@SydneyChelsea your maths looks about right to me

Question to everyone:

Many years ago on this forum I made the argument that given Mateja Kežman was sold for more money than he was bought (and he was on lowish wages), that constituted a successful transfer. 

Another forum member (I don't remember who), argued he was brought to be a first team player but wasn't good enough, and therefore was a failed transfer (no matter the cheap fee). 

Where do you guys sit on this?

and bringing this argument to the current day, if Felix and Disasi (players bought under the current sporting directors) were to leave at a profit, would they be considered successful transfers despite ultimately not being good enough to play in Chelsea's injury-free best eleven?

Edited February 12, 20251 yr by Qaz

Being honest Qaz, I've never bought into the figures and wages talk much! It isn't our money and player sales don't go into our bank accounts, nor do we get a slice of any wages that players get! I never could understand why some people punch the air when they find we got a great deal on a player or that we ship out a player for a high price! It's weird to me!

To fans, it's what they do on the pitch! There aren't any trophies for a good player on a low wage! That said, it does annoy me on wage caps as a supporter because that then hinders players currently in the team or any potential good player that we could get! But again, the finances are completely out of our hands anyway!

1 hour ago, Mod said:

Being honest Qaz, I've never bought into the figures and wages talk much! It isn't our money and player sales don't go into our bank accounts, nor do we get a slice of any wages that players get! I never could understand why some people punch the air when they find we got a great deal on a player or that we ship out a player for a high price! It's weird to me!

To fans, it's what they do on the pitch! There aren't any trophies for a good player on a low wage! That said, it does annoy me on wage caps as a supporter because that then hinders players currently in the team or any potential good player that we could get! But again, the finances are completely out of our hands anyway!

I think that's a really fair response, but based on that I would assume you don't have an opinion on Stewart/Winstanley, nor did you on Bohley, Granovskaia, Emanelo or going right back, Kenyon?

26 minutes ago, Qaz said:

I think that's a really fair response, but based on that I would assume you don't have an opinion on Stewart/Winstanley, nor did you on Bohley, Granovskaia, Emanelo or going right back, Kenyon?

Only on their record of signing well or not! I have a very big opinion of Stewart/Winstanley cause they are mudding our club!

Also, with things like Marina and the Hazard sale. How Eden signed another contract to get the club good money when he knew he was going after a year and how Marina put the deal in place where Chelsea would benefit from Real Madrid (with a payment even when he retired from football); that is shrewd business! But I don't get any of that 115million!

Posted this in the Maresca thread but figured i'd put it here as well (see below)

I've been meaning for around a month now to say that I personally think Pochettino is a better manager than Maresca. A month ago that would have a controversial view, now it's not and I don't get my "contrarian buzz" from saying it (I like p*ss*ng people off with contrarian thinking sometimes 🤣)

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I remember back to the old days on the old CSR forum when Abraomovich was one/two seasons into his Chelsea reign and a commenter made (poorly) the argument that we were better off under Bates and proceeded to cherry pick all the successful (incoming) transfers of the previous 12 months as ones we would have made under Bates and put all the unsucessful/bad transfers (and there were many) as Roman and then say "we could have spent x millions less and had an equal/better team" which is techically correct with perfect hindsight but ridiculous in reality.

Well guess what, I am going to do almost the same thing 🤣 (but being aware of it I hopefully won't fall into the same traps of cherry picking with the benefit of hindsight), of doing an alternative history.

My alternative history is: What if Pochettino had gotten his way, wasn't sacked and the sporting directors (who sacked him were instead subservient to him as in giving him what he wanted).

Doing so I came up with the alternative history

1. We kept Gallagher (who Pochettino said multiple times he wanted to keep). We get 1x Gallagher but lose €42.00m transfer incomings

2. We don't buy Felix. We lose Felix but gain €52.00m in money we could have spent elsewhere. Net them out, we keep Gallagher + 10million but don't get Felix. I don't think Pochettino would have really wanted Felix and definitely wouldn't have traded Gallagher for Felix so I think this is a reasonable (non-cherry picked altnerate history thesis).

3. With Gallagher at the club and no Maresca, there probably wouldn't have been the drive (or need) to buy Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall from Leicester City for €35.40m. The deal was made partly to convince Leicester to give us Maresca, to bail them out of their own FFP/PSR issues and to help us Michael Golding. I don't think it would have happened if we hadn't brought Maresca to the club.

4. Michael Golding isn't sold the other way for 5million and that revenue is lost as he was never worth that and was just make-weight in the KDH deal.

