No one will stop us from qualifying cl especially without europe we have enough to win mid table lower table teams and have capability to drew against current cl,El teams.
Boehly is going to ruin Chelsea (hopefully)
- Thread starter UnitedSofa
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Without game time they will struggle to gel. Early exits from cup competitions or a couple of early bad results could be disastrous. Very high risk strategy.
Its simplistic to say but the biggest issue Chelsea face is whether their talent ID has been good enough in this restocking phase and whether they have the right footballing people in place to take the club forward.
They really should have a much better squad given the amount of money they have spent. The number of terrible transfers has been shocking, with the biggest successes like Enzo and assumedly Caicedo largely just “Congratulations, you said the biggest number” scenarios. I’m sure some of the very young players will turn out good but overall the recruitment has been really bad and every decision regarding hiring managers (Potter, Lampard as interim, Poch) also really very questionable.
If you look at the signings prior to this summer basically there were 15 players signed or loaned for big sums and 8 look really poor or at least bad for the money on early returns (Fofana, Mudryk, Cucurella, Koulibaly, Sterling, Chukwuemeka, the Felix loan, and Aubameyang), another six haven't played for Chelsea or have played so little that you can't really say anything (Badiashile, Madueke, Gusto, Santos, Fofana, Slonina), and then you have Enzo.
They really should have a much better squad given the amount of money they have spent. The number of terrible transfers has been shocking, with the biggest successes like Enzo and assumedly Caicedo largely just “Congratulations, you said the biggest number” scenarios. I’m sure some of the very young players will turn out good but overall the recruitment has been really bad and every decision regarding hiring managers (Potter, Lampard as interim, Poch) also really very questionable.
If you look at the signings prior to this summer basically there were 15 players signed or loaned for big sums and 8 look really poor or at least bad for the money on early returns (Fofana, Mudryk, Cucurella, Koulibaly, Sterling, Chukwuemeka, the Felix loan, and Aubameyang), another six haven't played for Chelsea or have played so little that you can't really say anything (Badiashile, Madueke, Gusto, Santos, Fofana, Slonina), and then you have Enzo.
Last edited:
Tbh I think chelsea are nailed on to get a UCL spot considering it’s the top 5 this season.
I can’t see Chelsea finishing behind Spurs and Newcastle. Especially with Newcastle having UCL and 2 games a week
Don't see that squad finishing above City, United, Arsenal, Liverpool or Newcastle but you could be lucky.
Playing one game a week with a large squad could be worse. Have them in 7th.
Not sure how the new system works but didn't think 5th place was a guaruntee.
Our 21/22 side would have finished 2nd at worst 3rd in last season's league.
A lot can change in a close season.
That's your opinion though. We will see. We can finish any where from 2nd to 5th. Other than city all squads are not much different to us but we have advantage of weekly once a game give us time to take rest and prepare we are fine to finish within cl spot.
You got rid of a lot of experienced players. It's almost a complete rebuild and you need games to get all the players involved. And they're mainly inexperienced.
I think the really bad transfers only applies to the very first transfer window, last summer when it was just Tuchel and Boehly tag teaming - that resulted in Koulibaly, Sterling, Cucurella, Auba. Not a single good signing amongst them.
The jury is very much on the January signings. I know there’s a lot of focus on Mudryk but jury remains out on him. So I don’t accept that overall the recruitment has been very bad. We can chop it up into windows. I think the business in January and this summer is extremely promising but jury remains out, and the business done in the very first window is borderline catastrophic.
It’s basically dependant on how English teams perform this season in the UCL, Europa and ECL. The two countries with the best performing teams as a collective will get the 2 extra spots.
Ironically, Man City going far again could help a premier league side who finish 5th to qualify.
Bizarrely, we could have a scenario where 7 premier league teams qualify for the UCL next season. That would be pretty absurd and a mockery of the competition.
That's fair to say that the first summer is where most of the really bad recruitment occurred. Although I would say that the early returns on Mudryk have been disappointing (I wouldn't write him off by any means, but I've seen a lot of concerning stuff) and that the decision to loan Felix looks terrible in retrospect given the level of expenditure on loan fee and wages.
The recruitment Chelsea made last summer was all Todd Boehly and all have been deemed as write-offs. The players signed since January is the yardstick to measure the quality of the current chelsea management because the sporting structure, now at the club, began in January.
Chelsea will finished comfortably above United this season. Save this comment.
Don't worry, I will
That's fair enough but January so far doesn't look great to me either on early returns, as noted above, although that picture could change.
