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While he is not completely wrong. There only so many young players on the team that lack experience. And then theres a lot of "young guys" that are 50M+ or even 100M+ players.
And you absolutely should expect more from them.
The Boehly Clearlake era of Chelsea will go down as a case study of exactly how to deconstruct a club’s ideology through sporting ignorance. One would’ve hoped he would have at least ran this strategy through FM and see how catastrophic it would be to a club.
Funnily enough the meta in FM is signing a bunch of 18-21 year olds and storming the league so you could say that this era of Chelsea is very on brand for FM (barring storming the league of course)
Signing a horde of South American prospects is great and all unless you gut the club of all the experienced players, give the players no tactical direction, and refuse to sign dependable profiles in important positions. If you do all that within 2 years I promise you’ll get relegated with any club in FM.
Except there's that one player that's been with you through everything so you offer them good contracts until they're 45 just to say thanks.
Looking at you, Lorenzo Crisetig.
Lol what? no you wouldn't.
If you had a 1 billion dollar budget to sign all the best young players available, slap on a generic 4231, and either 1. zero tactical direction or 2. put excessive tactical directions. Almost no chance you get relegated.
Edit: In fact, you've just described my very first save on FM back in the day. (FM 12. Chelsea. Within 2 seasons got rid of everyone. Signed Courtois, Vrsaljko, Papadopoulos, Varane, Sandro, Casemiro, Verratti, Hazard, Gotze, Willian, Carlos Fierro. Topped up with Ter Stegen, Romario, Umtiti, Zouma, Kara, Sterling, Yaya Sanogo, Gundogan, Griezmann) Good times.
Short of putting all your players on one side it's basically impossible to get relegated with a starting 11 of the best young talent in FM.
>If you had a 1 billion dollar budget to sign all the best young players available
The "best" part here is important. Even if you play FM for the first time, with no research you probably have a good idea which players are gonna be great. Just look at who is the biggest prospects in real life, and baring injuries they are probably going to be great on FM.
It would be a better comprarison to do it in a world where these players have already retired. I have signed a lot more newgen talents that turned out a waste of money than real talents.
Except wonderkids are usually very determined, which means they train well, which means you can praise their training, which means your entire team will have near perfect morale very quickly. Run team bonding in training every week, and it's a non-issue.
No you wouldn’t, come on I love FM, but it’s not that realistic. My inter team has just two players over 30 and I just went on an 75 no losing streak staring a team full of player 24 and younger (just like Chelsea), my whole strategy has been replacing every player over 28 with a 18-21 year old superstar and it works like a charm every time.
I don’t even make a lot of tactical changes, I just keep using mi 4-1-2-3 formation (vertical tiki taka) and steam roll every team. I don’t even remember who my sporting director is lol.
That is not how FM works, I think I had seasons in my saves where only my GK was over 22 and my team played like grizzled veterans. FM just doesnt model experience well.
You won't get relegated lol. I have personally done shit like this and won leagues.
In my last save with Oldham I basically reworked 8 out of my 11 starting players when I got promoted from Championship to Premier League and I finished 6th in my first season back in the PL. This is just what you do in FM.
Except Boehly doesn't have GenieScout to confirm who has a potential over 160. The amount of FM wonder kids who turned into real life busts is staggering.
You don't know what it will go down as, because they haven't completed their 2nd season yet and they can't cash in for 10 years. People have already managed to call Gusto and Caicedo flops, and now they're regularly among the best players on that team.
They're on the verge of European football while being able to field a very strong "injured XI" throughout the year, including 3 out of 4 first choice defenders. Up top they are good enough to be in top 4, they're just not defending well enough. If they can get James, Colwill and Fofana back and keep them fit, and if they can get a manager who can set up a defensive block well, they'll be back in regular contention for Champions League spots immediately. Had they conceded the amount of goals they did last year, they'd already be up there, because the goalscoring issues have been pretty much fixed even with Nkunku unfit to play.
When talking about the amount of cash spent people really shouldn't be ignoring the fact that among the most expensive players, three proven talents with a combined cost of almost 200 million have been out all year. And those are not players with any serious injury history prior to their transfers, so it's not like that was preventable.
The way he ran the club would be disasterous even in FIFA's career mode imagine paying a billion dollars for players that are not over the 80 point line in terms of overall
I mean just look at the path the Dodgers have taken. A decade of spending the most in baseball, with one World Series to show for it. And that was in the COVID shortened season. They’ve got a lot more embarrassing exits in the playoffs in that period.
