Limited to just 6 or 7 100m signings spread over 7 year deals apparently.
4 of them will be attackers and they'll still be 2 or 3 quality attackers short.
Chelsea 2025-26 - Worldwide losingest team of the 2025-26 season
- Thread starter duffer
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4 of them will be attackers and they'll still be 2 or 3 quality attackers short.
The problem with all these huge money signings to make a profit...is that not many clubs have the money to make the huge buys these days.
Surely no club is going anywhere near 100m for Enzo
Didn't Rosenior as well?
. Not sure it stops them, it's more that no one will pay a high fee for him.Couldn't happen to a nicer club. Cheers Clearlake.
Happy to be in minority who want Spurs to stay up, had a chuckle watching that today though
Club world champions, innit
We've been a mess for years but they're real mess. Should hire Iraola or Fabregas and take it easy next season without Europe to distract them. One game a week, we benefited from it and most clubs do.
Bad. They made an agreement with UEFA for breaching financial fair play rules that said their maximum loss would be about £50M or less. If they breach that by a small amount, they face a £50M fine. If they breach it by a large amount, they face being banned from Europe altogether for one season. They're ok for this year due to the Club World Cup, but the coming year is going to be tough.
Being in the CL is worth about £90M, depending on how far you get. They were already making losses with CL football, now their income is falling by that amount. So that's the amount they need to make up. Hard to see how they can do that without selling senior players.
It's not terminal, but it's the kind of situation that could be hard to reverse. Their squad is already not good enough to be in the CL, but they have to weaken it further to make up for the loss of income, which makes it harder to get back in, etc.
Europa League is good for us. It would be another avenue to qualify for the CL the following season. But no Europe at all would be fine too. Conference league would be a nightmare.
Yeah it'd be hard to motivate yourself to watch that even if you did not win it last year. Terrible competition, though great for weaker European sides.
Conference league could still be a match day revenue generator + a run out for the kids, of whom you have plenty. No Europe means about 8 less games, so it'll require trimming of your squad. That's going to be no mean feat.
The free midweeks would give Iraola or Alonso or whoever comes in the time to coach the team. It's not where we want to be of course but it's the preferred option for me vs the conference league.
A lot of the coaching has to be honestly done in pre-season rather than relying on midweek. Having two squads (which you do) and rotating the weaker one for conference league will still provide that opportunity. No Europe means you'll have to trim your squad to maybe 16-17 core players like we did. That bit is easily achieved by selling the bad ones (Garnacho, Gittens, Delap etc) - but you're current squad is already struggling for goals - which means you'll have to trim this down to maybe 11 before adding another 5-6 good ones. That's again a summer of chaos if your finance allows it.
But there's still a major advantage to having free midweeks to instill what he wants and embed systems as well as rest and recuperate days between matches.
Not sure how much better off we'd be financially being in the conference league. We have UEFA penalty fines hanging over our heads if we continue to be in breach of their financial rules and those fines significantly outweigh any potential prize money and earnings we would get from winning the conference league.
Garnacho signed a 7 year contract, didnt he?
Not sure who will really want the managers job here in I’m honest. Especially if there’s other options on the table.
Chelsea will be bottom of most top coaches lists currently.
Chelsea will be bottom of most top coaches lists currently.
You clearly haven't read todays Press transfer gossip report from Chirstina.
This is a direct copy & paste, I haven't made it up.
Honest.
Xavi Hernandez is under consideration by Chelsea to be their next manager, as they lean towards a coaching ideology already set down by the four years of the ownership so far - The Independent
Yeah but you could really make it your own competition. Like Madrid in the CL or Sevilla in the Europa
Kick them while their down why don't you
Just the fresher legs is a massive advantage, especially the way the PL has gone. Sure you can rotate in the Conference League but once you pick up a few injuries you won't be rotating fully and just the travel and game prep gives your week a different tempo in terms of rest and recovery for the best players.
If Chelsea can get a decent manager in - I'm not talking world class, just somebody back on Maresca's level - they should have an excellent chance at top 4/5 next year.
The fact that in your scenario, if we make the right moves and don't self sabotage and everything else goes right for us, in this imagined hypothetical our ceiling is still just 4th or 5th is just so sad.
You're right though, about the free midweeks giving us rest and recovery time. We won the league in this sort of scenario.