Some will disagree but my view is that Poch was a bad appointment and not the kind of manager capable of playing the kind of highly structured, dominant, possession based football that these young players probably need to be drilled into if they're ever going to challenge as a group while Pep is around. Maybe that's not on the cards anyway for a couple years. But for me Poch was an uninspired choice and not a great indicator of the quality of the football minds making the decisions from January onward.
Got the lottery numbers as well, mate?
I am not sure Caicedo will solve that much for them. He will provide cover for the back four but Enzo was doing that as well. A double pivot is not exactly going to provide a ton of creativity with the rest of that lineup. It will look tighter defensively but I see a lot of draws coming up for them.
I agree it could potentially be a problem in terms of winning titles but it shouldn't be that big a handicap when it comes to top 4/5 challenges. Arsenal have made it with simarly inexperienced sides in the past.
I am still to be convinced he's the man to make the step towards challenging/winning but that's a cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now we need a manager with a proven track record with young player development and there's not much better in that regard.
That being said the Liverpool game has given me hope he's evolved one part of his management I thought was piss poor at Spurs which was turn the tide of a game round/back round when things spiralled against them, the first 20/30 minutes vs Liverpool couldn't have gone much worse yet we wrestled back the control and should have won from then onwards.
We don’t want Enzo providing that cover though. He was being asked to do too much.
He would come all the way back and cover and then put in serious work to improve the link up higher than he should be because Nkunku’s out and Carney is still a bit out of his depth.
We moved to a midfield square in the second half. People said we started having Colwill play LB, and that wasn’t quite right. We rotated him into the square and he essentially became a midfielder.
Olise being able to tuck inside in Carneys spot , Caicedo for Gallagher, and Lavia rotating into the midfield 4 instead of using a back 3 …. That will open SO much up.
I really like Desasi so far. I think getting Silva breaks periodically, or going with a back 3 in certain situations could still be an option.
I actually thought Poch was a bad appointment at first, but that was primarily because I didn’t really know anything about him… and he was a Spur so I never cared to.
But, come to understand that his two main strengths are young player development, and the fitness levels of his teams had me at least rethinking it.
Now that I know a ton about him I think they did an excellent job. He has tactical preferences, but is flexible. And he is good at making adjustments (both things on display first game).
His former players like Mbappe still call him all the time for advice.
He wasn’t a good fit for a PSG team full of older, entitled stars that didn’t want to put in the work.
But he has seemed a great fit for us.
There is not a highly competent DM at the club prior to Caicedo signing. The club had lost Jorginho, Kante, Loftus-Cheek, and Zakaria without replacement. He will add a massive amount to the stability of the side, and that was quite clearly a need in the first 20 minutes against Liverpool. Enzo should show himself to be one of the most creative in the league this season so I doubt Poch has any such concerns.
He may end up doing really well at Chelsea, I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.
But he was a poor tactician even at Spurs, beyond being an early adopter of a high press backed by a more physical athletic side. Those Spurs teams never really had a plan in possession and he was notorious for never having a Plan B (let alone C) in big matches, which is probably why his record against the top six was so terrible and he never won anything.
He may have learned from those experiences of course. But mainly I think at Spurs he had one very effective idea (press constantly and west down opponents physically), lucked into finding one of the best strikers in the world right under his nose, and then the club bought pretty well in the initial years and handed him in retrospect a very good side to work with.
As soon as Pep and Klopp got settled in the league and built sides that could play their tactics, they just killed him. Poch’s record against those two is abysmal.
Their midfield certainly looks very promising. But now it all has to be moulded into a working team, which may or may not take some time.
Anyway, I don't think Pochettino can argue with the talented players he has at his disposal. I'm sure some posters may advance that he is maltreated, but still...
Anyway, I don't think Pochettino can argue with the talented players he has at his disposal. I'm sure some posters may advance that he is maltreated, but still...
Poch has been backed to the max. He has a young exciting team to work with. He has a job on his hands now to gel this team into a coherent unit. After the season we had last season, I’m gonna sit back and enjoy the ride.
I think several of the English clubs being in the UCL will play a big part in our top 4 chances. I 100% believe that both Arsenal and especially Newcastle will struggle to handle those extra super high pressure matches whilst balancing big PL matches simultaneously. Neither have had to deal with that in many, many years. United at least have multiple UCL winners like Mount, Casemiro, and Varane in their ranks who know what it takes.
If we get a veteran striker that can score goals at a decent clip and can rotate with Jackson before the window closes I think we absolutely finish in the top 4. A Giroud type. Who that is, I have no clue.
