfield is now decimated, and the attack is unproven.

God I hope it all works out ! Could be the most exciting season for years, or we could get relegated LOL. Going to be fascinating to see how it all plays out.

Yeah I agree 100%, Just signed a striker with less top flight experience than Broja. 

It's fine if we can still afford options for the now, but theres talk today about keeping Kepa as 1st choice because they want to spend big money on a keeper. So would that £30m been better used to improve the goalkeeper, and then just used Broja and Fofana? 

I also think it is hard to sign established players as the new contracts are heavily incentivised, and with no champions league football, players would be coming in on the lowest rung of that wage packet. Not an easy sell to players with options. 

So it's easier to take a young raw player on 10k a week and give him 80k, than it is the get someone 5 years older on 80k already and see if he takes 100k for a season or 2 until we get back into top 4. 

There are loads of good young players on the market too, Simons, Szoboszlai, Guler, Kone, Thuram, Veiga, etc. So I'm guessing we will continue down that road rather than looking at the likes of Osimhen, Onana, etc who would instantly upgrade us.

32 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Fastest transformation of a top club's first team squad that I can recall ... when the dust settles it is quite likely that up to 26 out of the 33 players that represented the club in 21/22 will no longer be with us ! Clearlake obviously hell bent on making it THEIR club, to the extent that players signed by Abramovich are being cleared out wholesale.

I think we are still ok for goalkeeping and defence, but the midfield is now decimated, and the attack is unproven.

God I hope it all works out ! Could be the most exciting season for years, or we could get relegated LOL. Going to be fascinating to see how it all plays out.

The fact that we've spent about £650 million and Kepa remain our first choice goalkeeper, N.Jackson is our first choice striker, Enzo is our only real midfielder and Noni Madueke is our first choice RW is just descriptive of the folly of this rebuild for me.

The way it's looking right now I think we may well get off to a decent start due to sheer youthful enthusiasm but as soon as the results take a turn and we start getting physically battered at Goodison Park and at Brentford we may very well crumble as there are very, very few who's "been there and done that" left in our side.

Edited June 29, 20231 yr by OriginalS

Completely agree, whilst it’s obviously nice to sign these young talented players we need some experienced winners and leaders in the team now if we want to be competitive. Especially after losing experienced players like Kante & Kovacic

Experience is certainly needed in the midfield. I'm happy to see us go another season with an unproven ST and make do then go all out for Kane next summer on a free. Only striker i can see that would be guaranteed success here and Levy won't deal with us this summer for any money. 

A bit of experience is needed, but it’s not paramount, not as important as getting the right players for the right positions in the first place, we didn’t have a plethora of experience in 04/05, we had the right players for the right positions and it worked out. 

We have purchased experience in the past. Look where that got us . Dour, sideways dross football.

I think we need leaders - regardless of their experience. Players who will fight for the shirt and stand up and be counted.

 

We still have an experienced defensive line with James, Silva and Chillwell, plus also Fofana who has played in the PL for 3 seasons now. Kepa may have floppy hands, but he's experienced and vocal, and then we have Sterling, who should step up this coming season. Enzo has adapted well since January and has shown that he cares, so I think that he is going to grow into the position even more this coming season.

I hope this is a strategy. If it is I am not worried. If we are building a side with a young age-profile it can be a good basis. Most players are 20-24. On a personal level they are in a same place in life. That can be a glueing factor and natural leaders will rise from the ranks. 

Expectations then also need to be much lower. Top 7 should be then then aim and not top 4.

2 minutes ago, evissy said:

I hope this is a strategy. If it is I am not worried. If we are building a side with a young age-profile it can be a good basis. Most players are 20-24. On a personal level they are in a same place in life. That can be a glueing factor and natural leaders will rise from the ranks. 

Expectations then also need to be much lower. Top 7 should be then then aim and not top 4.

Falling further and further behind the top is not a good idea. Building a team on potential exclusively is a massive risk.

I must be one of the few who thinks Silva and Sterling should be on their way out the club as well. The game has changed, teams can't carry old or unfit legs regardless of the age of player. You essentially need high octane half marathon runners for the 90. 

One thing that's not lost on me is that if the owners bought us 10-15 years ago and tried to do the same thing they'd have loaded the club up with Reece Oxford, Josh McEachran, Royston Drenthe, Adnan Januzaj, Ibrahim Affelay, Macheda, Vanden Borre, Gio Dos Santos etc etc.

Point being that it's really hard to predict ahead of time who's going to break through and become actual top class players. We are spending obscene amounts of money on so called talents while overlooking those we already have/had for free in our own academy. Fofana who we bought for £12 million for example is no better than Soonsup-Bell who we sold to Tottenham for pennies.