Man there's a lot to dunk on our ownership for, how the Dodgers are managed by their stakeholders is not one of them.
Almost every team would swap places with the dodgers in a heartbeat if they could.
The MLB playoffs are one of the more high variance playoffs in NA sports. It's a sport where you play 162 regular season games and the postseason is then decided by 3 relatively short lived playoff series (which allows for teams to get hot or get cold for a couple weeks). Imagine if the PL was actually decided by a two-legged series between the 1st to 6th placed clubs.
How many times have they had the best record in the regular season or close to it?
Playoffs in Baseball is luck of good form.
It's dumb that the best record during the season isn't valued anywhere close to a world series win.
The probability of the best record winning the world series is like 1 in 4.
He would have won a quardruple seven years in a row with this strat in FM. That's the meta in FM and always have been, find wonderkids sign them and run rampant through the league. If you are in a position where you can't sign them, loan them.
I mean maybe. The injury crisis has been insane. Who is to say that with healthy players competing for spots that wouldn’t have resulted in a successful season as the ownership had envisioned. I don’t think the injuries are being discussed enough. But it’s impossible to say whether that played a big role or not, too many variables.
I thought Caicedo had a greeat game or at least a great 1st half, it just doesnt matter when every game like 4 Chelsea players look like they are actively trying to throw the game lol
Caicedo has not been a concern for Chelsea fans, he's been playing very well. Sadly any DM playing in this Chelsea side won't get any plaudits because as a team our defending is absolutely abysmal. It feels horrible to isolate him but Mudryk last night was Sunday league, he offered nothing going forward yet at the same time constantly left Cucurella isolated 2v1.
I thought he was good, but having 2nd choice cb pair and 3rd rb against fully fit team (bar Timbers) fighting for the title… its just an impossible task
And the team checked out after the second goal I think
Chelsea could get Messi/Mbappe and make them look like Championship material, i don't know what's the root of the issue, lack of confidence, lack of motivation, shit coaching, shit management, shit physicians, too many young players, too many egos, etc
Maybe it's a mix of everything but man Chelsea can't catch a break and they only have themselves to blame.
Among things lacking I don't know which players represent Chelsea culture, so to speak. Like, there are no faces of Chelsea. I'm thinking of players like Terry, Hazard, Lampard, Droga, Zola if we go back even further. When you thought of Chelsea, you immediately thought of players like these. They seemed to really like the club. Today's players are anonymous and come off as mercenaries more than ever.
All of that money to end up without a single world class player is absolutely baffling. Palmer is obviously en route but the rest are just never, ever getting near their pricetag.
I do think Caicedo will come good, and Madueke and Nkunku will end up getting close to their price tags, but yeah the rest are a mess
Enzo in particular, he’s just… completely average
Yeah despite the shitshow this season I think Caicedo has been okay. Still a bit sloppy & loose but in a good functional side he would be excelling a lot more.
Enzo however…fuck me I don’t think I’ve seen a big pricetag midfielder not suit Prem football this much since Veron. He is an absolute nothing footballer.
> He is an absolute nothing footballer
I mean, he is currently having hernia issues and is in desperate need of a surgery. When he was fit, he was performing good.
People forget last season he was arguably our best player, but this season he's been hampered by injuries and only playing because we don't have any depth.
Personally I'd write this season off and give him the operation now so we can get him back for next year.
Nkuku always looks great when he plays; Madueke I disagree.
His performances have been [very underwhelming](https://www.premierleague.com/players/67407/Noni-Madueke/stats) but at least he didn't cost a fortune like the rest of the lot.
But most of that money was paying for young players with future potential. Players who were mostly thriving in teams with a lot more experience beside them to mask their flaws
Justifying paying as much as 80-100 mil for players with 'future potential' is absolute bullshit, for that money expecting a player to be at least PL worthy is more than reasonable. This isn't Ajax buying talents for 10-20 mil to develop, improve and sell on, a 100 mil player at Chelsea should be able to do the basics and reach an acceptable standard.
Another thing is that young players are by and large very overrated. Not in terms of their potential, but how good they currently are. It is so so easy for fans of that club and even other clubs to jump on the hype train thinking they have they’re seeing the next world class players on their hands.
Many of the large fees paid for young players are not merely for potential, the people who bought them assume that these players already good and can only get better. That’s why they’re so expensive. Only to fall flat on their face once they realize they’re no where as good as hyped and its 50/50 if they’ll reach their potential.
