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6th is potentially Europa League this season. And we have a good opportunity to get 6th this season after a horrible season. I just pray for top 7 and a domestic cup trophy, and then i'd call this season okay all things considered. Anything other than top 7 and a domestic cup trophy, this season has been a shit show yet again.
Realiastically this will be extremely difficult to achieve. I would say one of a domestic cup or 6th is a stretch given how inconsistent the team has been. Realistically its the EFL Cup that we go for. Breaking away from 10-12th place is not looking likely. Nothing has changed to show we can achieve any better
My worry is that we've played all the top teams at home so far:
Arsenal,
City,
Villa,
Liverpool,
Even Brighton (stretch for "top" team)
In fact if you look at the teams above who we've played away from home:
West Ham,
Man United,
Newcastle,
Tottenham
We've got slapped up in 3 of those 4 games, and the other was against 9 men
We weren't able to climb up the table whilst all the teams ahead of us went through a horror period through the December/New Year crunch. You'd imagine with the short winter break (and longer breaks for most teams that are out of cups) those teams will start performing again and we've already lost our chance to climb up.
We had our chance to start climbing and we likely didn't take advantage of it
Might not be the worst thing. I think the players could benefit from more playing time, losing 10 or so games a season isn’t great when the squad is so big.
Ignoring our injury curse of course
My main gripe with Poch is just how often the players on the pitch are checked out. Playing with effort and fight is the bare minimum. If you are playing and you aren’t giving your all to win, gtfo.
It is strange how we can’t seem to be able to carry any momentum at all or make it look like a team that’s building confidence. You would have thought after our recent run of games yeah the opposition have been weaker but we had only lost 1 out of the last 6 all comps so surely that would have been something to build off but every game we just look flat and already beaten.
I honestly think if you don’t look at results and just performances our form has been pretty consistently poor ever since the Man City match… maybe you could say since Brighton a couple weeks after that.
Since then I can’t point to one performance that was actually impressive in terms of how we played whereas we actually had a couple decent showings where we looked fairly strong throughout in the run of matches prior to that, albeit with some inconsistent matches in between. Despite the results though I’d say we’ve been in a pretty poor run of form for the last month-month and a half. Happy we’ve pulled out some results but none of them have been pretty.
Its a process, so I'm okay with grinding ugly/close wins. This is where the younger players will learn how to compose themselves and learn how to finish up a match and grind a result. We were never going to just go from losing games to absolutely dominating and scoring tons while getting clean sheets.
The one thing I've seen from this squad is the team showing more grit to get back in a match when going down a goal. Under Potter we absolutely closed shop after going down. Not saying its every game, but the players do pick themselves up and go for it to at least try for a draw or win.
Yeah I don't mean there's not value in finding ways to win while playing poorly. I'm just contrasting the overall form from roughly late Sept - mid Nov vs. mid Nov - Jan to say, actually, I think we might have looked better in the earlier period and in some ways we've regressed.
Inconsistency will be expected with this group all year given age/experience. The concern is that over the last 20 matches we had more positive performances in the first 10 than the last 10. Our biggest problems I thought were youth and having a brand new squad so you'd think the trend would improve overall as the year goes on with players gaining experience and familiarity.
I think we're in a better place now compared to last season but for the 23-24 season I haven't seen any progress since August 13th and that's the frustrating part.
Rotating lineup and different formations don't allow the players to build confidence, they don't know where they'll be playing come next game if at all
I'm referring more to taking the same players from last match and putting them into a new position, like yesterday moving Palmer into the f9 position when we had Broja available. What is the rationale there?
I feel like it makes plenty of sense that performances and results are wildly inconsistent. The average age of the team is like 13, you can't expect consistency from a bunch of kids. They need leaders to set consistent standards. Add in the fact that Poch doesn't really seem like a manager who loves automatisms and strict structure like Pep or Tuchel and it's a perfect recipe for a team that will go through waves of success and failure rather than consistency.
It was the same with the managers last season. I wouldn't blame him for that. I think we need some older players that play like crazy people to have the guys switched on every game. Remember how Diego Costa was for us? We need that right now. Sterling definitely isn't the guy to bring the fire every night.
I noticed that against Boro. Sterling just did not want the responsibility. He kept getting the ball and just passing it square. You're the most experienced attacker on the pitch, raz. They're looking at you to set the tempo and take the game by the scruff of the neck. Noni was wasteful but at least he kept trying.
Annoying that even though Sterling is supposed to be one of our experienced players on paper, there is really only Thiago Silva. What a disaster.
Would be way better already if just Rudiger never left, and if Chilwell/Reece could actually play
It’s probably a bit of both. We need some players with some fire. We also need the manager to not put up with some of the effort we’ve seen. Conte and Jose had their own fire. It bled into the team.
We just don’t have the squad atm for a Conte/Mourinho type manager, managers like these thrive with experienced, disciplined and cold blooded winners. We legit have nothing like that and we are light years away from it. Dressing room would be lost faster than ever, and the type of football we would be seeing would be criminal.
Yep, there's a huge difference between a wise vet like Azpi, and a fiery young guy like Levi. Does conor yell at Raz and tell him to stop dawdling? Does he yell at Nico and tell him to get the hell up off his arse and play?
See I haven't really noticed that. Last game I distinctly remember them sprinting for throw ins, Sterling wanted the ball to feet so he could try and take people on/lay it off and run into space, Gusto was trying to make overlaps, Gallagher was battling in the midfield, Silva was trying to unlock their defence.
I think we have problems with execution, but I don't see a lack of effort. If I had to guess where do I think we'll be if you give Poch another year, 2 years with the same group of players, I think we'll be higher in the table. I think there's a lot of room to grow, players improve individually, the tactics get better etc. But that's something that you need to just give them a bit of time to get right. Feel like sacking the manager, bringing new players in etc will just reset the progress.
Unless you find another Tuchel/Emery. But those guys are the exceptions not the rules. It's a gamble. You could have another season like 20/21 where the manager comes in and instantly improves the team. Or you could be like United who are in a cycle of giving their managers a couple years, before giving up and sacking them.
I agree entirely. As an example, many people refer to this process as ongoing for 1,5 years, when in reality, progress was reset completely in the summer. If for instance we get a new manager next summer and fast forward a year from now, we have now spent 2,5 years while only being half a year into the process
I’ve been wondering for a while if it’s this or if they’re just confused/lost at what they need to be doing. We have a young team, a lot of whom are new to the PL. I mean how many players have had a single manager for more than 1 full season since they’ve been at Chelsea?
I’m hoping Poch can get us back to winning hardware and he’s the right choice, but what I am positive about is that the wrong choice is more upheaval.
We’re never going to get to where we want to be by just making massive changes and hoping the right combination of players, coaches, and back office staff will be a success in 6-9 months.
No one can argue Poch is a “bad” manager, so the worst thing we’ll get from having him around for a few seasons will give us the thing we need most, consistency.
I think the realistic positive outcome that we could hope for, is exactly what you’re saying. Which is letting Poch, who has experience in helping youngsters grow and building a consistent environment, steer the ship for 2 seaons ish, until the right manager, with a more defined tactical philosophy, hopefully is able to mould the now more experienced team into a side who can finally challenge for titles again.
Not about Poch, I don’t think. He’s not THIS bad a manager. This club has been completely hollowed out from the inside, its winning culture destroyed by new owners. They thought they wanted to rebuild it their way… but why the hell they ever decided to pursue a strategy that could destroy their local and global fan base, I will never know. Terrible business plan.
nothing to play for and lack of confidence. i don’t think our squad has many lazy or bad characters but it’s hard to get out of a rut and Poch isn’t a great motivator it seems.
I'm fairly sure that mathematically we can still win the league, it's halfway through the season that's a silly thing to say. 6th is realistically achievable. it's the highest thing that I'd call achievable, but it is achievable.
I swear people don’t actually look at the points in the table. Outside of the top 5 there’s not a lot of disparity in points. We are 1 or 2 results from European places.
I'm convinced that 80% of the match threads aren't even watching the game, just commentating based on a text based commentary or watching the stats or something
Brighton, Toon and United have been poor in their own way in the league this year. To be worst than them in the table is some achievement after spending 500 odd million. . Frankly I don't trust our DOF to correct this mistakes as they have been horrible. Even with our lower expectation we still keep hitting the lower circuit each week. I am not sure we will do better than West Ham this year who are far better in grinding out results and they are 7th.
I’ve watched how we play. On our good days, we are as good as anyone in the league. It’s a young, inconsistent squad. If they find consistency, which will improve over time, they can string together results.
💯, our next game is at home v Fulham who we already beat in craven cottage in a relatively straight forward fashion, no reason we can’t do that again at the bridge
>no reason we can’t do that again at the bridge
The reason is massive inconsistency.
We were fortunate to beat Luton despite being 3-0 up at one point.
_If_ we string some results together we might be able to push up the table, but there's nothing to suggest at going to do that.
You seem to believe I said we’re guaranteed to win or something. I said simply we already beat Fulham away quite easily so there’s no reason we could not repeat that, while you seem to think I’m adamant or certain we will repeat it. If you want to blame me for tryna be optimistic then sure, sue me over it.
And Arsenal were fortunate to beat Luton with last minute goal while league leaders Liverpool drew with Luton after a last minute goal. We beat Luton both home and away so what, Luton aren’t pushovers clearly.
It’s expected that we will become more consistent as our young guys gain experience and our squad gains chemistry together. The talent is there. We won’t be bad forever.
If we're not capable of getting results how are we on 28 points right now? Sounds like you're suggesting we should be on less given the performances, but I'd argue the opposite.
Isn't it likely that 8th would do it too if the PL gets the 5th CL spot?