@abramovich Are you running Norton on your computer? @Boyne had the problem a few months ago and was down to a Norton anti-tracker! Could be a cookies thing as the forum needs them!

1 hour ago, coco said:

A bit of experience is needed, but it’s not paramount, not as important as getting the right players for the right positions in the first place, we didn’t have a plethora of experience in 04/05, we had the right players for the right positions and it worked out. 

Actually we had a much more experienced squad back in 04-05, not to mention later years, when we added Ballack and Sheva. Here's how old our squad was back in 2004.                                                                                       Cech 23, Cudicini 31, Bridge 24, Gallas 27, Huth 20, Johnson 20, Ferreira 25, Carvalho 26, Terry 24, J.Cole 23, Duff 25, Jarosik 27, Lampard 26, Makelele 31, Geremi 26, Smertin 29, Tiago 23, Drogba 26, Gudjohnsen 26, Kezman 25, Robben 20.

Edited June 29, 20231 yr by abramovich

It's an awful lot of change in one go, arguably needed but I think we have to lower our expectations for another season.   

1 hour ago, OriginalS said:

Falling further and further behind the top is not a good idea. Building a team on potential exclusively is a massive risk.

Risk for you as a fan or risk of our global status? The latter will not shift that soon (for worse), the former is a personal boo-hoo. 

I think if we rebuild the squad with young talent and let them be young talents with a Manager that suits them is better than what we used to do under Roman; patch up holes as we go with very expensive players.

It is more risky but ballsy and something new.

1 hour ago, OriginalS said:

Point being that it's really hard to predict ahead of time who's going to break through and become actual top class players. We are spending obscene amounts of money on so called talents while overlooking those we already have/had for free in our own academy. Fofana who we bought for £12 million for example is no better than Soonsup-Bell who we sold to Tottenham for pennies.

Not sure about that and I'm not a DDF believer either.

He has a good record in the Norweigan League and Conference League, JSB however looked out of his depth after making the jump to PL2.

I saw the title of the thread and thought it was a job offer!!! I was expecting posts from members putting themselves forward for positions!! Especially with the wages and lengths of contracts!

3 hours ago, OriginalS said:

One thing that's not lost on me is that if the owners bought us 10-15 years ago and tried to do the same thing they'd have loaded the club up with Reece Oxford, Josh McEachran, Royston Drenthe, Adnan Januzaj, Ibrahim Affelay, Macheda, Vanden Borre, Gio Dos Santos etc etc.

Point being that it's really hard to predict ahead of time who's going to break through and become actual top class players. We are spending obscene amounts of money on so called talents while overlooking those we already have/had for free in our own academy. Fofana who we bought for £12 million for example is no better than Soonsup-Bell who we sold to Tottenham for pennies.

Or alternatively we would have got the right coaching set up for the likes of KDB and Salah and instead of City and Liverpool it would have been us reaping the rewards and then four years later made better use of our golden generation at youth level.

4 hours ago, abramovich said:

Actually we had a much more experienced squad back in 04-05, not to mention later years, when we added Ballack and Sheva. Here's how old our squad was back in 2004.                                                                                       Cech 23, Cudicini 31, Bridge 24, Gallas 27, Huth 20, Johnson 20, Ferreira 25, Carvalho 26, Terry 24, J.Cole 23, Duff 25, Jarosik 27, Lampard 26, Makelele 31, Geremi 26, Smertin 29, Tiago 23, Drogba 26, Gudjohnsen 26, Kezman 25, Robben 20.

Robben looked about 40 all thru his playing career 

Villa and Southampton both went down the youth route in recent years.

Both relegated.

6 hours ago, nonotnowjim said:

We have purchased experience in the past. Look where that got us . Dour, sideways dross football.

I think we need leaders - regardless of their experience. Players who will fight for the shirt and stand up and be counted.

 

Well said. Actually think experience can be counterproductive in the modern game; with the amount of experience we brought in last year, you wouldn’t have expected us to have collapsed to 12th. 
Remember the year Arteta inherited the Arsenal squad with Luiz, Ozil, Aubameyang, and a few other experienced players, he went and signed Willian on a free to add on to it. The league blew up in his face, and he spend the winter & summer windows getting rid of all the experienced players and promoting Saka, Martinelli, & smith Rowe to the 1st team. Didn’t Aubameyang recently say Arteta got rid of him because he didn’t want old  players who will question his methods, he needed young players who will run when he asked them to.

The strategy matches the type of manager we decided to go with so I’m not worried. I also think a lot of the experienced players we sold were sold for good reason, that is, they were either injury prone (Kante and Kovacic) or were not playing good enough to justify their wages (Koulibaly etc.).