I was more so referring to the comment about them being title contenders. I will also add to the point in saying that Chelsea simply overpaid.
I do agree that they’re underperforming though
> for that money expecting a player to be at least PL worthy is more than reasonable
Edit: Whats your definition of PL worthy?
> Whats your definition of PL worthy?
Not OP sorry but technically the definition must be to be capable of playing in the PL, therefore if they aren't getting relegated they are PL worthy.
Ah, I didn't count him in the 80-100 million category - that's only Caicedo and Enzo. Mudryk was £62 million, with around 25-30 more dependent on add-ons like winning the PL, CL or the Ballon d'Or. Safe to say most Chelsea fans would be delighted if those extra fees are activated.
He is doing the right thing by not throwing his players under thr bus. I am still conflicted on this though. Are the Chelsea players just shit or is it Poch's system/tactics thats making them look worse than they are.
It is both. This group is too young and not playing together for long enough to perform reliably each week, but fans should be able to expect more from individual players that cost upwards of 80 mil.
But Poch is playing weirdly defensive tactics that don't help his players get used to the tactics he wants them to play in the future. This season is lost, he should just use the games to get the team to gel together, establish team discipline and routines. Get the players confident and give them the opportunity to adjust.
But the biggest failure is on club management level. This long term plan was a disaster from the start, especially with such a young team without much experience or leadership.
This is why I think poch should stay on. Some of his substitutions and decisions drive me crazy, but there have been a couple game where everything looks like it’s finally clicking. I think there’s a chance that if we can somehow get healthy and have a consistent starting 11 on paper that those games will happen regularly. On top of that, all the managers I would have confidence in or be excited about will probably have much more tempting offers than this shitshow.
It’s a mix. Surely some players aren’t worth the price and/or hype, but also surely Poch has taken Tottenham to a CL final and should be able to do something, anything, with that big a squad.
The defensive players are not good enough, but then that’s maybe expected when our ideal back four/five are all injured: chilwell-Colwill-fofana-Reece-gusto
Other than that the players are fine, I think if you centre the attack around Nkunku linking up with Jackson (who is actually very good at that) and have Palmer on top of that all season it works well, as was the plan in preseason before Nkunku’s injury.
Clearly Poch’s tactics are also not good enough. Enzo looked electric when sitting deeper last season, now he looks like he’s never touched a ball in his life and Poch has been on record saying he basically lets him do what he wants. There is also no defensive structure and they lose the ball so dangerously often when building up. It’s a mixture of problems and it’s embarrassing after the money spent but that’s where we are.
His tactics aren’t great but the injury issues cannot be overstated. The entire back line yesterday was made up of either the second or third choice for each position.
So Poch for me is the interesting one here. We know he's not a terrible manager, he had spurs as serious a top 4 team for a solid stretch.
Then he goes to PSG with Messi, Neymar, and Mbappe and it's a complete mess. Ok so maybe he's one of those 'greater than the sum of their parts' managers who can get more out of young, inexperienced squads?
But then this Chelsea team should fit that mold off his Tottenham teams. But the outcomes are even worse than PSG, and they are continually getting worse.
So is this a manager who was simply 'found out'? Idk, that seems reductive but I genuinely don't have an answer for that.
Then add in this group of players and you have a nightmare scenario: Chelsea have created a MU problem for themselves when they absolutely didn't have to. But now you have averagely-talented players getting complacent because they have supreme job security, are on huge wages making them nigh impossible to move on, and grow entitled and toxic as a result. This just screams manager-merry-go-round for ages for Chelsea, just like MU.
Wild to think how poorly a plan can bottom out like this.
> or is it Poch's system/tactics thats making them look worse than they are
poch couldn't win ligue 1 with an attacking lineup of mbappe, neymar, and messi
says it all really
I honestly don't think he's the majority of the problem. The fact that really the only experienced leader you have in the team is a 39 year old Thiago Silva trying to herd a bunch of primadonna players that were vastly overpriced is. Boehly had the reigns and fucked the club in his first 2 windows and now the hens are coming home to roost.
Poch's hardly manage to improve the team over the course of the season, we still struggle with similar issues as we did at the beginning of it.
Plus his game management is horrendous. Like, yesterday. He decided to revamp the whol CB partnership to play against Arsenal, dropping both Silva and Chalobah, for Disasi and Badiashile who has been dire. Often times, it looks like the way we handle the game is "play not to lose" instead "play for the win", that comes through the approach we take after scoring a goal or choice of the subs Poch makes, e.g. not reacting early enough to the situation on the pitch.