5. Stirling isn't loaned out to rival Arsenal with us paying over half his wages as while clearly not a good buy from us, Pochettino could work with him and Maresca for tactical reasons it seems cannot. Undoing this would lead to us funding his full wage but keeping the player.

6. Keeping Stirling means we probably don't buy Neto. This would save €60.00m in transfer fees and with Stirling staying to fill the role. 

7, Chilwell would have been an important part of a Pochettino team (if he stayed fit which I admit is an assumption). 

8. Chalobah (our best defender last season) would never have been loaned out and would have been here the whole season. We lose whatever half season wages Crystal Palace were covering but gain Chalobah for the first half of the year.

9. Possibly, maybe, we MIGHT have not gotten Tosin in on a free transfer if we had kept Chalobah as it might have been decided we had enough CBs already. That would be a loss as I actually think he's been decent and well worth it on a free transfer.

As for things that don't change

I still think we probably still would have bought Sancho, Jorgensen, Penders, Anselmino, Veiga and Guiu. I think probably we would have sold Maatson (who Pochettino just didn't rate), Lewis Hall (unfortunately), Lukaku, Hutchinson and Angelo.

Sancho I really do think has been an opportunistic bargain for us and his recent poor form is because he isn't receiving the ball early enough or with enough support (having to always dribble 1v2) vs a lack of ability. And as for Lewis Hall, this one kind of kills me as I think he's now showing at Newcastle he's a really good player and we bluntly f*cked up selling him for just €33.00m. I would love to make the argument that Pochettino (if he had the choice) would have kept him, but I don't know. But I think selling him makes even less sense in a Maresca (inverted wingback) system than a Pochettino (traditional wingback's) one and it was just a really poor decision.

Overall not buying Neto, Felix or KDH saves us €147.4m (all figures from transfermarkt https://www.transfermarkt.com/fc-chelsea/alletransfers/verein/631) but not selling Gallagher and Golding means €47m less imcomings.  Players wise, we lose Neto, Felix and KDH but gain Gallagher, Stirling, Chilwell and half a Chalobah.

I think our squad would be of comparible overall quality (just less suited to Maresca which is fine as he wouldn't be the manager in this alternative history scenario), but would have had an additional €100.4m to spend. Which probably would have gone on a striker but I don't want to speculate on that as I think that would be too "cherry pickey". BUT.............that kind of cash would have gotten us an Osimhen.

Now onto Maresca vs Pochettino. I think Pochettino is a better manager. He's more adaptable, versatile where Maresca is far more specific about player roles and unable to fit players (like Chilwell or Nkunku) who don't fit his specific player roles. I don't think Maresca had he been manager last season, given the generationally bad injury crisis we suffered, would have gotten the 6th place finish (with an xG/xPTS that would have had us in 5th) that Poch got. And I beleive even with the current squad, Poch would have us doing better this season than Maresca is. But if you did do these alternative history transfers, I think we'd be in a much stronger position this year.

My alternative history is obviously full of assumptions and as much as i've tried not to, some hindsight cherry-picking. But I think it's a strong argument that we would have been better off if we'd just stuck with Pochettino.

Edited February 19, 20251 yr by Qaz

Edited February 19, 20251 yr by Qaz
duplicate, feel free to delete

1 hour ago, Qaz said:

Eh, add this to the long list of poor analyses. Gross overcomplications. In the first half of the video he says that Sancho and Madueke need to do more defending...but in the example he uses in the second half, Sancho is clearly defending! His claims that we aren't creating chances are also off the mark, because that was not the case when it was still 0-0.

Teams are gambling on the fact that we cannot finish which is why they allow our players outside the box so much space. We have no threat that they need to actually address. Teams are more than happy to let Cucurella, Gusto and Fernandez have the ball because they know that they will screw up the play. Given that most teams only want a draw at best from us, we are completely unable to take initiative unless we take the lead, and even then, we have shown how vulnerable we are at holding that. There is a cultural and mental problem there that tactics will not fix.

We are never going to get overlapping fullbacks under Maresca, especially given how poor we are defensively at the moment. Annoyingly this leaves Cucurella and Gusto as de facto playmakers. So in order for this system to work, we need a player to do something that is their weakest skill.

A thought experiment for everyone

Your club (Chelsea but can be any football club you support) loses 5 games in a row (which of course would suck).

But there are 2 scenarios

1. You lose every game 1-0, scoring zero goals in 5 games

2. You lose every game 4-3

Which do you choose and why?

