8 minutes ago, evissy said:

When you mention PSG doesn't their revamp of the squad give you any hope? Why couldn't we do a similar thing? We could strengthen the squad with some experienced players in the summer.

Luis Campos has been in the job for a similar amount of time as Winstanley and Stewart.

He got the managerial appointment right second time, hiring a winner in Luis Enrique.

He has signed 6 players that start in one of the most exciting Champions league winning sides for years.

He has reduced the average age of the squad massively, he has moved on some of the astronomical wages, including losing Mbappe on a free transfer.

Had some big misses in Kolo Muani, and Ramos, but had some massive wins in Dembele, Doue, Barcola, Mendes, and Pacho.

Compare that to what is going on here.

Palmer is the only player bought for a good price that has been a big success. Caicedo and Lavia both good buys, but we paid the absolute maximum fee we possibly couldve paid.

Then the misses we have had Felix, Nkunku, Disasi, Dewsbury-Hall, Ugochukwu, Sanchez, Jorgenson. Even Neto at £60m looks bad buisness.

Jury is still out on Maresca, they got Poch wrong, as he was a bad fit with their vision more than anything.

So the reason we can't do a PSG, is that we don't have the vision, and we don't have the direction, and the ambition, that PSG's project has, fronted by a best in class sporting director, and coached by a serial winner in Luis Enrique.

3 minutes ago, big blue said:

Luis Campos has been in the job for a similar amount of time as Winstanley and Stewart.

He got the managerial appointment right second time, hiring a winner in Luis Enrique.

He has signed 6 players that start in one of the most exciting Champions league winning sides for years.

He has reduced the average age of the squad massively, he has moved on some of the astronomical wages, including losing Mbappe on a free transfer.

Had some big misses in Kolo Muani, and Ramos, but had some massive wins in Dembele, Doue, Barcola, Mendes, and Pacho.

Compare that to what is going on here.

Palmer is the only player bought for a good price that has been a big success. Caicedo and Lavia both good buys, but we paid the absolute maximum fee we possibly couldve paid.

Then the misses we have had Felix, Nkunku, Disasi, Dewsbury-Hall, Ugochukwu, Sanchez, Jorgenson. Even Neto at £60m looks bad buisness.

Jury is still out on Maresca, they got Poch wrong, as he was a bad fit with their vision more than anything.

So the reason we can't do a PSG, is that we don't have the vision, and we don't have the direction, and the ambition, that PSG's project has, fronted by a best in class sporting director, and coached by a serial winner in Luis Enrique.

Spot on. Nuff sed.

1 hour ago, evissy said:

When you mention PSG doesn't their revamp of the squad give you any hope? Why couldn't we do a similar thing? We could strengthen the squad with some experienced players in the summer.

Not really, because it's like I said, their young players are already at that high level, ours aren't and I'm not seeing anything to suggest that some of them will ever reach that level. PSG buy the very best young players, we throw our money at any young player we can find and hope for the best. When you sign 50 kids, eventually you will get a few right, which is what has happened with Palmer, Caicedo and Lavia, but it means we also get a lot wrong. Any experience we do seem to be targetting are over the hill players, like we did with Sterling, Koulibaly, and more recently, Maignan. PSG's experienced players are quality players like Donnarumma, Hakimi, Marquinos, Ruiz and Dembele.

Let's not glaze PSG too readily. They've massively overpaid for young players that even we wouldn't over pay for (Doue. Barcola, Neves) and put young players on obscene wages. PSG's story isn't some sort of underdog tussle or calculated plan, it's the culmination of 13 years of targeted reckless spending that makes even City and Chelsea seem restrained.

So we don't give any time to anyone? Say you are our Sporting Director and you have TOGETHER with the board decided we shape the squad younger. As a club we decide this together. We try to buy the actual top talent, not Brighton top talent but the talent most directors and scouts already know and drool over. We are Chelsea who has more pull, resources and the project has been laid out to new players well as everyone always mentions it after signing. And by the way we also look at those Brighton level players as well. You can find gems from that bracket either for the first team or as a sellable asset. Why not, there is time for these people to identify these during the season as well. Why not use this tool to generate revenue as well if there is a chance?