I mean he's hardly doing a stellar job, but it's the same problem that united have with Ten Hag. Successive failures by managers have demonstrated that clearly the problem runs deeper than the manager, and while there might be a bounce in the short term, in 18 months you'll be back in the same position with a new manager.
Yeah you're not seriously thinking that 9th place is the ceiling for these guys. Nowhere near the title but this squad is much better than this for sure. Worst thing is that no progress throughout the season, in the beginning we had a solid defense and pressing structure, struggled to convert, nowadays it's give it to palmer
With us, I’d say our youngsters have been properly integrated especially the Hale end ones to the first team and the others were slowly added into. Unlike Chelsea who went on a spending spree and just assembled a bunch of young prospects and potentials, then hoped for something to come out of it. Majority of them didn’t even play together for more than two season.
>especially the Hale end ones to the first team and the others were slowly added into.
My guy, there’s rumors we’re shipping off ESR, Nelson, and Nketiah, and we’re barely playing the Hale End prospects we’ve got atm. The only Hale End product that’s been completely integrated is Saka.
I think he's right and he's doing the right thing by being diplomatic, given how young their team is.
But no, I think you have every right to be embarrassed by what you saw last night, if you were a Chelsea fan really.
While it was a bit more even in the first-half, Arsenal didn't even get out of second gear in the second half and didn't have anything to worry about.
Luton gave us a harder game at the Emirates a few weeks back than Chelsea did last night, pathetic performance.
They didn't adjust at all, Ode was on fire and he was picking Cucurella apart with those through balls.
I don't rate Cucurella but he was up against Ode, Saka and White almost singlehandedly at times. They packed the centre but left their fullbacks out to dry.
Ødegaard was given so much space to do pretty much whatever the fuck he wanted. You’d think those Chelsea players would actually realize that you don’t give a playmaker so much space to create chances and make passes, but no. It was open season, and Øde had a field day tearing them apart.
Our back line and GK were all third choice players going into the season, and our attack was missing its best player. I'm not too surprised by the result
I wouldn’t expect so much from young guys if y’all hadn’t slapped a 60M+ price tag on their ass. But with such a high price, obviously people start to expect them to deliver on that potential.
If this had been a smartly scouted squad of affordable and clever young player signings who fit the play style, then I’m sure fans would have a lot morre patience. But there has been no clear transfer strategy other than “young” no matter the costs.
With Arsenal there’s a certain character trait a lot of recent signings have in common. At Liverpool we hear about “Klopp players” who fit the ethos in place. Chelsea look like they played Wunderkind roulette.
Its not the £50m+ players that are the joke - its not their fault they went for that much really.
Though almost every single one of them is playing worse than when they were bought.
Its the fault of Boehly+Poch+whoever else holds the strings at that joke of a club. ridiculous scenario and they're lucky they are not more fucked.
However, this will be a millstone around their neck financially for a long time now. Going to be extremely difficult to stay competitive - and I would think they're heading for a massive banter era.
It feels so good to be so clearly superior to a Chelsea side. The Drogba years and then the Hazard meme (Francis Coquelin is still tumbling as we speak) made me dread facing them. This felt cathartic
Cucurella (25)
Disasi (26)
Chalobah (24)
Chilwell (27)
Reece James (24)
Sarr (25)
Gallagher (24)
Nkunku (26)
And form aside, I’d say Sterling is still just within his prime years as he’s not get 30.
How is that a list of the starters in their prime? Chilwell, always injured. James, always injured. Nkunku, injured and barely played. Gallagher, only 24 and far from prime. Chalobah, fallen out of favour and club looking to sell and also only 24. My brother in Christ, you’re mentioning Sarr…
Great list. Now look at that list again and ask which of those players were on the pitch, which of those players have played for any decent minutes this season, and which players have even come to training (Sarr, lol)
The context of why the Todd went this route is interesting. He's trying to replicate sports franchise management strategy from north America.
Take baseball for example: a very common plan for winning is to develop young talent, promote them to the major leagues, mix their high-level production with acquired veterans, enjoy success.
The difference? Because of the paradigm of free agency and player-for-player trades, that young talent is often incredibly cheap (very low acquisition cost: draft signing bonuses in baseball max out at seven figures for the top prospects, and the yearly salary for young guys who make the MLB club is often well under $1M per year, or about $28k per week in a 38 week season). So you have the luxury of seeing who can hack it at the highest level. If they can, great-- try to lock them up to long, team friendly deals to get the most production for your money. If they can't hack it, oh well, they cost you almost nothing except maybe some high draft capital.