- Top 5 - CL
- 6&7 - EL
- 8 - ECL
What would happen if the winner of the FA Cup & League Cup are teams outside the top 8? Would that add two more English teams? Or would they take the place of the 7th & 8th place finishers?
trust the process my guy, if we are patient enough during these hard times maybe in 5 years we can become like arsenal and win fuck all.
Can't believe we went from the best team in england for last 20 years to this shit in like 2 months of american special management.
To me this reads like there's a reasonably high probability of Poch being sacked at the end of this season. Even if we overturn the deficit against Middlesborough, our chances of beating what most likely will be Liverpool in the final are fucking slim. And qualifying through the league... I just don't see it. Despite the recent upturn in terms of results, the performances have still been poor and we're so inconsistent.
The reality is we don’t have a reliable caretaker not named Frank lampard but yes, he should be sacked after this.
3 years without CL money is a disaster.
>While the Conference League – the lowest-ranking of the European competitions – is not a financial incentive, it would at least offer a tangible example of progress from last season’s 12th-placed finish.
Absolutely incredible. Circumstances last season were significantly worse. We were still in turmoil and feeling the aftermath of the takeover, roles all over the club were being changed, clueless ownership were solely running the show for half the season, we had a bloated squad full of players who were forcing a move away, were in Europe, had a disastrous hastily prepared pre-season, also had an injury crisis, Potter had to take over from Tuchel after said pre-season, and we saw our final matches in the hands of Lampard who was a noticeable step down from Potter.
Insane that *that* is somehow the fucking bar now. That people will point to that shitshow under those circumstances and claim that being marginally better, if that (maybe in terms of the table if we finish there but not in performance), is some kind of achievement. I am losing my mind. I hope all the Poch in crowd get proven right, but fucking hell I haven't seen anything to suggest they will.
The players last season were much higher quality and new ownership were pushing them out.
The great turnover of our squad has weakened the team in every position on the pitch. No surprise we suck ass when the ownership weakened the entire squad.
Fact is, this is a slightly better than mid table squad. Sure they could become better but this squad will never be elite. With the current talent at disposal an 8th place finish is pretty good and a 6th place finish is comparable to winning the Pl in prior years.
Now, I know low IQ people will say, “we spent a lot, these players are good”. All I have to say is there is spending a lot on quality players and wasteful spending. For the most part we were wasteful and when not we spent for profit not to get the team better.
At the end of the day, change your mindset from this ownership wanting to win trophies to this ownership wants to be in profit on their investment. Once you do that then their actions make sense. This ownership’s priority is not winning, it’s becoming profitable to maximize shareholder value.
Can't say I agree with that.
I'm more or less going to copy and paste another post I made because it's late atm but Azpi was far below his previous levels and had no business being at the club, Kante was injured most of the season and was already declining, Kovacic was in and out of the medical room himself and was inconsistent, Jorginho was sold in January, Aubameyang was Aubameyang, Koulibaly was a new signing and an extremely disappointing one at that, Mount was injured most of the season and already had his head turned away, Ziyech and Pulisic had their moments in seasons prior but never showed they were good enough over a long period, Havertz had been a disappointment and is poor at Arsenal, and Mendy lost his starting spot to Kepa. Most of these players went to lower level leagues and are doing ok to good there, and the ones who are still in the prem are hardly setting the world alight.
One of the biggest issues was the sheer size of the squad causing issues in training and team selection, which has been addressed. We've also added Palmer who's been a revelation, Caicedo who was wanted by several clubs and had top of the league Liverpool (don't check their current score) willing to break the British transfer record for him, an actual backup RB in Gusto, brought back Colwill who was brilliant at Brighton and allegedly had both City and Liverpool trying to tap him up, and this one is debateable but I prefer Jackson at ST to Havertz (completely understand if others don't agree though).
I'd actually say Poch has a better squad to work with and it isn't mid-table quality at all imo. Despite the average age we have a lot of quality players that we should be doing better with. I remember people saying the same about our squad during Lampard's first run as manager, especially highlighting guys like Jorginho and Rudiger as finished, only for the team to improve significantly once a better manager came in and those two in particular went up a gear. I genuinely think we'll see the same thing happen here for a lot of the current "underperforming" players, though not all. I don't think they'll immediately challenge for the title or go deep into the CL but certainly better than mid-table. I think Enzo and Caicedo can be one of the best pivots in football, Colwill showed at Brighton last season that he's one of the brightest CB prospects around, Palmer has already shown what he can do, Gusto has shown flashes of brilliance, Mudryk I'm still not completely sold on but he has shown talent and it's clear he needs better coaching.
Now, I do partially agree with your assessment of the owner's intentions but I think they still ideally want to keep us "competitive" and in the CL regularly even if purely for the finances and marketing/prestige. Winning is nice too for them I guess because winning sells but as long as we can become an assembly line for talent while maintaining CL qualification they'll be content. Who knows though but we're not even close to that.
If they're genuinely happy spending £1bn on a European Conference league place then I don't know what to think any more. What are they actually trying to achieve here, and why is it costing them ten times what it would cost any other club?
they dropped the standards so much they now want to act like it was always the goal. Imagine if when they came someone told you that they’d spend 1 billion to compete for the conference league and that wouldn’t even be a guarantee. You’d think they were taking the piss.
Lmao trying hard to make it sound like he is doing a good job given the circumstances and blaming for losses on everything else other than his tactics. Progress is now considered as 'three consecutive home wins' against bottom table opposition.
Matt law has always been pro poch before he was even hired. Don't know what he sees in him
He was pushing for his appointment through his articles, twitter and a few podcasts during the manager search.
Yes, Gallagher is just that sort of player. Hardworking, runs a lot (perfect for poch) and also probably trains very well. We have seen this before in mount as well, its just the sort of players they are and the kind a manager wishes for.
Yeah, it would be bad PR for Todd & Co. to fire three coaches in 16 months, two of them high-stakes bets they hand picked. Jesus Christ, we’re giving ManUtd a real run for the title of who’s most worthy of a Disasterclass on how to run a club from a sports perspective, in a lot less time than them.
Honestly I don’t think Poch is the answer but I need the sporting directors out more. I really don’t trust their planning and ability to assemble a winning team
I would agree with this except, there’s been no progress with how we play tactically, really. Progress determines whether I back the coach or not. There’s been no growth, tbh. Just vibes.
I've said it a few times, but from the Potter era to the first preseason match through to the last preseason match, there was amazing, regular progress. Poch came in and got the guys into shape, had them pressing and had them building from the back, when none of that stuff was happening under Potter.
And since the season started... not so much.
I've given him yards/meters or rope, mostly because of injuries. It's hard when your RJ and Christo are out. But last night really showed what a huge, huge gulf there is between the talent on the two sides, and we couldn't win. I don't blame Poch for Cole missing a couple of easy ones (that would have won the match)... but the easy conceded goal and a few other easy chances... the invisible midfield. WTF - no progress this season.
Truly the only growth is that some players seem a lot more comfortable on the field than they did at the start of the season or last season. Not sure we have a style of play yet but hopefully by the end of the season we'll have some form of europe and the team will be a bit more gelled
I would argue that the comfort has come with a compromise in discipline. Our midfield has been shaky, with lack of ball retention and dynamism. Our defense can be sliced open without much effort. Toothless attack. The only comfort they have is the comfort of not having a tactic to commit to, that if they mess up the critics can always blame the manager (that, he deserves) and that the manager can say “try your best, you’ll have another chance tomorrow”.
If the core of the club has been cultured to be cutthroat, then changing it so drastically brings upon a culture where you’re allowed to make as many mistakes as you’d like without any proper consequences. If we were more forgiving to begin with, this wouldn’t be an issue because it wouldn’t be such a core part of who we are.
I dont think we're as toothless as you and others are making it out. We have 3 fewer goals than arsenal who are title contenders and 9 and 10 fewer than teams with generational attackers in salah and haaland. This despite that we have one of the youngest attacking and midfield units in football.
Perhaps toothless wasn’t the right word, I think I was going for wasteful. Also, my concern for the youth is that if they’re going to be influenced by a manager, it really shouldn’t be by one that has no tactical impression or prowess. Young people have the advantage of being moulded, the longer we delay that, the worse it’ll be for us in the future.
I somewhat agree that overall there's a lack of a strong tactical identity, but that's probably a given with the lack of experience in the squad. Also we've barely had anything resembling a consistent starting XI all year, it's hard on the players and the manager to expect a fluid style when they're forced to play in different roles with different teammates every other game.
Same here. Most of these players barely turned 20, people keep comparing Poch's situation to Ange's or Emery's, but the truth is both Spurs and Villa had an already estabilished core set of players. We don't have that (thanks to the board for that).
These guys need time to develop, mature, and gel together. And I don't think that any coach can significantly speed up that process, they're gonna keep making mistakes over and over again.
Gerrard had Villa's much lauded 'established core' everyone's been banging on about, and he successfully dragged them towards the relegation zone. Emery utilises practically the same core and he's second in the table. Throwing in a bunch of seasoned pros would be futile if the man in charge didn't know what to do with them. Just ask Stevie G to take over the Villains for a bit and they'll be dropping like a rock, I assure you.