Okay so we buy a lot of 17-21 year old players who are ought to be able to deliver for the squad at different ages but we all know the absolute peak for a footballer is around 26-29 years of age. This core we still don't have in the side. Cucurella is 26 who is top player but not a leader type. Cucurella has been amazing for Spain as well which is top 3 national team in the world. That is the level we aspire to, no? Palmer is a phenomenon who can operate on the highest level already but is inconsistent as we are witnessing right now. He will also peak at the known age to be a full rounded player for us. Players like Caicedo and Enzo are closing in on their peak and have already gained a good amount of experience in the Premier League. They will only be better in the coming seasons.

Interesting is actually this summer. We'll see whether the club wants to buy experienced players now that we reached Champions League. If the club decides we want to actually compete in the Champions League we will buy a couple more experienced players. We already entertained the idea by looking at Maignan who was offered to us but didn't eventually sign him. So I think we could actually go for some experience. If we don't buy experience we either trust the youth or let them gain experience among themselves, which we have done so far. We can't then expect to go very far in the competition. Which is fine to me if this is part of the grand plan to grow organically as a squad.

So we are now around 23,7 years of age as a starting XI. When the core is around 26-27 we have to be competing for Premier League titles and Champions Leagues. You do the math on that. To me it is not now.

I think the amount of players we have now as the core and the next crop (Estevao, Paez, Santos, Penders, Sarr, Quenda...). I think we might need another satellite club as well and they were in the talks early in the ownership; Portugal, Brazil and Belgium. That eases the handling of a lot of players as you can all understand. To me Strasbourg has been a success for the owners and the club. Having satellite clubs in general sense is another question or what it means to competition in football at whole..I won't go into that.

Anyway if the players the SD's have identiefied with the clubs blessing are far from peak, is it too early to judge them in the way you want them gone? Are we too impatient?

Sorry about all the rambling between my points. It is just so difficult to explain views without context. Although I feel I have written this same sh*t a hundred of times. Not sure why 😂

The fact that we signed Felix for a permanent fee just to send him out on loan 6 months later should tell you how clueless the organisation is at the club.

Why would you sign a player for such a big fee who the manager clearly doesn't rate or want?

For the "market opportunity". Which in itself makes no sense. We wanted the money from selling Gallagher so we.. spend about the same amount of money, in order to get that money, just to spread things out. Why not just do neither deal and you're in the same bloody position?

14 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

They became one with us by becoming winners though, which is the point I am getting at. If we can't provide them a platform to become winners, then they won't stick around long to wait for it. So what chance does this so called project have of us reaching that level with the trajectory we are on? We've now made it to the Champions League, we should be looking to strengthen in key areas, but we're 100% sticking to buying kids. Our rivals strengthen through a mix of both high quality young players and high quality experience, it just feels like we will always be playing catch up.

If we were buying kids that were already good enough, then it wouldn't be an issue, but every signing we make is about how good they will be in the future, and there is no sign of them stopping this. So if they are still doing this next season, and the season after, and the season after that, this project of competing with the best in the future will never actually materialise. In 3 years, Palmer and Caicedo will be 26, and I am sure that when the 2026-27 season starts, they will start demanding the club challenges for titles. If not, then they will be pushing to leave, and I wouldn't blame them. So then we look for our next Palmer and Caicedo, maybe an Estevao, Delap, or Lavia become that player, but they run into the same issues Palmer and Caicedo run into, and then they start pushing for moves too.

I just don't feel this project of buying young to compete in future can work, unless you go the PSG route and all of the young players are ready right now and you surround them with a spine of experience.

You're goddamn right

Listening to all this crap sums up today’s football. Graphs, figures, charts, all the financial crap, data, performance analogies, expected returns on investments, flipping, flopping etc. etc. whatever happened to the actual enjoyment of watching football? What a load of f**king crap.

The comparison of us to PSG is so lazy, I'm fully aware that to some of you the owners/SDs could tell you the sky is blue and you'd argue they're wrong. PSG are in a very lucky situation where they can play their B team in the league most weeks and still win 3-0.

The PSG owners have been there for around 12/13 years now, spent billions and have only just won the champions league. In terms of the 'new direction' that they have, let's not pretend that they're some plucky underdog club that are well run and have won the champions league, they've spent a lot of money on young players and put them on massive wages that teams can't compete with. And let's not forget that they've made some very questionable signings, including giving two strikers that totalled about £150m to a manager that doesn't play a striker in his system.