Edited February 21, 20251 yr by Qaz

Pinched from this video (https://youtu.be/9hEIPLu8QKs?si=vgN2VSVSZqVFlb9d)

I think this is an excellent table and really shows the well run clubs (Brentford, Brighton, etc) from the poorly run ones (us, Man Utd, etc)

There are some caveats, the main one being this is just premier league and the most successful clubs (Liverpool, Man City, etc) tend to play Champions League most years and go further in cup competitions which means they need bigger squads and better (more highly paid) players to compete in those competitions. Still, I think it's a fantastic table and explains alot.

Edited March 22, 20251 yr by Qaz

1 hour ago, Qaz said:

Pinched from this video (https://youtu.be/9hEIPLu8QKs?si=vgN2VSVSZqVFlb9d)

I think this is an excellent table and really shows the well run clubs (Brentford, Brighton, etc) from the poorly run ones (us, Man Utd, etc)

There are some caveats, the main one being this is just premier league and the most successful clubs (Liverpool, Man City, etc) tend to play Champions League most years and go further in cup competitions which means they need bigger squads and better (more highly paid) players to compete in those competitions. Still, I think it's a fantastic table and explains alot.

It bothers me a lot that the dots on the 5th, 10th and 15th lines are actually 6th, 11th and 16th (then 20th is one above the X-axis). And 1st is on the 1st line!

20 hours ago, PloKoon13 said:

It bothers me a lot that the dots on the 5th, 10th and 15th lines are actually 6th, 11th and 16th (then 20th is one above the X-axis). And 1st is on the 1st line!

Haha fair

The second table is the one I was interested in, the first for me is just a bit of context/flavour

Edited March 23, 20251 yr by Qaz

Welcome back Qaz.

Ahhh, the old days of the CSR were so much fun.

On 23/03/2025 at 10:40, Qaz said:

Haha fair

The second table is the one I was interested in, the first for me is just a bit of context/flavour

Sorry mate, I was so offended by the Athletic's cosmetic mishap that I am now steadfastly against this idea forever. I now unflinchingly believe that there is no correlation whatsoever between wage budget and league position.

I am playing to go on a big rant about how badly Chelsea has been managed later, but for now, here is a (probably incomplete) list of former Chelsea academy players:

GK: Marcin Bulka (Nice)

RB: Reece James, Ola Aina (Forest), Tino Livramento (Newcastle)

RCB: Andreas Christensen (Barcelona), Fikayo Tomori (Milan), Trevoh Chalobah

LCB: Levi Colwill, Marc Guehi (Palace)

LB: Nathan Ake (ManCity), Lewis Hall (Newcastle)

CMs (defensive and box-to-box): Declan Rice (Arsenal) Connor Gallagher (Atletico), Billy Gilmour (Napoli), Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Milan)

CAMs and Wingers: Jamal Musiala (Bayern), Callum Hudson-Odoi (Forest), Mason Mount (ManUtd), Jeremie Boga (Nice), Tyrique George

Strikers: Dominic Solanke (Tottenham), Tammy Abraham (Milan)

That's a whole squad most of which are good enough to be playing for Chelsea or as solid squad depth and would have cost ZERO in transfer fees. Meanwhile we spend a billion pounds in transfer fees just in the last 4 years to produce a squad not much better than what's listed above.

Imagine if we'd just held onto this squad and used some of that billion pounds to add just a few select absolutely world class players rather splashing it around on a whole literny of players (some of which are great like Caceido and Palmer but just as many poor like Disasi, Badiashile, Dewsbury-Hall, Datro Fofana, Ugochukwu, Washington, Kellyman, etc, etc).

It's actually quite embarrasing when you think about it just how much of a leg up this youth system is vs most of our rivals yet how we've squandered it away.

Edited June 23, 2025Jun 23 by Qaz

Just to be clear, I am NOT suggesting that the above squad is as good Chelsea's current team.

What I am saying is that is a very very very solid base to add to to produce a world-class team.

We could have easily afforded to add Caicedo, Palmer, Kavatskelia (sp?), Bellingham (Jude) and Osiehmen (sp?) to that team and still had plenty of money left over. That would probably be the best squad in the world.

How are you (as the Chelsea directors) going to demand a decent sale price on Nkunku, Felix, Disasi, Stirling, Chilwell, Broja or Datro Fofana when the club have already signed their replacements and know you will accept any price to get them off the wage bill?