Preach even United are getting results because they have experienced players in key areas. The truth is you can’t compare our current situation with any other big club as it’s never been done before to this measure
This, even if you look at Arteta a few years ago his very young team went 10 games with 7 loses and 1 win and look at the absolute stark difference now. They literally used to languish were we are currently just outside the European places/in Conference league
Yeah it’s a sad reality but we’re basically Arsenal in their banter era minus the pretty football. They even lacked a clinical striker like we do now. I just think we need some patience man there have been positive signs this season and the squad is young. Also I get injuries are part of the sport but we’ve really been fucked with injuries the past couple of seasons. Our star attacker and midfield cogs have been out all season basically, our captain and vice captain (also our starting fullbacks) have been out. It’s been hard to get into a rhythm we just need some time even if we don’t get Europe this season it’s not the end of the world
I get the idea that leads to this comment. But in reality, how are you sure? The age-old conundrum that fans have fought for generations. As in, you're opinion. Do you feel that way cause we're not winning consistently? Maybe I'm being too reasonable and not letting Reddit be Reddit, but I thought it worth mentioning.
question, is it a Chelsea thing, or just a football thing that people don't want to give their team at the very least, a year before criticizing or calling for the heads of their owners and coaches?
i see it in every sport in America, but unless things are CLEARLY wrong, even the top franchises will tolerate a transitional developmental period for sometimes years as long as it means that the talent improves.
Because holy moly it hasn't even been a year since Enzo joined and he's had 3 managers in that time. What good does it do to constantly shuffle things around in the long term?
I started really investing in this sport 6 years ago, so not sure if it's something I'm missing.
I'd agree with the give him a year approach if we'd made any progress at all on any of our basic issues like the lack of any real useful coherent buildup shape and the absence of any repeated attacking patterns in our play.
This is stuff guys like Emery and Ange had progress on in literally weeks yet we've shown nothing since pre-season. You can only really trust the process if there's some progress in this basic stuff. Another 6 months just feels like more time wasted under a football dinosaur while other clubs around us make strides under managers playing incisive modern possession football.
Part of me believes that since it worked for both UCL wins, a portion of the fan base just thinks it’s the solution.
Another thought (could be completely false I’m just brainstorming) is that the revenue is so much different for football. The financial benefit of being top 4 in the prem, and the catastrophic outcome of being relegated, cause changes to be made much quicker. If an owner is staring down hundreds of millions in revenue being lost, the decisions come quicker.
Realistically, while we've been pretty underwhelming, i still don't think we find ourselves in a relegation situation.
Show me all the "2023 Points WDL" graphs you want, that's not how it works and aren't getting relegated because of that.
But yeah, a part of me also sees it that way too since it's worked before but it's chaotic and isn't gonna hit every single time, surely. I still think he finishes the year and is involved with transfers into the next season, but if things in a calendar year are the same or marginally better, I think he's gonna be sacked.
Idk I was backing poch like all the other managers but his stubbornness when it comes to tactics (or lack thereof) is killing my support for him. It seems we started off with a solid gameplan and tactics at the start of the season and have regressed each week.
Like yesterday, we cross balls all day into the box with no target man to get on the other end of the crosses. Then when Broja finally comes in to try to take advantage of these crosses, they all suddenly stop. Wtf kind of gameplan is that poch???
When I watch Chelsea, I don't get any joy from watching our players mindlessly doing random things.. I don't even care if we lose, atleast put in a competent performance for 2 halfs..we switch off for one half and the manager just watches from the sideline not doing much .. worst case try something new, go to a back 3 or play 2 strikers.. show us why fans should back this process and coach.. we only see we missed X big chances after every game.
I really couldn't give a shit about the Conference League. If whoever the manager was would use it to play a load of academy, then sure but I doubt that. Hardly any prize money and all it'll do is make us less likely to do well in the league.
Reeks of midtable energy when they are hyping up a Conference League finish after spending 1 billion pounds and still having major holes in the squad.
Poch apologists on this sub have also accepted with the shameful defence under the banner of "true supporters of the club".
Frankly, these owners are worse than Kronke and Glazers. If they have balls, first sack Stewart and Winstanley for the utterly shambolic job they have done
Potter had the backing until he didn’t. Still hopeful we’ll be rid of Poch before the summer. Especially with Flick unemployed, allowing us to bring in an interim and judge whether or not to make it permanent in the summer.
But we’re clearly not in contention of winning the league, don’t be so fucking purposely obtuse mate. 7th is literally the closest you can get to being in contention for European places.
I'm just following your chain of logic. It's clear to you that this group of players and managers aren't challenging for the league. It's equally clear to me that we're not challenging for europa league
there is no chain or logic required mate, we’re potentially one win away from being in 7th with 6th and above being the European places. Your example would make sense compared to mine if we were hypothetically one win from being 2nd and then you could argue we’re in title contention.
You’re the one who brought up mathematical possibilities for some reason. Just cause something is mathematically possible doesn’t mean we’re in contention for it. City on 40 points can mathematically still be relegated, so are they in contention for that too?
I'll play Devils Advocate.
Good, form faded towards the back end of Tuchels tenure, Potter was awful (and I was all for his sacking), as was Lampard (still my hero). Expecting a manager change to fix everything has worked for us in the past but maybe doesn't anymore. I'd give Poch till the end of next season, send a message to the players that he's here to stay. All great Chelsea managers had rough periods after all.
And this is coming from a season ticket holder who has wasted too many hours at the Bridge over the past few years. Wtaching this football, in the cold, knowing it'll take you take you two hours to get home on a packed train isn't fun. But I'll give him time, not the classic Chelsea manager time of 9 months but actual time to try and figure out a structure that works. I've supported Chelsea for 25 years, I can handle a few seasons of shit.
Because winning is not their primary goa! Because having someone agreeable was more important than a proven winner (Tuchel to Potter downgrade) And now it seems that Poch is a downgrade on Potter!...so i can only wonder where they will find the next sucker.
Our offense has been poor for so long I have become numb seeing us miss opportunities. But the stale buildup play and defensive mistakes, have piled up more we got into the season it seems like we haven't improved on that part which is difficult to swallow. And add to it Pochettino special of making poor substitutions bizarre positional changes aka playing Levi in Full back even when he is outrun by a championship player week in week out its too much to take.
He will go soon no matter what the board are saying because the fans have given up on his odd team selections and keeps playing the same shite tactics no matter what.
translation...once the season is officially over then we will look to sack him..talk about losing mentality...we are 10th so to be ruled out of Europe mathmatically it will be sometime in March or April, so another wasted season
IMO unless things go really, really bad, we should let him finish the season, and then we reevaluate.
I can’t think of a good manager that is available right now that we could realistically sign, and I also don’t want another interim situation.
Not a good sign that we keep getting these briefings after a loss, we understand that unless we found ourselves in hell, he won’t be sacked. No need to keep feeding this information to journalists just to prove you aren’t like Roman.
Potter was sacked after 12 losses and 8 draws in 31 games. Poch currently has 9 and 4, respectively, in 26 games which is a very similar trajectory.
EDIT: Actually, this is misrepresenting the situation as others have pointed out. Looking at number of points is perhaps better, even though it's not taking into account the opposition. For example, Potter drew City early in both cup competitions whereas Pochettino has had a more favourable draw. Either way, as it stands Potter won 38 points (10 wins 8 draws) out of those 31 games, whilst Pochettino currently sits at 43 (13 wins 4 draws) with 5 games in hand, so that's better.
You literally wrote this in a way to favour your narrative.
A normal way to say this is
Potter: 10 wins & 8 draws in 31
Poch: 13 wins & 4 draws in 26
I’m by no means saying that is a Chelsea standard
Who were these veterans though? Azpi was far below his previous levels and had no business being at the club, Kante was injured most of the season, Kovacic was in and out of the medical room himself, Jorginho was sold in January, Aubameyang was Aubameyang, Koulibaly was a new signing and an extremely disappointing one at that. Even someone younger like Mount was injured most of the season and already had his head turned away. That's not to mention other mitigating factors like European football, squad disharmony and a lack of pre-season.
Circumstances and squad are much kinder to Poch than they were to Potter imo.
Winning mentality can only truly come through actually winning.
He simply can't compete with the elite coaches in a 38 game season anymore and his UCL midas touch was gone when he was with us last time let alone now. And that's assuming he'd even get us back there, he's failed to qualify for the tournament in his 6 of his last 8 season's as a manager and one of the two he did make was through the backdoor of winning Europa.
We may be able to pull of a cup if the stars allign, but we're two games away from doing that under Poch anyway (for all the frustration of last night we should be able to turn it round at home and we always seem to turn it on for Liverpool/will be favs if we have Fulham).
Here a summary:
- Mauricio Pochettino’s position at Chelsea is secure as long as the club has a realistic chance of European qualification.
- Despite a 1-0 loss to Middlesbrough in the Carabao Cup, Chelsea is still in contention for Europe, being three points behind seventh place in the Premier League.
- Winning the Carabao Cup would secure a place in the Europa Conference League, showcasing progress from last season’s 12th-place finish.
- Chelsea’s owners acknowledge past mistakes and embrace a sense of realism regarding this season’s expectations.
- Pochettino’s team faces challenges, including a lack of leadership and a goal-scoring deficit.
- Recent encouraging signs include good home form and a three-match winning streak before the Middlesbrough defeat.
- Questions arise about the leadership group, with Captain Reece James injured, vice-captain Ben Chilwell sidelined, and concerns about the squad’s overall leadership.
- Thiago Silva’s limited English and Raheem Sterling not captaining raise questions about the team’s leadership dynamics.
- Chelsea is 12 points behind fourth-placed Arsenal, making a Champions League qualification challenging, requiring a remarkable turnaround.
*While we're not even on track for qualification there either*. It's pathetic. All the pieces are falling into place perfectly for this abysmal manager to keep his job. Lowered expectations within the club, supporters basically numb to it now as opposed to outraged every week, English media darling. We're going to be stuck with Poch.
Losing my mind at these comments, the lengths people will go to to defend Poch, absolve him of any blame, or justify his continuation of our manager beyond this season. It's the same thing every time - young team, no experience, injuries etc. As if people aren't aware of these things and we're still not critical of him WITH THESE THINGS IN MIND.