23 minutes ago, Kev56 said:

Listening to all this crap sums up today’s football. Graphs, figures, charts, all the financial crap, data, performance analogies, expected returns on investments, flipping, flopping etc. etc. whatever happened to the actual enjoyment of watching football? What a load of f**king crap.

Yep, that is what football has become. Full of people who would never have been involved in football "back in the day". People who get hard ons over stats and data, rather than watch players like Osgood, Zola, Nevin, Joey Cole, Hazard etc.

It's a largely subscribed view (especially by us older geezers) that the modern game is not as exciting. Full of robots, rather than mavericks / entertainers. Too much money in the game now and too many moron's being given jobs they have no right too.

15 minutes ago, timetowaste said:

The comparison of us to PSG is so lazy, I'm fully aware that to some of you the owners/SDs could tell you the sky is blue and you'd argue they're wrong. PSG are in a very lucky situation where they can play their B team in the league most weeks and still win 3-0.

The PSG owners have been there for around 12/13 years now, spent billions and have only just won the champions league. In terms of the 'new direction' that they have, let's not pretend that they're some plucky underdog club that are well run and have won the champions league, they've spent a lot of money on young players and put them on massive wages that teams can't compete with. And let's not forget that they've made some very questionable signings, including giving two strikers that totalled about £150m to a manager that doesn't play a striker in his system.

I actually think our model is similar to PSG's. The biggest disparity, are the decision makers. This coincides when Campos joined PSG in 2022.

• They got rid of their big earners and dropped their wage bill by 240% since 2022.

• Campos has an extensive scouting network and they invested heavily in young talented prospects.

• Campos is a seasoned sporting director and one of the best in the world.

Complete contrast to our decision makers, who are average scouts masquerading as sporting directors who need their hands held for every transfer.

1 hour ago, Kev56 said:

Listening to all this crap sums up today’s football. Graphs, figures, charts, all the financial crap, data, performance analogies, expected returns on investments, flipping, flopping etc. etc. whatever happened to the actual enjoyment of watching football? What a load of f**king crap.

It's all statistics, Americanised sports bo**ocks, utterly tedious xg, xa, xs and other nonsense.

59 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

I actually think our model is similar to PSG's. The biggest disparity, are the decision makers. This coincides when Campos joined PSG in 2022.

• They got rid of their big earners and dropped their wage bill by 240% since 2022.

• Campos has an extensive scouting network and they invested heavily in young talented prospects.

• Campos is a seasoned sporting director and one of the best in the world.

Complete contrast to our decision makers, who are average scouts masquerading as sporting directors who need their hands held for every transfer.

The offers disparity is how much they can offer, you mention the wage bill dropping but the main reason for the drop was basically getting rid of 3 players in Messi, Neymar and Mbappe. It's not like they're offering low wages to their new recruits , Kvarashkelia is on nearly £300k a week and they signed him in January.

I'm not gonna pretend our SDs are great because they aren't, I'd happily see them replaced, it's more this PSG w**kfest that's annoying. They're a team that basically can never go bankrupt because they're state owned and their president is a high up UEFA advisor. Their change in their attack has been giving Kvara 300k a week and signing French players who would obviously choose to be at PSG over any other club. Their success is circumstantial and that's why I can't fairly compare it to our project, its not as if we're poor of course, but it's a lot tougher to do it with our resources and in our league.

Edited June 11, 2025Jun 11 by timetowaste

1 hour ago, timetowaste said:

The offers disparity is how much they can offer, you mention the wage bill dropping but the main reason for the drop was basically getting rid of 3 players in Messi, Neymar and Mbappe. It's not like they're offering low wages to their new recruits , Kvarashkelia is on nearly £300k a week and they signed him in January.

They actually are.

Neves, Ruiz, Barcola and Doue are all earning similar wages to what our new recruits would earn.

Kvarashkelia is a proven players thus the high wage, but his wages aren't anything different than what we offered our highest earners. PSG's wages aren't actually that different from ours now that our players are earning their new wages with the 20% pay bump incentive per Matt Law.

• James and Dembele are the highest earners at £300kpw.