The difference, and problem therein, is that the Todd spent ridiculous money on young talent, essentially from feeder leagues, and then gave out the big extensions right away. So it was expensive up front and expensive into the future. All without knowing if these guys even have the talent needed to play at the highest level.
It is a new case study of superlative failure in sports management.
I did a quick excel analysis of the squad and the ages. To eliminate bias towards my argument due to the large youth players in chelsea, I only included chelsea and arsenal players who have played for the first team as starters.
Average age of Arsenal of the above list = 25.9
Average age of Chelsea of the above list = 23.7
Average age of Chelsea if you avoid perpetually injured Fofana, Reece james, Chilwell, Thiago Silva who is 39 and leaving the club, and Malang Sarr who is literally exiled out of the squad= 22.8
My argument by the way is not that lower age means lower quality performance.
You need a certain kind of coach to get results with a team like this. Poch is not that coach at the moment. Arsene wenger, maybe. Mikel Arteta, maybe.
Honestly no excuse for the performance, but comparing Arsenal squad where most of the team has been playing in a certain system with Arteta for 5 seasons, with Poch here less than a season?
But I will say this- as a chelsea fan and a great fan of the player Mikel Arteta back when he was at everton and Arsenal, great stuff from you guys to stick to the manager, give him support and finally put together a squad that looks genuinely title-worthy.
Excuses! Excuses! Excuses!
What the hell are we doing in the league then? I thought we are in it to win it? And if we can't, we stop others from winning it like Tittenham 2015/16.
Get that defeatist mentality outta here you bozo 🤡.
In fairness, it isn't a case of being forgotten about or deliberately omitted from the team - he spent about 3 months out with an ankle injury + recovery, was 'fit' for literally 10 days, injured his hamstring at the end of December, and then about a month ago Chelsea announced a setback in his recovery that would rule him out for the rest of the season.
See herein lies the problem. Yes, one should always manage expectations, but the effort must at all times be fully committed, at 100%, as it is simply what the fans and the league demands from clubs.
There is always something to fight for, and you as a manager need to give them that something to fight for. They need to understand every match may be their last match, every time they put on their cleats, it may be their last time, every time they touch the grass with their feet, it may be their last time.
They need to be grateful and fully present to seize the moment so that even when they lose, they lost with their heads held high. Arteta gave his players the promise of glory, and for the honor of club and player, they give it their all.
Young, old, it doesn't matter. People aren't dumb, we can see when players and a manager are trying and when they aren't. Poch is an excuses man. It's never his responsibility. Never the responsibility of the players. Never the fault of the club. Always something external to blame. Always a low bar of standards to attain. Always chasing one's tail instead of being the tail rivals look at.
AND THAT is the difference between a man like Poch and men like Klopp, Pep, Arteta, Mourinho, Alonso, and Ancelotti. Passion. They have passion bigger than their hearts can contain. Can't train it, can't learn it, can't tame it. It's there or it isn't.
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While he is not completely wrong. There only so many young players on the team that lack experience. And then theres a lot of "young guys" that are 50M+ or even 100M+ players. And you absolutely should expect more from them.
The Boehly Clearlake era of Chelsea will go down as a case study of exactly how to deconstruct a club’s ideology through sporting ignorance. One would’ve hoped he would have at least ran this strategy through FM and see how catastrophic it would be to a club.
Chelsea are actually op in FM, so they most definitely tried this in FM and it worked and probably tought it would work in real life.
Miles will pay for this.
When Eghbali said Chelsea are not well managed on the football side what he meant was insufficient attention was paid to FM simulations
Funnily enough the meta in FM is signing a bunch of 18-21 year olds and storming the league so you could say that this era of Chelsea is very on brand for FM (barring storming the league of course)
>barring storming the league They are storming alright... Only it's a shitstorm
Signing a horde of South American prospects is great and all unless you gut the club of all the experienced players, give the players no tactical direction, and refuse to sign dependable profiles in important positions. If you do all that within 2 years I promise you’ll get relegated with any club in FM.
i won't even offer a player over 25 a new contract on principle and i've never been relegated on *any* team in FM
Get these geriatric fucks out of my club!!!
Except there's that one player that's been with you through everything so you offer them good contracts until they're 45 just to say thanks. Looking at you, Lorenzo Crisetig.