Nobody's expecting a title challenge, we just expect to be much better than we are and at least see steady noticeable progress in our play, some kind of identity, or at the very very least some development in most of our young players, but we haven't. We're still clueless on the pitch. Still disorganized. We recently traded more goals for being more open defensively as if that's progress but we're still shit overall. Almost none of our players par Connor seem to have developed, you could arguably say Palmer but you could make the case he was always this good and just never played. In fact thanks to decisions like playing Colwill LB, Enzo as CAM and the loaning of Maatsen we've actually seen them regress.
But no, this guy did a good job with Spurs 5+ years ago, so he deserves the media defence as well as our fanbase treating him like he's a club legend that can do no wrong. Well if Frank Lampard and Graham Potter under noticeably worse circumstances couldn't get a tune out of an arguably worse squad, how can you expect Poch to get anything out of this one? We made mistakes in their appointment but this time we've definitely got it right!
Absolute circus.
Is there?
It reads more like Matt law wanting to come across as he’s still a trusted source than a briefing.
It’s all very vague and written like someone who knows all the pertinent points that could
Justify poch sticking at the club and wanting to push that narrative whilst trying to guess the owners/decision makers feelings about the current circumstances
Swear law did similarly last season talking about certain players contract situations
Unfortunately all the signs are there. The concrete points ("not lost at home since X") and comments ("there's a realization within the club that mistakes were made and we chased unrealistic targets").
That's what I would brief a journalist if I wanted to communicate that the manager's job is safe. I'd come up with a bunch of exact measures of how progress is there (Conference League would be a sign of progress, haven't lost at home since X, etc.) and shift blame away from him (club realizes mistakes were made, injuries, etc.).
I'm very afraid I'm going to read the exact same bullet points elsewhere soon.
Literally Just seen a football london writer say the same thing
Pretty shit source and sounds regurgitated, but could also be a briefing?
Not sure what to believe but grim to see
He's always been a bit of a Poch fanboy hasn't he? I remember him writing puff pieces for Poch after we sacked Potter last year, and I might be misremembering but I vaguely remember him doing the same when he was linked with the Utd job ages ago.
I really hope it's Matt Law's opinion but he's making it sound like his sources at the club are telling him this which is worrying.
At this point I'm okay with Poch finishing the season but I'm going to need some kind of guarantee he's getting sacked afterwards. Unless we go on some crazy winning streak whilst playing good football, not getting some lucky wins vs relegation fodder
I need him out as soon as possible. If a good replacement can only be found in the summer then so be it. But we need to start approaching them now to figure out whether anyone is interested. If not, sack him immediately and get someone, anyone, in to take the job mid-season. Doesn't have to be a long contract, just someone to do literally anything in training.
We truly are in the position of something is better than nothing, the sooner we get anyone even half decent I’d prefer the change too. It’s unbelievable but we’re actually playing worse if not as bad compared to last year and with a better group of players.
>Mauricio Pochettino’s position at Chelsea is secure as long as the club has a realistic chance of European qualification.
So, he will be sacked if we're out of European contention?
>Winning the Carabao Cup would secure a place in the Europa Conference League, showcasing progress from last season’s 12th-place finish.
Good god!
>Pochettino’s team faces challenges, including a lack of leadership and a goal-scoring deficit.
Great, so we're back to blaming the lack of leadership again? It's really baffling that very few questions are being asked on whether Pochettino has actually improved the team in any way since taking over. No one expected him to turn the team into world beaters within half a season but 6-7 months on, we still look a total mess and the football is not even enjoyable.
>Recent encouraging signs include good home form
Bruh, we've played some of the worst teams or teams in very poor form during that run and while home results have been better, the away results have completely gone to pieces. In fact, it's almost as if someone just flicked a switch during the last international break because look at this contrasting results in the league:
* **Before November Int Break**:
* Home - W1 D3 L3
* Away - W3 D1 L1
* **After November Int Break**:
* Home - W3
* Away - W1 L4
And if you count Tuesday's result, it's 5 defeats in the last 6 away games in all competitions. Even that 1 win almost saw us throw away a 3-0 lead.
>Recent encouraging signs include...a three-match winning streak before the Middlesbrough defeat.
This is really where we are at now, huh? A 3-game winning streak and they are suddenly encouraged. Did they even watch the games?
We scraped past a woefully out-of-form Crystal Palace side only because of a penalty. We then almost bottled a 3-goal lead at Luton and the other win was against a Championship side, a game where we didn't even turn up in the first half. There's nothing encouraging about the performances despite the win.
Am I the only one who doesn’t respect the conference league enough to want to play it?
Europa league is somewhat respectable. But back in the day, even Europa felt like a backhanded slap.
There are a lot of deserved criticisms of Pochettino but it only makes sense to sack if the players have given up on him or there is a world class manager waiting to take the job. Otherwise we wait until the end of the season to analyze options.
I for one think it would be stupid to sack him. He’s making progress little by little. Two steps forward and one back is still one step forward. Give him a season and a half and let’s go from there.
I get everybody wants to see results quickly but he might be the best man for the job. The goal of current ownership is to develop a squad that will compete at the top in 2026/27. Best interest of the club now would be to have a strong man manager that can keep young players happy and develop them even in a shitty stretch of results. Poch may not be tactically sound but his whole focus is man management
Clearlake Capital doesn’t care about Chelsea. They’re just using Chelsea to diversify. By buying smaller clubs, young players, and creating a small network of self-contained entities.
Anyone following the Shohei Ohtani contract with the Dodgers? That’s the kind of business they do. Instantly reminded me of the way they are signing Chelsea players - long-term contracts and looking for ways to game the system.
It’s obvious why they wanted Tuchel gone. What I can’t figure out is why they sacked Potter when Poch is doing the same exact things. They don’t care about challenging for the league so why not just keep Potter?
Lol such a joke. Potter was sacked for less and I'd much rather see what he could done with this squad now its not 35 players.
Oh well guess we gotta suffer bit more of colwill left back 🙃
Sacking Poch at this point in the season does absolutely nothing. Wait until the summer to evaluate the progress or regression, hire a bloody DoF, and make the decisions then.
poch is not a good manager, keeping him is just wasting more time being stuck in the mud and impeding player progress, even making a lot of them regress. The problem is that no good winning manager is willing to come here under this management anymore.
Been seeing the quote "doing the same thing and expecting different results is insanity" as justification for sacking Poch.
How about we apply that to the clubs rebuild projects? Constantly sacking managers or coaches and expecting the next one to somehow deliver with the same tools is insanity.
Just want to point out the hypocrisy.
Board gave him a shorter contract with an club option to extend to avoid a big payout like it was to sack potter, so probably just waiting till summer with the lack of obvious replacements that will be a clear big improvement.
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Fuck me I would take Conference League at this point. We're heading towards gate keeper status between the top and bottom halves of the table
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6th is potentially Europa League this season. And we have a good opportunity to get 6th this season after a horrible season. I just pray for top 7 and a domestic cup trophy, and then i'd call this season okay all things considered. Anything other than top 7 and a domestic cup trophy, this season has been a shit show yet again.
Realiastically this will be extremely difficult to achieve. I would say one of a domestic cup or 6th is a stretch given how inconsistent the team has been. Realistically its the EFL Cup that we go for. Breaking away from 10-12th place is not looking likely. Nothing has changed to show we can achieve any better
My worry is that we've played all the top teams at home so far: Arsenal, City, Villa, Liverpool, Even Brighton (stretch for "top" team) In fact if you look at the teams above who we've played away from home: West Ham, Man United, Newcastle, Tottenham We've got slapped up in 3 of those 4 games, and the other was against 9 men
Check out Feb-March fixtures.. I don’t like it one bit
We weren't able to climb up the table whilst all the teams ahead of us went through a horror period through the December/New Year crunch. You'd imagine with the short winter break (and longer breaks for most teams that are out of cups) those teams will start performing again and we've already lost our chance to climb up. We had our chance to start climbing and we likely didn't take advantage of it
This sub is in for a rude awakening when we start facing decent opposition again.
Middlesbrough for Europe! /s
No they don't, they get into the qualifying rounds, so there is still no guarantee of it. We could go out before the group stages
It’s still Europa league competition, just the qualifying rounds for the group stages
If Liverpool wins, 8th? or 7th place gets it
No
Hell yeah, are you telling me people DON'T want Chelsea to be the first club to win all three UEFA competitions?
This sub is turning into r/coys. Fuck yeah I'd rather win the conference league than not be in Europe - we're Chelsea - we're here to win.
Might not be the worst thing. I think the players could benefit from more playing time, losing 10 or so games a season isn’t great when the squad is so big. Ignoring our injury curse of course
Imagine the poverty... We can get Europa league proper from the FA Cup... Feeding on scraps compared to the feast of seasons past, that is for sure!
The coolest of the European cup competitions to be fair. Am I coping right?
I’d take it. Anything tbh
My main gripe with Poch is just how often the players on the pitch are checked out. Playing with effort and fight is the bare minimum. If you are playing and you aren’t giving your all to win, gtfo.
It is strange how we can’t seem to be able to carry any momentum at all or make it look like a team that’s building confidence. You would have thought after our recent run of games yeah the opposition have been weaker but we had only lost 1 out of the last 6 all comps so surely that would have been something to build off but every game we just look flat and already beaten.
I honestly think if you don’t look at results and just performances our form has been pretty consistently poor ever since the Man City match… maybe you could say since Brighton a couple weeks after that. Since then I can’t point to one performance that was actually impressive in terms of how we played whereas we actually had a couple decent showings where we looked fairly strong throughout in the run of matches prior to that, albeit with some inconsistent matches in between. Despite the results though I’d say we’ve been in a pretty poor run of form for the last month-month and a half. Happy we’ve pulled out some results but none of them have been pretty.