Garnacho the conference league legend. In the conference league hall of fame. Its 2032, Chelsea have won the conference league 7 consecutive seasons and Garnacho has scored hatricks in 3 separate finals.
I wouldn't completely rule out a higher ceiling. You've got good players. If a manager can find the right set of 14-15 to rely upon and the right tactics to get the most out of that group and then you can keep them largely healthy so you play a consistent, well-rested eleven then there's no reason you couldn't challenge. As you said, that's basically what Conte's formula was in 16-17.
Especially with Pep possibly leaving, I also don't really see any club going back to regularly getting 90+ points. The schedule for the teams in the CL is too grueling. Any team that can get into the 80s is likely to challenge IMO.
How viable would be to lure Cesc and maybe even a couple of his COMO players? Maybe the main issue would be that I think (might be wrong thougth) that Cesc it's also invested in the Club with Henry and others so that makes him some sort of coach/ owner (plus living in fecking COMO). Because if not, with his past in Chelsea, in the EPL in general and his brand of football, while betting on youngsters, on paper suits pretty well Chelsea.
Would Fabregas or Xabi Alonso join Chelsea? Think those two may be looking for more 'sensible' place. Perhaps Iraola is the answer. Felipe Luis was mentioned as well.
It's obviously going to be Guus Hiddink
If their owners realize the mistake(s) they've been making, they'll get one of Alonso, Xavi, Fabregas, Glasner and leave the management work to them rather than interfering. If they don't, they'll most likely get Frank Lampard, Rafa Benitez or some hipster like Amorim/Rosenoir again. Won't be surprised if Iraola turns out to be in the latter at Chelsea.
I think the rest helps of course but your team was much better then no? Lots of stars and experience. And also a top manager of course!
Courtois
Azpilicueta
Terry
David Luiz
Cahill
Kante
Fabregas
Matic
Hazard
Willian
Pedro
Costa
Yeah this was my thinking. With no European football next season you'd think Chelsea will be better but I don't think we'll see anywhere close to the dramatic improvement that we saw in 2017. That squad of players above is full of excellent players that they just don't anything like now. Maybe a fully fit and firing Palmer would count but he's been poor for a while.
If they get a good manager and make some good signings then of course they'll improve but nothing about their current ownership suggests they'll hire the right man or bring in the right players.
They desperately need to add dressing room leaders to their squad this summer
Easier said than done, when they have no European football to attract players. But I think they sold pretty well last summer, so they probably have a decent budget.
Indeed but it's what they really lack. The senior players they have aren't dressing room leaders. Reece James, Cucurella, Enzo etc. are good players but I don't see them as a leader like Maguire is for example.
Reece James I would put in that category being an academy player as well, but he has a big availability issue. But you are totally right that they need some experience in that dressing room. The combination of a very young squad and an inexperienced manager was always going to be a disaster. Sacking Maresca looks worse and worse by the minute.
Did you miss the bit where they posted the largest loss in Premier League history?
I actually did, yeah. But those two things are not always linked.
Yes but I'm obviously not saying we are going to win the title because we're well rested.
3rd, 4th, 5th is not unrealistic though, if , as I said to @Powderfinger, we make all the right moves, make all the right decisions, don't self sabotage and everything else goes in our favour. Those are all big ifs though and extremely unlikely.
Need to address the fundamental lack of physicality in the team; it's a huge problem. We haven't defended the far post properly since Tuchel left. Gusto / Chalobah as the right side of the defense is a disaster when it comes to crosses from the left flank and of course we're atrocious at dealing with set pieces.
Would have taken Rudiger (even though he's a fecking nutcase) back on a free but sounds like he is signing a one year extension at Madrid. If it's at all feasible to get Murillo and Kayode to fix the right side of defense that'd be ideal in my opinion; also probably need to play Jackson on the left at times once he's back.
I think that’s also dependent on what other teams do in and around you too. Getting back in the CL should be the requirement.
The managers job will be a big one. Will be interesting to see who you can attract and what the approach is.
I think he'd be really hesitant to take the Chelsea job. It doesn't seem like a particularly stable or nurturing environment for a young manager. Then there's also the question over how much authority would he have over the different departments, transfers etc.
Theres also been talk that he fancies taking the Arsenal job 1 day, so you'd imagine going to Chelsea again would be a death knell on that.
However, saying all that, Blueco somehow seems really good at getting to get people they want to hire, be it managers, Sporting Directors or players into their project, so I wouldn't rule it out totally.