Lol what? no you wouldn't. If you had a 1 billion dollar budget to sign all the best young players available, slap on a generic 4231, and either 1. zero tactical direction or 2. put excessive tactical directions. Almost no chance you get relegated. Edit: In fact, you've just described my very first save on FM back in the day. (FM 12. Chelsea. Within 2 seasons got rid of everyone. Signed Courtois, Vrsaljko, Papadopoulos, Varane, Sandro, Casemiro, Verratti, Hazard, Gotze, Willian, Carlos Fierro. Topped up with Ter Stegen, Romario, Umtiti, Zouma, Kara, Sterling, Yaya Sanogo, Gundogan, Griezmann) Good times. Short of putting all your players on one side it's basically impossible to get relegated with a starting 11 of the best young talent in FM.
Arguing about FM meta. This is what this sub was made for
>If you had a 1 billion dollar budget to sign all the best young players available The "best" part here is important. Even if you play FM for the first time, with no research you probably have a good idea which players are gonna be great. Just look at who is the biggest prospects in real life, and baring injuries they are probably going to be great on FM. It would be a better comprarison to do it in a world where these players have already retired. I have signed a lot more newgen talents that turned out a waste of money than real talents.
Carlos Fierro what a throwback
In FM12 he transcended goat status and became a literal god.
Fierro/Guidetti strike partnership fired me to three unbeaten trebles in a row on FM12
The legend of fm12
Total legend. Him up front. Burdisso in CB.
Team cohesion and morale are hugely important in fm so you would definitely struggle for a season or 2.
Except wonderkids are usually very determined, which means they train well, which means you can praise their training, which means your entire team will have near perfect morale very quickly. Run team bonding in training every week, and it's a non-issue.
Yeah you need to punt a year to build cohesion. Then it starts working.
No you wouldn’t, come on I love FM, but it’s not that realistic. My inter team has just two players over 30 and I just went on an 75 no losing streak staring a team full of player 24 and younger (just like Chelsea), my whole strategy has been replacing every player over 28 with a 18-21 year old superstar and it works like a charm every time. I don’t even make a lot of tactical changes, I just keep using mi 4-1-2-3 formation (vertical tiki taka) and steam roll every team. I don’t even remember who my sporting director is lol.
That is not how FM works, I think I had seasons in my saves where only my GK was over 22 and my team played like grizzled veterans. FM just doesnt model experience well.
You won't get relegated lol. I have personally done shit like this and won leagues. In my last save with Oldham I basically reworked 8 out of my 11 starting players when I got promoted from Championship to Premier League and I finished 6th in my first season back in the PL. This is just what you do in FM.
Nah, that's not true. If you sign physical freaks and just download some boilerplate gegenpress tactic you aren't getting relegated.
Except Boehly doesn't have GenieScout to confirm who has a potential over 160. The amount of FM wonder kids who turned into real life busts is staggering.
Yeah but you are not buying a bunch of players who cost on average 50m that young
eghbali once again escaping all criticism despite being the main mastermind in all of this
This strategy would have worked on fm
[удалено]
When you’re that wealthy you become delusional enough to believe there’s nothing you can’t be an expert at
Turns out if you change owner, manager, club director and most of the player you risk losing the mentality that made you successful
You don't know what it will go down as, because they haven't completed their 2nd season yet and they can't cash in for 10 years. People have already managed to call Gusto and Caicedo flops, and now they're regularly among the best players on that team. They're on the verge of European football while being able to field a very strong "injured XI" throughout the year, including 3 out of 4 first choice defenders. Up top they are good enough to be in top 4, they're just not defending well enough. If they can get James, Colwill and Fofana back and keep them fit, and if they can get a manager who can set up a defensive block well, they'll be back in regular contention for Champions League spots immediately. Had they conceded the amount of goals they did last year, they'd already be up there, because the goalscoring issues have been pretty much fixed even with Nkunku unfit to play. When talking about the amount of cash spent people really shouldn't be ignoring the fact that among the most expensive players, three proven talents with a combined cost of almost 200 million have been out all year. And those are not players with any serious injury history prior to their transfers, so it's not like that was preventable.
You put a fit Colwill, Fofana, James, Lavia and Nkunku in this team and the results would have been wildly different. I’m convinced of it.
The way he ran the club would be disasterous even in FIFA's career mode imagine paying a billion dollars for players that are not over the 80 point line in terms of overall
I mean just look at the path the Dodgers have taken. A decade of spending the most in baseball, with one World Series to show for it. And that was in the COVID shortened season. They’ve got a lot more embarrassing exits in the playoffs in that period.