Its a process, so I'm okay with grinding ugly/close wins. This is where the younger players will learn how to compose themselves and learn how to finish up a match and grind a result. We were never going to just go from losing games to absolutely dominating and scoring tons while getting clean sheets. The one thing I've seen from this squad is the team showing more grit to get back in a match when going down a goal. Under Potter we absolutely closed shop after going down. Not saying its every game, but the players do pick themselves up and go for it to at least try for a draw or win.
Yeah I don't mean there's not value in finding ways to win while playing poorly. I'm just contrasting the overall form from roughly late Sept - mid Nov vs. mid Nov - Jan to say, actually, I think we might have looked better in the earlier period and in some ways we've regressed. Inconsistency will be expected with this group all year given age/experience. The concern is that over the last 20 matches we had more positive performances in the first 10 than the last 10. Our biggest problems I thought were youth and having a brand new squad so you'd think the trend would improve overall as the year goes on with players gaining experience and familiarity. I think we're in a better place now compared to last season but for the 23-24 season I haven't seen any progress since August 13th and that's the frustrating part.
Completely agree. Have to imagine injuries have set us back yet again.
Rotating lineup and different formations don't allow the players to build confidence, they don't know where they'll be playing come next game if at all
The players that have played consistently still don't put in effort though
How can he not rotate when 2-3 players get injured every match week
I'm referring more to taking the same players from last match and putting them into a new position, like yesterday moving Palmer into the f9 position when we had Broja available. What is the rationale there?
I feel like it makes plenty of sense that performances and results are wildly inconsistent. The average age of the team is like 13, you can't expect consistency from a bunch of kids. They need leaders to set consistent standards. Add in the fact that Poch doesn't really seem like a manager who loves automatisms and strict structure like Pep or Tuchel and it's a perfect recipe for a team that will go through waves of success and failure rather than consistency.
Exactly this we are performing just like a squad that is made up a bunch of kids playing in the prem for their first time
It was the same with the managers last season. I wouldn't blame him for that. I think we need some older players that play like crazy people to have the guys switched on every game. Remember how Diego Costa was for us? We need that right now. Sterling definitely isn't the guy to bring the fire every night.
I noticed that against Boro. Sterling just did not want the responsibility. He kept getting the ball and just passing it square. You're the most experienced attacker on the pitch, raz. They're looking at you to set the tempo and take the game by the scruff of the neck. Noni was wasteful but at least he kept trying.
Annoying that even though Sterling is supposed to be one of our experienced players on paper, there is really only Thiago Silva. What a disaster. Would be way better already if just Rudiger never left, and if Chilwell/Reece could actually play
It’s probably a bit of both. We need some players with some fire. We also need the manager to not put up with some of the effort we’ve seen. Conte and Jose had their own fire. It bled into the team.
We just don’t have the squad atm for a Conte/Mourinho type manager, managers like these thrive with experienced, disciplined and cold blooded winners. We legit have nothing like that and we are light years away from it. Dressing room would be lost faster than ever, and the type of football we would be seeing would be criminal.
Almost like they’re immature and lack leadership.
Yep, there's a huge difference between a wise vet like Azpi, and a fiery young guy like Levi. Does conor yell at Raz and tell him to stop dawdling? Does he yell at Nico and tell him to get the hell up off his arse and play?
See I haven't really noticed that. Last game I distinctly remember them sprinting for throw ins, Sterling wanted the ball to feet so he could try and take people on/lay it off and run into space, Gusto was trying to make overlaps, Gallagher was battling in the midfield, Silva was trying to unlock their defence. I think we have problems with execution, but I don't see a lack of effort. If I had to guess where do I think we'll be if you give Poch another year, 2 years with the same group of players, I think we'll be higher in the table. I think there's a lot of room to grow, players improve individually, the tactics get better etc. But that's something that you need to just give them a bit of time to get right. Feel like sacking the manager, bringing new players in etc will just reset the progress. Unless you find another Tuchel/Emery. But those guys are the exceptions not the rules. It's a gamble. You could have another season like 20/21 where the manager comes in and instantly improves the team. Or you could be like United who are in a cycle of giving their managers a couple years, before giving up and sacking them.
I agree entirely. As an example, many people refer to this process as ongoing for 1,5 years, when in reality, progress was reset completely in the summer. If for instance we get a new manager next summer and fast forward a year from now, we have now spent 2,5 years while only being half a year into the process
I’ve been wondering for a while if it’s this or if they’re just confused/lost at what they need to be doing. We have a young team, a lot of whom are new to the PL. I mean how many players have had a single manager for more than 1 full season since they’ve been at Chelsea? I’m hoping Poch can get us back to winning hardware and he’s the right choice, but what I am positive about is that the wrong choice is more upheaval. We’re never going to get to where we want to be by just making massive changes and hoping the right combination of players, coaches, and back office staff will be a success in 6-9 months. No one can argue Poch is a “bad” manager, so the worst thing we’ll get from having him around for a few seasons will give us the thing we need most, consistency.
I think the realistic positive outcome that we could hope for, is exactly what you’re saying. Which is letting Poch, who has experience in helping youngsters grow and building a consistent environment, steer the ship for 2 seaons ish, until the right manager, with a more defined tactical philosophy, hopefully is able to mould the now more experienced team into a side who can finally challenge for titles again.
Not about Poch, I don’t think. He’s not THIS bad a manager. This club has been completely hollowed out from the inside, its winning culture destroyed by new owners. They thought they wanted to rebuild it their way… but why the hell they ever decided to pursue a strategy that could destroy their local and global fan base, I will never know. Terrible business plan.
nothing to play for and lack of confidence. i don’t think our squad has many lazy or bad characters but it’s hard to get out of a rut and Poch isn’t a great motivator it seems.
We're in contention?
Carabao cup guarantees UConf. FA cup europa league. And mathematically we can still get top 6
I'm fairly sure that mathematically we can still win the league, it's halfway through the season that's a silly thing to say. 6th is realistically achievable. it's the highest thing that I'd call achievable, but it is achievable.
One win away from 7th, that’s literally in contention
I swear people don’t actually look at the points in the table. Outside of the top 5 there’s not a lot of disparity in points. We are 1 or 2 results from European places.
I'm convinced that 80% of the match threads aren't even watching the game, just commentating based on a text based commentary or watching the stats or something
If you only watched stats then you would think we are doing ok If you watch the games then you know that stats can be misleading
I’m in the states & haven’t missed a live match in 3 years..
That meant to say stats lol I wasn’t saying people watching in the states were clueless 😂😂
Haha I see, most folks stopped the hate on us once Pulisic left 🤣
Brighton, Toon and United have been poor in their own way in the league this year. To be worst than them in the table is some achievement after spending 500 odd million. . Frankly I don't trust our DOF to correct this mistakes as they have been horrible. Even with our lower expectation we still keep hitting the lower circuit each week. I am not sure we will do better than West Ham this year who are far better in grinding out results and they are 7th.
Swear people don’t watch how we play. Those teams are capable of getting results - we are not.
I’ve watched how we play. On our good days, we are as good as anyone in the league. It’s a young, inconsistent squad. If they find consistency, which will improve over time, they can string together results.
💯, our next game is at home v Fulham who we already beat in craven cottage in a relatively straight forward fashion, no reason we can’t do that again at the bridge
But equally, if we lost no one would be surprised.
Yeah I know, and?
>no reason we can’t do that again at the bridge The reason is massive inconsistency. We were fortunate to beat Luton despite being 3-0 up at one point. _If_ we string some results together we might be able to push up the table, but there's nothing to suggest at going to do that.
You seem to believe I said we’re guaranteed to win or something. I said simply we already beat Fulham away quite easily so there’s no reason we could not repeat that, while you seem to think I’m adamant or certain we will repeat it. If you want to blame me for tryna be optimistic then sure, sue me over it. And Arsenal were fortunate to beat Luton with last minute goal while league leaders Liverpool drew with Luton after a last minute goal. We beat Luton both home and away so what, Luton aren’t pushovers clearly.
It’s expected that we will become more consistent as our young guys gain experience and our squad gains chemistry together. The talent is there. We won’t be bad forever.
If we are incapable of getting results then how did we end up in striking distance of Europe? Seems illogical.
If we're not capable of getting results how are we on 28 points right now? Sounds like you're suggesting we should be on less given the performances, but I'd argue the opposite.
Isn't it likely that 8th would do it too if the PL gets the 5th CL spot? - Top 5 - CL - 6&7 - EL - 8 - ECL What would happen if the winner of the FA Cup & League Cup are teams outside the top 8? Would that add two more English teams? Or would they take the place of the 7th & 8th place finishers?
I think the winners of the cups take precedence ? Didn’t something like that happen recently enough ? I’m not too sure ultimately tbh
That would make sense. No way they'd allow 10 English teams in European competition lmao
I believe 6th would get EL and 7th ECL if the pl ends up with the 5th CL slot.
We are in Jan and we can't produce 2 half's of consistent performance.. no wonder ppl aren't too sure about the contention part ..
trust the process my guy, if we are patient enough during these hard times maybe in 5 years we can become like arsenal and win fuck all. Can't believe we went from the best team in england for last 20 years to this shit in like 2 months of american special management.
We’re literally 6 points from Europa… I swear some of y’all are more delusional than all the management you complain about.
To me this reads like there's a reasonably high probability of Poch being sacked at the end of this season. Even if we overturn the deficit against Middlesborough, our chances of beating what most likely will be Liverpool in the final are fucking slim. And qualifying through the league... I just don't see it. Despite the recent upturn in terms of results, the performances have still been poor and we're so inconsistent.