• Fofana and Kvarashkelia are on £250-270kpw

• Nkunku and Marquinhos are on £220-235kpw

• Enzo, Caicedo, Neto and Cucurella + Hakimi, Vitinha, Donnaruma and Hernandez are on £200-220kpw,

The only difference, as I mentioned prior, is the big contrast in the squad building and overall decision making. You really think for example Campos would've turned down Maignan or sell Petrovic whilst keeping Sanchez for a 3rd f**king season?

2 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

They actually are.

Neves, Ruiz, Barcola and Doue are all earning similar wages to what our new recruits would earn.

Kvarashkelia is a proven players thus the high wage, but his wages aren't anything different than what we offered our highest earners. PSG's wages aren't actually that different from ours now that our players are earning their new wages with the 20% pay bump incentive per Matt Law.

• James and Dembele are the highest earners at £300kpw.

• Fofana and Kvarashkelia are on £250-270kpw

• Nkunku and Marquinhos are on £220-235kpw

• Enzo, Caicedo, Neto and Cucurella + Hakimi, Vitinha, Donnaruma and Hernandez are on £200-220kpw,

The only difference, as I mentioned prior, is the big contrast in the squad building and overall decision making. You really think for example Campos would've turned down Maignan or sell Petrovic whilst keeping Sanchez for a 3rd f**king season?

Well ignoring that you've inflated our players' wages, fair point about some of the players they've signed recently being on similar wages to ours, but the only ones that are players we'd have wanted (and did want) are Doue and Barcola but again, they're French and wanted to stay in France.

16 hours ago, evissy said:

So we don't give any time to anyone? Say you are our Sporting Director and you have TOGETHER with the board decided we shape the squad younger. As a club we decide this together. We try to buy the actual top talent, not Brighton top talent but the talent most directors and scouts already know and drool over. We are Chelsea who has more pull, resources and the project has been laid out to new players well as everyone always mentions it after signing. And by the way we also look at those Brighton level players as well. You can find gems from that bracket either for the first team or as a sellable asset. Why not, there is time for these people to identify these during the season as well. Why not use this tool to generate revenue as well if there is a chance?

Okay so we buy a lot of 17-21 year old players who are ought to be able to deliver for the squad at different ages but we all know the absolute peak for a footballer is around 26-29 years of age. This core we still don't have in the side. Cucurella is 26 who is top player but not a leader type. Cucurella has been amazing for Spain as well which is top 3 national team in the world. That is the level we aspire to, no? Palmer is a phenomenon who can operate on the highest level already but is inconsistent as we are witnessing right now. He will also peak at the known age to be a full rounded player for us. Players like Caicedo and Enzo are closing in on their peak and have already gained a good amount of experience in the Premier League. They will only be better in the coming seasons.

Interesting is actually this summer. We'll see whether the club wants to buy experienced players now that we reached Champions League. If the club decides we want to actually compete in the Champions League we will buy a couple more experienced players. We already entertained the idea by looking at Maignan who was offered to us but didn't eventually sign him. So I think we could actually go for some experience. If we don't buy experience we either trust the youth or let them gain experience among themselves, which we have done so far. We can't then expect to go very far in the competition. Which is fine to me if this is part of the grand plan to grow organically as a squad.

So we are now around 23,7 years of age as a starting XI. When the core is around 26-27 we have to be competing for Premier League titles and Champions Leagues. You do the math on that. To me it is not now.

I think the amount of players we have now as the core and the next crop (Estevao, Paez, Santos, Penders, Sarr, Quenda...). I think we might need another satellite club as well and they were in the talks early in the ownership; Portugal, Brazil and Belgium. That eases the handling of a lot of players as you can all understand. To me Strasbourg has been a success for the owners and the club. Having satellite clubs in general sense is another question or what it means to competition in football at whole..I won't go into that.

Anyway if the players the SD's have identiefied with the clubs blessing are far from peak, is it too early to judge them in the way you want them gone? Are we too impatient?

Sorry about all the rambling between my points. It is just so difficult to explain views without context. Although I feel I have written this same sh*t a hundred of times. Not sure why 😂

The problem here is that we will be selling these players in their prime due to this being their peak value (possibly outside of Enzo and Caicedo, however still can make book value the longer the years go). These are not the players that will be kept to finally challenge. You are misunderstanding and possibly hopefully wishing it being the case. These players will be moved on circa 25-27 y/o for profit. We are now a team who develops talents for clubs to buy. Go look at our last signing and listen to his own words. It is as clear as day that we are a development team like Dortmund, for profit. We are no longer a non-profit as we used to be under Roman.