If we get a veteran striker that can score goals at a decent clip and can rotate with Jackson before the window closes I think we absolutely finish in the top 4. A Giroud type. Who that is, I have no clue.
I like their midfield a lot. I think they probably have the second best midfield in the league now. Not too fussed about their attackers though, I think they'll still find it difficult to break down teams. Mudryk is meh, so is Sterling. Jackson looks good but is still a bit raw and Olise is more of a creator than a goalscorer. Liverpool attacked them and left huge gaps at the back and in midfield, the majority of the games they'll play this season are against teams much more structured and defensive, if they can break those teams down easily they'll be ok but I don't see much improvement in attack compared to last season.
They're going to need Sterling to bring it back to his prime City form and have a 20 goal in the league season to comfortably be in the top 4 otherwise they'll be in the dogfight too. Of course this could change if they get a couple of good goal scoring attackers in and with how aggressive they're moving in the market I wouldn't be surprised if they did !
They're going to need Sterling to bring it back to his prime City form and have a 20 goal in the league season to comfortably be in the top 4 otherwise they'll be in the dogfight too. Of course this could change if they get a couple of good goal scoring attackers in and with how aggressive they're moving in the market I wouldn't be surprised if they did !
If you find one, give us a chance at him too. We need one so bad.
Maybe we’ll get Ivan Toney in January after his ban lifts.
. Yes poor tactician indeed. And can you explain what's tactics.I don't know much about spurs team under pochettino but last season one team with tactical genius as their coach failed to win league from stronger position. That tactical genius didn't have plan B or tactically poor. I don't know mate.
May be you are right but for that we needed time to assess pochettino but I think he adjusted the team tactically well around 30 mins against liverpool and from there on we kept the liverpool attack totally under control. So may be he knew some thing about tactics or perhaps that may be fluke.
Last edited:
The spending is crazy but what a midfield two they’ve got.
feck Chelsea. It's FM on cheat code stuff. Also, why are there so many new Chelsea fans on here? I'm all for rival fans etc but Christ!
One thing that I find throughout this spending spree from Chelsea, certainly this season, is how players are now not that fussed by Champions League football anymore.
Players don't seem to care that they are not guaranteed CL football, they are happy to be part of a project now it seems.
Players don't seem to care that they are not guaranteed CL football, they are happy to be part of a project now it seems.
Money Talks and missing Champions League as one off isn't that much of a factor as Fans believe it to be and that was always the case its nothing new . And Chelsea are one of the biggest Club in world whether we like to admit it or not and they definitely have their pull .
Agreed, just look at who United have brought in the past when out of CL.
I am assuming this extravagant spending is partly being funded as part of the promised investment during the take over so not something they would be doing over the long haul but why the mad dash to get all done so quickly? Is it purely to take advantage of the FFP loopholes or is something else driving it? FFP seems to be pretty toothless if owners can't be arsed to follow it, makes nice headlines but doesn't seem to be the sword it made out to be. If half of these signing fail due to injuries or players just not working which probably wouldn't be an extreme number where does that leave them? I mean its a nice portfolio of young talent chelsea have on the books but what if poch can't make them a team? Sack Poch in Jan/Feb get in the next manager, sell the failing players (likely for a loss) and go again in another mad dash to hoover up talent? It just seems so frantic, must be hella entertaining for Chelsea fans though.
Absolutely with Club Like United with its history and money there always an assumption that We will get our act together eventually and its the Similar case now with Chelsea as well as they have money and Stature as well due to their past exploits Under Abramovic .
Definitely partly to do with that, although the agreement was it had to be done over a decade. Then the ffp amortization is definitely a factor, and then probably simply the ambition from the owners. They had to decide on either doing a slow rebuild with a side and structure that had massive cracks or rip up the foundation - and take some calculated risks to get it done on a shorter timescale.
Everything the club has done so far is in line with fpp regulations so talking about the failure of ffp as it relates to Chelsea, as many are tending to do right now, is irrelevant.
I think it's super unlikely that a manager as good as Poch can't make a team out of these guys. Most of the players were bought at close to fair value so any losses would be normal course and I doubt many of them will fail as the recruitment is much improved over the previous regime. It's also important to consider that half the spend will be covered by player sales, there is an additional Brightonesque model being implemented to generate profit from player sales, and most importantly:
The owners are top hedge fund guys. Most of the risks are being hedged which is a much longer discussion. Importantly, they should not care about buying player x for 50m and selling him for 40m. What they care about is by keeping the team competitive, improving the structure, which will ensure the club's value increases from 4bn to 10bn within the next 8-10 years as expected. That is the ultimate driver for everything.