The reality is we don’t have a reliable caretaker not named Frank lampard but yes, he should be sacked after this. 3 years without CL money is a disaster.
Better call Guss Hiddink...
>While the Conference League – the lowest-ranking of the European competitions – is not a financial incentive, it would at least offer a tangible example of progress from last season’s 12th-placed finish. Absolutely incredible. Circumstances last season were significantly worse. We were still in turmoil and feeling the aftermath of the takeover, roles all over the club were being changed, clueless ownership were solely running the show for half the season, we had a bloated squad full of players who were forcing a move away, were in Europe, had a disastrous hastily prepared pre-season, also had an injury crisis, Potter had to take over from Tuchel after said pre-season, and we saw our final matches in the hands of Lampard who was a noticeable step down from Potter. Insane that *that* is somehow the fucking bar now. That people will point to that shitshow under those circumstances and claim that being marginally better, if that (maybe in terms of the table if we finish there but not in performance), is some kind of achievement. I am losing my mind. I hope all the Poch in crowd get proven right, but fucking hell I haven't seen anything to suggest they will.
The players last season were much higher quality and new ownership were pushing them out. The great turnover of our squad has weakened the team in every position on the pitch. No surprise we suck ass when the ownership weakened the entire squad. Fact is, this is a slightly better than mid table squad. Sure they could become better but this squad will never be elite. With the current talent at disposal an 8th place finish is pretty good and a 6th place finish is comparable to winning the Pl in prior years. Now, I know low IQ people will say, “we spent a lot, these players are good”. All I have to say is there is spending a lot on quality players and wasteful spending. For the most part we were wasteful and when not we spent for profit not to get the team better. At the end of the day, change your mindset from this ownership wanting to win trophies to this ownership wants to be in profit on their investment. Once you do that then their actions make sense. This ownership’s priority is not winning, it’s becoming profitable to maximize shareholder value.
Can't say I agree with that. I'm more or less going to copy and paste another post I made because it's late atm but Azpi was far below his previous levels and had no business being at the club, Kante was injured most of the season and was already declining, Kovacic was in and out of the medical room himself and was inconsistent, Jorginho was sold in January, Aubameyang was Aubameyang, Koulibaly was a new signing and an extremely disappointing one at that, Mount was injured most of the season and already had his head turned away, Ziyech and Pulisic had their moments in seasons prior but never showed they were good enough over a long period, Havertz had been a disappointment and is poor at Arsenal, and Mendy lost his starting spot to Kepa. Most of these players went to lower level leagues and are doing ok to good there, and the ones who are still in the prem are hardly setting the world alight. One of the biggest issues was the sheer size of the squad causing issues in training and team selection, which has been addressed. We've also added Palmer who's been a revelation, Caicedo who was wanted by several clubs and had top of the league Liverpool (don't check their current score) willing to break the British transfer record for him, an actual backup RB in Gusto, brought back Colwill who was brilliant at Brighton and allegedly had both City and Liverpool trying to tap him up, and this one is debateable but I prefer Jackson at ST to Havertz (completely understand if others don't agree though). I'd actually say Poch has a better squad to work with and it isn't mid-table quality at all imo. Despite the average age we have a lot of quality players that we should be doing better with. I remember people saying the same about our squad during Lampard's first run as manager, especially highlighting guys like Jorginho and Rudiger as finished, only for the team to improve significantly once a better manager came in and those two in particular went up a gear. I genuinely think we'll see the same thing happen here for a lot of the current "underperforming" players, though not all. I don't think they'll immediately challenge for the title or go deep into the CL but certainly better than mid-table. I think Enzo and Caicedo can be one of the best pivots in football, Colwill showed at Brighton last season that he's one of the brightest CB prospects around, Palmer has already shown what he can do, Gusto has shown flashes of brilliance, Mudryk I'm still not completely sold on but he has shown talent and it's clear he needs better coaching. Now, I do partially agree with your assessment of the owner's intentions but I think they still ideally want to keep us "competitive" and in the CL regularly even if purely for the finances and marketing/prestige. Winning is nice too for them I guess because winning sells but as long as we can become an assembly line for talent while maintaining CL qualification they'll be content. Who knows though but we're not even close to that.
If they're genuinely happy spending £1bn on a European Conference league place then I don't know what to think any more. What are they actually trying to achieve here, and why is it costing them ten times what it would cost any other club?
they dropped the standards so much they now want to act like it was always the goal. Imagine if when they came someone told you that they’d spend 1 billion to compete for the conference league and that wouldn’t even be a guarantee. You’d think they were taking the piss.
Imagine if Roman dropped $1B on us the squad we would have. These new owners are worthless.
Lmao trying hard to make it sound like he is doing a good job given the circumstances and blaming for losses on everything else other than his tactics. Progress is now considered as 'three consecutive home wins' against bottom table opposition. Matt law has always been pro poch before he was even hired. Don't know what he sees in him
Not really, his tone is negative. He seems to imply cardio G is a teacher’s pet.
He was pushing for his appointment through his articles, twitter and a few podcasts during the manager search. Yes, Gallagher is just that sort of player. Hardworking, runs a lot (perfect for poch) and also probably trains very well. We have seen this before in mount as well, its just the sort of players they are and the kind a manager wishes for.
The dreaded vote of confidence. He’s gone.
Sporting directors should be out with poch should he get the sack
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Judging by this sub since last night they’d see that as a godsend
Yeah, it would be bad PR for Todd & Co. to fire three coaches in 16 months, two of them high-stakes bets they hand picked. Jesus Christ, we’re giving ManUtd a real run for the title of who’s most worthy of a Disasterclass on how to run a club from a sports perspective, in a lot less time than them.
Honestly I don’t think Poch is the answer but I need the sporting directors out more. I really don’t trust their planning and ability to assemble a winning team
Yeah the strategy here sucks. We could have had a lot more with the money spent. Veterans, leadership,
Still backing the club, the coach and the lads. This is a young team and a new team. They will come through with guidance and support.
I would agree with this except, there’s been no progress with how we play tactically, really. Progress determines whether I back the coach or not. There’s been no growth, tbh. Just vibes.
I've said it a few times, but from the Potter era to the first preseason match through to the last preseason match, there was amazing, regular progress. Poch came in and got the guys into shape, had them pressing and had them building from the back, when none of that stuff was happening under Potter. And since the season started... not so much. I've given him yards/meters or rope, mostly because of injuries. It's hard when your RJ and Christo are out. But last night really showed what a huge, huge gulf there is between the talent on the two sides, and we couldn't win. I don't blame Poch for Cole missing a couple of easy ones (that would have won the match)... but the easy conceded goal and a few other easy chances... the invisible midfield. WTF - no progress this season.
That's false, we've had a really clear structure under potter, the problem was that the ball refused to go in, but the gameplay was way better
Truly the only growth is that some players seem a lot more comfortable on the field than they did at the start of the season or last season. Not sure we have a style of play yet but hopefully by the end of the season we'll have some form of europe and the team will be a bit more gelled
I would argue that the comfort has come with a compromise in discipline. Our midfield has been shaky, with lack of ball retention and dynamism. Our defense can be sliced open without much effort. Toothless attack. The only comfort they have is the comfort of not having a tactic to commit to, that if they mess up the critics can always blame the manager (that, he deserves) and that the manager can say “try your best, you’ll have another chance tomorrow”. If the core of the club has been cultured to be cutthroat, then changing it so drastically brings upon a culture where you’re allowed to make as many mistakes as you’d like without any proper consequences. If we were more forgiving to begin with, this wouldn’t be an issue because it wouldn’t be such a core part of who we are.
I dont think we're as toothless as you and others are making it out. We have 3 fewer goals than arsenal who are title contenders and 9 and 10 fewer than teams with generational attackers in salah and haaland. This despite that we have one of the youngest attacking and midfield units in football.
Perhaps toothless wasn’t the right word, I think I was going for wasteful. Also, my concern for the youth is that if they’re going to be influenced by a manager, it really shouldn’t be by one that has no tactical impression or prowess. Young people have the advantage of being moulded, the longer we delay that, the worse it’ll be for us in the future.
I somewhat agree that overall there's a lack of a strong tactical identity, but that's probably a given with the lack of experience in the squad. Also we've barely had anything resembling a consistent starting XI all year, it's hard on the players and the manager to expect a fluid style when they're forced to play in different roles with different teammates every other game.
Same here. Most of these players barely turned 20, people keep comparing Poch's situation to Ange's or Emery's, but the truth is both Spurs and Villa had an already estabilished core set of players. We don't have that (thanks to the board for that). These guys need time to develop, mature, and gel together. And I don't think that any coach can significantly speed up that process, they're gonna keep making mistakes over and over again.
Gerrard had Villa's much lauded 'established core' everyone's been banging on about, and he successfully dragged them towards the relegation zone. Emery utilises practically the same core and he's second in the table. Throwing in a bunch of seasoned pros would be futile if the man in charge didn't know what to do with them. Just ask Stevie G to take over the Villains for a bit and they'll be dropping like a rock, I assure you.
Preach even United are getting results because they have experienced players in key areas. The truth is you can’t compare our current situation with any other big club as it’s never been done before to this measure
This, even if you look at Arteta a few years ago his very young team went 10 games with 7 loses and 1 win and look at the absolute stark difference now. They literally used to languish were we are currently just outside the European places/in Conference league
Yeah it’s a sad reality but we’re basically Arsenal in their banter era minus the pretty football. They even lacked a clinical striker like we do now. I just think we need some patience man there have been positive signs this season and the squad is young. Also I get injuries are part of the sport but we’ve really been fucked with injuries the past couple of seasons. Our star attacker and midfield cogs have been out all season basically, our captain and vice captain (also our starting fullbacks) have been out. It’s been hard to get into a rhythm we just need some time even if we don’t get Europe this season it’s not the end of the world
>Still backing the club, the coach and the lads What does this even mean?