11 hours ago, Kev56 said:

Listening to all this crap sums up today’s football. Graphs, figures, charts, all the financial crap, data, performance analogies, expected returns on investments, flipping, flopping etc. etc. whatever happened to the actual enjoyment of watching football? What a load of f**king crap.

Because from football pov what we are doing for the last two seasons make very little sense. But if you look at all that crap, it make more sense.

3 hours ago, timetowaste said:

Well ignoring that you've inflated our players' wages, fair point about some of the players they've signed recently being on similar wages to ours, but the only ones that are players we'd have wanted (and did want) are Doue and Barcola but again, they're French and wanted to stay in France.

They’re never 100% accurate but those wages came straight from Capology and are adjusted to the 20% wage bump our players are now earning per Matt Law.

Edited June 12, 2025Jun 12 by Sconnie Blue

On 11/06/2025 at 00:23, Scott Harris said:

Not really, because it's like I said, their young players are already at that high level, ours aren't and I'm not seeing anything to suggest that some of them will ever reach that level. PSG buy the very best young players, we throw our money at any young player we can find and hope for the best. When you sign 50 kids, eventually you will get a few right, which is what has happened with Palmer, Caicedo and Lavia, but it means we also get a lot wrong. Any experience we do seem to be targetting are over the hill players, like we did with Sterling, Koulibaly, and more recently, Maignan. PSG's experienced players are quality players like Donnarumma, Hakimi, Marquinos, Ruiz and Dembele.

IMO we won't be able to compare teams until we have an ESL, should have happened 50 years go, about 10 years after the NFL was formed. You can't compare playing in the Eng. Prem with Ligue 1. We can still have the FA Cup. Could have an ESL 1 and 2. Top 8 go into an end of season play-off, played over 3 weeks. 28 regular season weekends. You don't play everyone home and away. You would play everyone in your league at least once though.

Re. Maresca, maybe he's teaching players to pace themselves not just throughout matches but through the season too. They play too many matches. Maresca knows this. It's not his fault, it's the fault of the administrators. Surely most fans think players are playing too many matches.

Edited June 15, 2025Jun 15 by Llangennech

3 minutes ago, Llangennech said:

IMO we won't be able to compare teams until we have an ESL, should have happened 50 years go, about 10 years after the NFL was formed. You can't compare playing in the Eng. Prem with Ligue 1. We can still have the FA Cup. Could have an ESL 1 and 2. Top 8 go into an end of season play-off, played over 3 weeks. 28 regular season weekends. You don't play everyone home and away. You would play everyone in your league at least once though.

No thanks. I have zero interest in any form of a European Super League.

11 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

No thanks. I have zero interest in any form of a European Super League.

Small minded.

On 12/06/2025 at 03:11, Bob stark said:

Because from football pov what we are doing for the last two seasons make very little sense. But if you look at all that crap, it make more sense.

Bob, there is a statiscally proven reason of why "graph" rhymes with "laugh"

5 minutes ago, just said:

Bob, there is a statiscally proven reason of why "graph" rhymes with "laugh"

Does it? Graf - laaaf. Do some people say graaaf, like some say Baaaath?

8 minutes ago, Llangennech said:

Small minded.

No I'm not.

I love the Premier League personally. It's by far the best league in the world in terms of entertainment and I would never want us to turn our backs on it. Tradition and history plays a massive part too. We have been part of the English football pyramid since we were founded. We don't get to decide we are now better than that because a European Super League comes along and offers more money.

Also, we already have a European Super League in the form of the Champions League. I would prefer 2 leagues of 16 rather than their one 32 league system though.

When it comes to having too many games, it feels that way because so many competitions keep getting expanded and international football constantly breaks up the football schedule. The European Championships should be cut back down to 16 teams. The absurd World Cup of 48 teams should be immediately scrapped and shrunk back down to 32. The Nations League should be thrown out. Every International game should be played at the end of the season to avoid breaking up club football for 3 weeks multiple times per season.

There's a way to fit an entire club football season between September and May if they did this. Then they can play every International game (euro qualifiers/euro championships/world cup qualifiers/world cup) from the start of June to the end of June. Every team then gets the entirety of July off before pre season starts again in August.