Prize money for finishing 1st/winning the competition (according to Grok):

English Premier League: 62.3 million pounds or 1.64 million pounds per game

Uefa Champions League: 77.2 million pounds or 5.15 million pounds per game

Fifa Club World Cup: 123 million pounds or 17.57 million pounds per game


*They are different competitions. Champions League and Premier League for example you would get to keep gate takings on home matches whereas Fifa CWC is all neutral venues meaning prize money would make up a much larger proportion of overall takings (if not most of them). So it's not perfectly comparable, but it is interesting.

Edited July 14, 2025Jul 14 by Qaz

I wrote before (here: https://www.theshedend.com/topic/37137-bomb-squad-2025-edition/page/2/#comment-2119408) about Chelsea's bomb squad and later went into the estimated wages being paid (from AI/Grok)

Well i'm in a good mood today (since we f*ck*ng world champions biatch) and thought i'd post potential sale prices (again according to Grok)

Djordje Petrovic: €20.00m

Renato Veiga: €25.00m

Axel Disasi: €22.00m

Benoît Badiashile: €22.00m

Ben Chilwell: €15.00m

Caleb Wiley: €8.00m

Alfie Gilchrist: €8.00m

Lesley Ugochukwu: €18.00m

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall: €20.00m

Christopher Nkunku: €35.00m

Raheem Sterling: €10.00m

João Félix: €20.00m

Armando Broja: €12.00m

David Datro Fofana: €6.00m

For those too lazy to use a calculator (like me!), that's €243.00* million and does NOT include Madueke or Kepa (which would push it up to nearly €300 million)

How many of these players do you think will leave and how realistic do you see these fees?

Edit: €241 million, f*cking grok can't do math. 🤣

Edited July 14, 2025Jul 14 by Qaz

57 minutes ago, Qaz said:

I wrote before (here: https://www.theshedend.com/topic/37137-bomb-squad-2025-edition/page/2/#comment-2119408) about Chelsea's bomb squad and later went into the estimated wages being paid (from AI/Grok)

Well i'm in a good mood today (since we f*ck*ng world champions biatch) and thought i'd post potential sale prices (again according to Grok)

Djordje Petrovic: €20.00m

Renato Veiga: €25.00m

Axel Disasi: €22.00m

Benoît Badiashile: €22.00m

Ben Chilwell: €15.00m

Caleb Wiley: €8.00m

Alfie Gilchrist: €8.00m

Lesley Ugochukwu: €18.00m

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall: €20.00m

Christopher Nkunku: €35.00m

Raheem Sterling: €10.00m

João Félix: €20.00m

Armando Broja: €12.00m

David Datro Fofana: €6.00m

For those too lazy to use a calculator (like me!), that's €243.00* million and does NOT include Madueke or Kepa (which would push it up to nearly €300 million)

How many of these players do you think will leave and how realistic do you see these fees?

Edit: €241 million, f*cking grok can't do math. 🤣

Those figures look realistic to me.

The SDs will have done very well if thy can get more than that, and indeed if they can even shift half of those players.

I have nothing Chelsea related to complain about.

Well this is awkward.....

On 14/07/2025 at 07:54, Qaz said:

I wrote before (here: https://www.theshedend.com/topic/37137-bomb-squad-2025-edition/page/2/#comment-2119408) about Chelsea's bomb squad and later went into the estimated wages being paid (from AI/Grok)

Well i'm in a good mood today (since we f*ck*ng world champions biatch) and thought i'd post potential sale prices (again according to Grok)

Djordje Petrovic: €20.00m

Renato Veiga: €25.00m

Axel Disasi: €22.00m

Benoît Badiashile: €22.00m

Ben Chilwell: €15.00m

Caleb Wiley: €8.00m

Alfie Gilchrist: €8.00m

Lesley Ugochukwu: €18.00m

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall: €20.00m

Christopher Nkunku: €35.00m

Raheem Sterling: €10.00m

João Félix: €20.00m

Armando Broja: €12.00m

David Datro Fofana: €6.00m

For those too lazy to use a calculator (like me!), that's €243.00* million and does NOT include Madueke or Kepa (which would push it up to nearly €300 million)

How many of these players do you think will leave and how realistic do you see these fees?

Edit: €241 million, f*cking grok can't do math. 🤣

I would say 5 out of 14. At the pace they are going though; they will be lucky to shift out 4. Presently only Petrovic has been sold 4 weeks into the window. Window closes in 6 weeks.

https://youtu.be/NC4BJFAPnYY