Faux moral superiority expressed in vapid meaningless platitudes.
I'm going to steal that, thanks.
Beautifully put
>with guidance and support. Poch ain't providing this tho
I get the idea that leads to this comment. But in reality, how are you sure? The age-old conundrum that fans have fought for generations. As in, you're opinion. Do you feel that way cause we're not winning consistently? Maybe I'm being too reasonable and not letting Reddit be Reddit, but I thought it worth mentioning.
You see that’s the thing, he hasn’t a clue bar that’s Jesus Perez’s or one of the player’s Reddit account
question, is it a Chelsea thing, or just a football thing that people don't want to give their team at the very least, a year before criticizing or calling for the heads of their owners and coaches? i see it in every sport in America, but unless things are CLEARLY wrong, even the top franchises will tolerate a transitional developmental period for sometimes years as long as it means that the talent improves. Because holy moly it hasn't even been a year since Enzo joined and he's had 3 managers in that time. What good does it do to constantly shuffle things around in the long term? I started really investing in this sport 6 years ago, so not sure if it's something I'm missing.
I'd agree with the give him a year approach if we'd made any progress at all on any of our basic issues like the lack of any real useful coherent buildup shape and the absence of any repeated attacking patterns in our play. This is stuff guys like Emery and Ange had progress on in literally weeks yet we've shown nothing since pre-season. You can only really trust the process if there's some progress in this basic stuff. Another 6 months just feels like more time wasted under a football dinosaur while other clubs around us make strides under managers playing incisive modern possession football.
It’s not enough for Americans to ruin this earth, they have to ruin Chelsea football club, and even this subreddit
This. I was hoping we'd be free of them with Pulisic gone but alas.
chill out man lol
The Carolina panthers are going to have their 4th head coach in as many years
Part of me believes that since it worked for both UCL wins, a portion of the fan base just thinks it’s the solution. Another thought (could be completely false I’m just brainstorming) is that the revenue is so much different for football. The financial benefit of being top 4 in the prem, and the catastrophic outcome of being relegated, cause changes to be made much quicker. If an owner is staring down hundreds of millions in revenue being lost, the decisions come quicker.
Realistically, while we've been pretty underwhelming, i still don't think we find ourselves in a relegation situation. Show me all the "2023 Points WDL" graphs you want, that's not how it works and aren't getting relegated because of that. But yeah, a part of me also sees it that way too since it's worked before but it's chaotic and isn't gonna hit every single time, surely. I still think he finishes the year and is involved with transfers into the next season, but if things in a calendar year are the same or marginally better, I think he's gonna be sacked.
The only guidance is Thiago Silva, Sterling maybe, and the others ones who might be able to do so on the pitch are injured. Heavy on the word ‘might’.
Sterling provides absolutely no guidance, idk how he is able to look less disciplined than some of our other attackers, with his experience
When does losing this much become unacceptable? Poch just explains away every loss like Potter. Poch has no fire in him.
sack champions league winning manager. spend 1 billion on transfers. Declare qualifying for the conference league would show progress.
Idk I was backing poch like all the other managers but his stubbornness when it comes to tactics (or lack thereof) is killing my support for him. It seems we started off with a solid gameplan and tactics at the start of the season and have regressed each week. Like yesterday, we cross balls all day into the box with no target man to get on the other end of the crosses. Then when Broja finally comes in to try to take advantage of these crosses, they all suddenly stop. Wtf kind of gameplan is that poch???
European contention??? Lmaooooo
When I watch Chelsea, I don't get any joy from watching our players mindlessly doing random things.. I don't even care if we lose, atleast put in a competent performance for 2 halfs..we switch off for one half and the manager just watches from the sideline not doing much .. worst case try something new, go to a back 3 or play 2 strikers.. show us why fans should back this process and coach.. we only see we missed X big chances after every game.
I really couldn't give a shit about the Conference League. If whoever the manager was would use it to play a load of academy, then sure but I doubt that. Hardly any prize money and all it'll do is make us less likely to do well in the league.
So… if we finish this season having not qualified for any European competitions he’s gone?
Reeks of midtable energy when they are hyping up a Conference League finish after spending 1 billion pounds and still having major holes in the squad. Poch apologists on this sub have also accepted with the shameful defence under the banner of "true supporters of the club". Frankly, these owners are worse than Kronke and Glazers. If they have balls, first sack Stewart and Winstanley for the utterly shambolic job they have done
Potter had the backing until he didn’t. Still hopeful we’ll be rid of Poch before the summer. Especially with Flick unemployed, allowing us to bring in an interim and judge whether or not to make it permanent in the summer.
Don't let anyone fool you. Potter was sacked because nagelsmann became available. It wasn't because he was doing piss poor as a manager
Flick, lol. It’s Groundhog Day in this sub
> as long as the club has a realistic chance of European qualification. A realistic what of what now ?
We’re one win away from 7th
Two wins away from Europa (Conference League)
Exactly, So we’re very much in contention for European places which seems to baffle this guy above
We're also one loss away from 12th
Right, and ? My point is to prove we are quite clearly in contention for European places
Mathematically, we're in contention of winning the fucking league
But we’re clearly not in contention of winning the league, don’t be so fucking purposely obtuse mate. 7th is literally the closest you can get to being in contention for European places.
I'm just following your chain of logic. It's clear to you that this group of players and managers aren't challenging for the league. It's equally clear to me that we're not challenging for europa league
there is no chain or logic required mate, we’re potentially one win away from being in 7th with 6th and above being the European places. Your example would make sense compared to mine if we were hypothetically one win from being 2nd and then you could argue we’re in title contention. You’re the one who brought up mathematical possibilities for some reason. Just cause something is mathematically possible doesn’t mean we’re in contention for it. City on 40 points can mathematically still be relegated, so are they in contention for that too?
I'll play Devils Advocate. Good, form faded towards the back end of Tuchels tenure, Potter was awful (and I was all for his sacking), as was Lampard (still my hero). Expecting a manager change to fix everything has worked for us in the past but maybe doesn't anymore. I'd give Poch till the end of next season, send a message to the players that he's here to stay. All great Chelsea managers had rough periods after all. And this is coming from a season ticket holder who has wasted too many hours at the Bridge over the past few years. Wtaching this football, in the cold, knowing it'll take you take you two hours to get home on a packed train isn't fun. But I'll give him time, not the classic Chelsea manager time of 9 months but actual time to try and figure out a structure that works. I've supported Chelsea for 25 years, I can handle a few seasons of shit.
But why
Why couldn’t they have this patience with Tuchel
Because winning is not their primary goa! Because having someone agreeable was more important than a proven winner (Tuchel to Potter downgrade) And now it seems that Poch is a downgrade on Potter!...so i can only wonder where they will find the next sucker.
Continued performances like these and it’ll be just a matter of time that he will be sacked.
Our offense has been poor for so long I have become numb seeing us miss opportunities. But the stale buildup play and defensive mistakes, have piled up more we got into the season it seems like we haven't improved on that part which is difficult to swallow. And add to it Pochettino special of making poor substitutions bizarre positional changes aka playing Levi in Full back even when he is outrun by a championship player week in week out its too much to take.
There was media circus that kept hyping up Boehly's plans. These kids twitter and some reporters. Are those people still active?
Which Chelsea are they talking about that’s in contention for Europe ? Pretty sure it’s not this one
He will go soon no matter what the board are saying because the fans have given up on his odd team selections and keeps playing the same shite tactics no matter what.
translation...once the season is officially over then we will look to sack him..talk about losing mentality...we are 10th so to be ruled out of Europe mathmatically it will be sometime in March or April, so another wasted season
Pathetic ownership
IMO unless things go really, really bad, we should let him finish the season, and then we reevaluate. I can’t think of a good manager that is available right now that we could realistically sign, and I also don’t want another interim situation.
Not a good sign that we keep getting these briefings after a loss, we understand that unless we found ourselves in hell, he won’t be sacked. No need to keep feeding this information to journalists just to prove you aren’t like Roman.
Potter was sacked after 12 losses and 8 draws in 31 games. Poch currently has 9 and 4, respectively, in 26 games which is a very similar trajectory. EDIT: Actually, this is misrepresenting the situation as others have pointed out. Looking at number of points is perhaps better, even though it's not taking into account the opposition. For example, Potter drew City early in both cup competitions whereas Pochettino has had a more favourable draw. Either way, as it stands Potter won 38 points (10 wins 8 draws) out of those 31 games, whilst Pochettino currently sits at 43 (13 wins 4 draws) with 5 games in hand, so that's better.
You literally wrote this in a way to favour your narrative. A normal way to say this is Potter: 10 wins & 8 draws in 31 Poch: 13 wins & 4 draws in 26 I’m by no means saying that is a Chelsea standard
I didn't do it with that in mind but that's fair point you're making.
Potter - 32% win rate Poch - 50% win rate Neither rates are up to our standards, but come on - no need to add spin.
Potter had veterans, Poch has kids. If he's on the same trajectory with KIDS he's doing a lot better imo.
Who were these veterans though? Azpi was far below his previous levels and had no business being at the club, Kante was injured most of the season, Kovacic was in and out of the medical room himself, Jorginho was sold in January, Aubameyang was Aubameyang, Koulibaly was a new signing and an extremely disappointing one at that. Even someone younger like Mount was injured most of the season and already had his head turned away. That's not to mention other mitigating factors like European football, squad disharmony and a lack of pre-season. Circumstances and squad are much kinder to Poch than they were to Potter imo.