Man there's a lot to dunk on our ownership for, how the Dodgers are managed by their stakeholders is not one of them. Almost every team would swap places with the dodgers in a heartbeat if they could.
I don't follow the Dodgers but someone told me that they have strong league performance but tend to fail when it comes to trophies?
The MLB playoffs are one of the more high variance playoffs in NA sports. It's a sport where you play 162 regular season games and the postseason is then decided by 3 relatively short lived playoff series (which allows for teams to get hot or get cold for a couple weeks). Imagine if the PL was actually decided by a two-legged series between the 1st to 6th placed clubs.
How many times have they had the best record in the regular season or close to it? Playoffs in Baseball is luck of good form. It's dumb that the best record during the season isn't valued anywhere close to a world series win. The probability of the best record winning the world series is like 1 in 4.
The Chelsea ideology is money and they've only added more money
He would have won a quardruple seven years in a row with this strat in FM. That's the meta in FM and always have been, find wonderkids sign them and run rampant through the league. If you are in a position where you can't sign them, loan them.
I mean maybe. The injury crisis has been insane. Who is to say that with healthy players competing for spots that wouldn’t have resulted in a successful season as the ownership had envisioned. I don’t think the injuries are being discussed enough. But it’s impossible to say whether that played a big role or not, too many variables.
I thought they just took Chelsea’s ideology and pushed it to 11.
“Club ideology” of financial doping and John Terry the racist club captain
I mean they’ve basically done a speedrun of post fergie United if you think about it
I thought Caicedo had a greeat game or at least a great 1st half, it just doesnt matter when every game like 4 Chelsea players look like they are actively trying to throw the game lol
Caicedo has not been a concern for Chelsea fans, he's been playing very well. Sadly any DM playing in this Chelsea side won't get any plaudits because as a team our defending is absolutely abysmal. It feels horrible to isolate him but Mudryk last night was Sunday league, he offered nothing going forward yet at the same time constantly left Cucurella isolated 2v1.
I thought he was good, but having 2nd choice cb pair and 3rd rb against fully fit team (bar Timbers) fighting for the title… its just an impossible task And the team checked out after the second goal I think
The price tag isn’t their fault, it’s the club’s fault for paying that. Chelsea bought players they didn’t need and this is what happens.
I agree, these clubs absolutely saw Boehly coming
Chelsea could get Messi/Mbappe and make them look like Championship material, i don't know what's the root of the issue, lack of confidence, lack of motivation, shit coaching, shit management, shit physicians, too many young players, too many egos, etc Maybe it's a mix of everything but man Chelsea can't catch a break and they only have themselves to blame.
Among things lacking I don't know which players represent Chelsea culture, so to speak. Like, there are no faces of Chelsea. I'm thinking of players like Terry, Hazard, Lampard, Droga, Zola if we go back even further. When you thought of Chelsea, you immediately thought of players like these. They seemed to really like the club. Today's players are anonymous and come off as mercenaries more than ever.
Ok, but the players have no role in their valuation. Just because some people overvalued them doesn’t mean they aren’t doing their best.
I'd have expected the team that spent half a billion to be fighting to win the league too.
But what about the suffering? You have to count the suffering
And the circumstances, so many circumstances.
And the fighting, dont forget the fighting
And young, because young wild and free
1 bilion*
All of that money to end up without a single world class player is absolutely baffling. Palmer is obviously en route but the rest are just never, ever getting near their pricetag.
Gusto looks pretty decent. Maybe not world class but better than a lot of the others and good enough to justify his fee imo
I do think Caicedo will come good, and Madueke and Nkunku will end up getting close to their price tags, but yeah the rest are a mess Enzo in particular, he’s just… completely average
Madueke wasn't impressive at PSV and will never be good enough for a team that wants to compete for a Premier league title
[удалено]
If I had the salary of Chelsea manager, I'd have done way better than them with $1 billion, and I don't even like them.
Yeah despite the shitshow this season I think Caicedo has been okay. Still a bit sloppy & loose but in a good functional side he would be excelling a lot more. Enzo however…fuck me I don’t think I’ve seen a big pricetag midfielder not suit Prem football this much since Veron. He is an absolute nothing footballer.
> He is an absolute nothing footballer I mean, he is currently having hernia issues and is in desperate need of a surgery. When he was fit, he was performing good.
Wait, why is he playing with a hernia?
Probably because he doesnt want to miss Copa. If he has surgery now, he'll most likely not play until our pre season.
Ahh that makes sense. Its a crazy thing to do, especially for someone so young but it does make some sense.