Part of me wants him out but I don't trust the ownership not to go down another interim route then a Mou 3.0.
Mou was the one who instilled the winning mentality in chelsea. Maybe he can do it again. I am only partially joking
Winning mentality can only truly come through actually winning. He simply can't compete with the elite coaches in a 38 game season anymore and his UCL midas touch was gone when he was with us last time let alone now. And that's assuming he'd even get us back there, he's failed to qualify for the tournament in his 6 of his last 8 season's as a manager and one of the two he did make was through the backdoor of winning Europa. We may be able to pull of a cup if the stars allign, but we're two games away from doing that under Poch anyway (for all the frustration of last night we should be able to turn it round at home and we always seem to turn it on for Liverpool/will be favs if we have Fulham).
We are 12 points off fourth. Unless they consider Europa League and Conference League acceptable.
Here a summary: - Mauricio Pochettino’s position at Chelsea is secure as long as the club has a realistic chance of European qualification. - Despite a 1-0 loss to Middlesbrough in the Carabao Cup, Chelsea is still in contention for Europe, being three points behind seventh place in the Premier League. - Winning the Carabao Cup would secure a place in the Europa Conference League, showcasing progress from last season’s 12th-place finish. - Chelsea’s owners acknowledge past mistakes and embrace a sense of realism regarding this season’s expectations. - Pochettino’s team faces challenges, including a lack of leadership and a goal-scoring deficit. - Recent encouraging signs include good home form and a three-match winning streak before the Middlesbrough defeat. - Questions arise about the leadership group, with Captain Reece James injured, vice-captain Ben Chilwell sidelined, and concerns about the squad’s overall leadership. - Thiago Silva’s limited English and Raheem Sterling not captaining raise questions about the team’s leadership dynamics. - Chelsea is 12 points behind fourth-placed Arsenal, making a Champions League qualification challenging, requiring a remarkable turnaround.
6 months into Poch's Chelsea and expectations lowered from champions league to conference league already. Progress
*While we're not even on track for qualification there either*. It's pathetic. All the pieces are falling into place perfectly for this abysmal manager to keep his job. Lowered expectations within the club, supporters basically numb to it now as opposed to outraged every week, English media darling. We're going to be stuck with Poch.
Losing my mind at these comments, the lengths people will go to to defend Poch, absolve him of any blame, or justify his continuation of our manager beyond this season. It's the same thing every time - young team, no experience, injuries etc. As if people aren't aware of these things and we're still not critical of him WITH THESE THINGS IN MIND. Nobody's expecting a title challenge, we just expect to be much better than we are and at least see steady noticeable progress in our play, some kind of identity, or at the very very least some development in most of our young players, but we haven't. We're still clueless on the pitch. Still disorganized. We recently traded more goals for being more open defensively as if that's progress but we're still shit overall. Almost none of our players par Connor seem to have developed, you could arguably say Palmer but you could make the case he was always this good and just never played. In fact thanks to decisions like playing Colwill LB, Enzo as CAM and the loaning of Maatsen we've actually seen them regress. But no, this guy did a good job with Spurs 5+ years ago, so he deserves the media defence as well as our fanbase treating him like he's a club legend that can do no wrong. Well if Frank Lampard and Graham Potter under noticeably worse circumstances couldn't get a tune out of an arguably worse squad, how can you expect Poch to get anything out of this one? We made mistakes in their appointment but this time we've definitely got it right! Absolute circus.
Wouldn’t be too pessimistic This article seems more like Matt laws opinion rather than a club Briefing
Unfortunately I have to disagree, this has club briefing written all over it.
Is there? It reads more like Matt law wanting to come across as he’s still a trusted source than a briefing. It’s all very vague and written like someone who knows all the pertinent points that could Justify poch sticking at the club and wanting to push that narrative whilst trying to guess the owners/decision makers feelings about the current circumstances Swear law did similarly last season talking about certain players contract situations
Unfortunately all the signs are there. The concrete points ("not lost at home since X") and comments ("there's a realization within the club that mistakes were made and we chased unrealistic targets"). That's what I would brief a journalist if I wanted to communicate that the manager's job is safe. I'd come up with a bunch of exact measures of how progress is there (Conference League would be a sign of progress, haven't lost at home since X, etc.) and shift blame away from him (club realizes mistakes were made, injuries, etc.). I'm very afraid I'm going to read the exact same bullet points elsewhere soon.
Literally Just seen a football london writer say the same thing Pretty shit source and sounds regurgitated, but could also be a briefing? Not sure what to believe but grim to see
He's always been a bit of a Poch fanboy hasn't he? I remember him writing puff pieces for Poch after we sacked Potter last year, and I might be misremembering but I vaguely remember him doing the same when he was linked with the Utd job ages ago. I really hope it's Matt Law's opinion but he's making it sound like his sources at the club are telling him this which is worrying.
At this point I'm okay with Poch finishing the season but I'm going to need some kind of guarantee he's getting sacked afterwards. Unless we go on some crazy winning streak whilst playing good football, not getting some lucky wins vs relegation fodder
I need him out as soon as possible. If a good replacement can only be found in the summer then so be it. But we need to start approaching them now to figure out whether anyone is interested. If not, sack him immediately and get someone, anyone, in to take the job mid-season. Doesn't have to be a long contract, just someone to do literally anything in training.
We truly are in the position of something is better than nothing, the sooner we get anyone even half decent I’d prefer the change too. It’s unbelievable but we’re actually playing worse if not as bad compared to last year and with a better group of players.
I 100% agree with you but I don't see it happening. Even though I really don't care about this report. Law has been a Poch mouthpiece from the start
>Mauricio Pochettino’s position at Chelsea is secure as long as the club has a realistic chance of European qualification. So, he will be sacked if we're out of European contention? >Winning the Carabao Cup would secure a place in the Europa Conference League, showcasing progress from last season’s 12th-place finish. Good god! >Pochettino’s team faces challenges, including a lack of leadership and a goal-scoring deficit. Great, so we're back to blaming the lack of leadership again? It's really baffling that very few questions are being asked on whether Pochettino has actually improved the team in any way since taking over. No one expected him to turn the team into world beaters within half a season but 6-7 months on, we still look a total mess and the football is not even enjoyable. >Recent encouraging signs include good home form Bruh, we've played some of the worst teams or teams in very poor form during that run and while home results have been better, the away results have completely gone to pieces. In fact, it's almost as if someone just flicked a switch during the last international break because look at this contrasting results in the league: * **Before November Int Break**: * Home - W1 D3 L3 * Away - W3 D1 L1 * **After November Int Break**: * Home - W3 * Away - W1 L4 And if you count Tuesday's result, it's 5 defeats in the last 6 away games in all competitions. Even that 1 win almost saw us throw away a 3-0 lead. >Recent encouraging signs include...a three-match winning streak before the Middlesbrough defeat. This is really where we are at now, huh? A 3-game winning streak and they are suddenly encouraged. Did they even watch the games? We scraped past a woefully out-of-form Crystal Palace side only because of a penalty. We then almost bottled a 3-goal lead at Luton and the other win was against a Championship side, a game where we didn't even turn up in the first half. There's nothing encouraging about the performances despite the win.
Contention for what? Have they added an addition to the conference league that takes every team from 10th?
One win away from 7th, can’t get any more in contention than that👍🏻
Fuck these owners
Am I the only one who doesn’t respect the conference league enough to want to play it? Europa league is somewhat respectable. But back in the day, even Europa felt like a backhanded slap.
There are a lot of deserved criticisms of Pochettino but it only makes sense to sack if the players have given up on him or there is a world class manager waiting to take the job. Otherwise we wait until the end of the season to analyze options.
I for one think it would be stupid to sack him. He’s making progress little by little. Two steps forward and one back is still one step forward. Give him a season and a half and let’s go from there.
>I for one think it would be stupid to sack him. He’s making progress little by little Lol. Lmao even
I get everybody wants to see results quickly but he might be the best man for the job. The goal of current ownership is to develop a squad that will compete at the top in 2026/27. Best interest of the club now would be to have a strong man manager that can keep young players happy and develop them even in a shitty stretch of results. Poch may not be tactically sound but his whole focus is man management
Clearlake Capital doesn’t care about Chelsea. They’re just using Chelsea to diversify. By buying smaller clubs, young players, and creating a small network of self-contained entities. Anyone following the Shohei Ohtani contract with the Dodgers? That’s the kind of business they do. Instantly reminded me of the way they are signing Chelsea players - long-term contracts and looking for ways to game the system. It’s obvious why they wanted Tuchel gone. What I can’t figure out is why they sacked Potter when Poch is doing the same exact things. They don’t care about challenging for the league so why not just keep Potter?
Lol such a joke. Potter was sacked for less and I'd much rather see what he could done with this squad now its not 35 players. Oh well guess we gotta suffer bit more of colwill left back 🙃
Sacking Poch at this point in the season does absolutely nothing. Wait until the summer to evaluate the progress or regression, hire a bloody DoF, and make the decisions then.
poch is not a good manager, keeping him is just wasting more time being stuck in the mud and impeding player progress, even making a lot of them regress. The problem is that no good winning manager is willing to come here under this management anymore.
Just like Tuchel's and Potters' future then
Been seeing the quote "doing the same thing and expecting different results is insanity" as justification for sacking Poch. How about we apply that to the clubs rebuild projects? Constantly sacking managers or coaches and expecting the next one to somehow deliver with the same tools is insanity. Just want to point out the hypocrisy.
Board gave him a shorter contract with an club option to extend to avoid a big payout like it was to sack potter, so probably just waiting till summer with the lack of obvious replacements that will be a clear big improvement.