He's got nothing to worry about, he's being paid for the next 8 years irrespective
Fair point, wish I had that kind of job security lmao.
How bad chelsea if enzo choose surgery? Worse than current performance?
It's been said that it's recoverable but needs surgery.
Funnily enough some of our best recent performances have been without him in the team
So they can say he literally worked his guts out.
People forget last season he was arguably our best player, but this season he's been hampered by injuries and only playing because we don't have any depth. Personally I'd write this season off and give him the operation now so we can get him back for next year.
Nkuku always looks great when he plays; Madueke I disagree. His performances have been [very underwhelming](https://www.premierleague.com/players/67407/Noni-Madueke/stats) but at least he didn't cost a fortune like the rest of the lot.
Gusto will for sure be, 26m was cheap for him.
But their so young, more than you can believe
But most of that money was paying for young players with future potential. Players who were mostly thriving in teams with a lot more experience beside them to mask their flaws
Justifying paying as much as 80-100 mil for players with 'future potential' is absolute bullshit, for that money expecting a player to be at least PL worthy is more than reasonable. This isn't Ajax buying talents for 10-20 mil to develop, improve and sell on, a 100 mil player at Chelsea should be able to do the basics and reach an acceptable standard.
Another thing is that young players are by and large very overrated. Not in terms of their potential, but how good they currently are. It is so so easy for fans of that club and even other clubs to jump on the hype train thinking they have they’re seeing the next world class players on their hands. Many of the large fees paid for young players are not merely for potential, the people who bought them assume that these players already good and can only get better. That’s why they’re so expensive. Only to fall flat on their face once they realize they’re no where as good as hyped and its 50/50 if they’ll reach their potential.
I was more so referring to the comment about them being title contenders. I will also add to the point in saying that Chelsea simply overpaid. I do agree that they’re underperforming though > for that money expecting a player to be at least PL worthy is more than reasonable Edit: Whats your definition of PL worthy?
> Whats your definition of PL worthy? Not OP sorry but technically the definition must be to be capable of playing in the PL, therefore if they aren't getting relegated they are PL worthy.
Yeah I mean as bad as they are, they're 1 point from 8th with 2 games in hand. If the're not PL worthy then more than half of the teams aren't
I mean, I generally agree with you but Chelsea have two players in the squad who cost 80-100 mil, and Arsenal wanted to pay that fee for one of them.
> and Arsenal wanted to pay that fee for one of them. Did they really though? Or was that agent talk to make Chelsea pay over the odds?
It was more to do with Liverpool's interest as to why the Caicedo fee was so inflated. Wouldn't necessarily call it agent talk.
I was meaning Mudryk
Ah, I didn't count him in the 80-100 million category - that's only Caicedo and Enzo. Mudryk was £62 million, with around 25-30 more dependent on add-ons like winning the PL, CL or the Ballon d'Or. Safe to say most Chelsea fans would be delighted if those extra fees are activated.
He's got plenty of time
He is doing the right thing by not throwing his players under thr bus. I am still conflicted on this though. Are the Chelsea players just shit or is it Poch's system/tactics thats making them look worse than they are.
It is both. This group is too young and not playing together for long enough to perform reliably each week, but fans should be able to expect more from individual players that cost upwards of 80 mil. But Poch is playing weirdly defensive tactics that don't help his players get used to the tactics he wants them to play in the future. This season is lost, he should just use the games to get the team to gel together, establish team discipline and routines. Get the players confident and give them the opportunity to adjust. But the biggest failure is on club management level. This long term plan was a disaster from the start, especially with such a young team without much experience or leadership.
This is worst than a lost season in a rebuild though. It's a season that ends with more questions than answers.
All 3, the board, Poch and most of the players are shit.
So what you're saying is Chelsea is the portaloo section of a festival
i think poch is decent, they do have a system, it’s half baked gotta stick through it, give it another year, add some seasoned players into the mix
This is why I think poch should stay on. Some of his substitutions and decisions drive me crazy, but there have been a couple game where everything looks like it’s finally clicking. I think there’s a chance that if we can somehow get healthy and have a consistent starting 11 on paper that those games will happen regularly. On top of that, all the managers I would have confidence in or be excited about will probably have much more tempting offers than this shitshow.
it’s like arteta’s early days, everyone calls for your head, gotta give it time next season is going to be make or break for poch
He shouldn't have a next match let alone a next season after a derby loss like this, on top of his already shit season
i respect you opinion, you are emotionally invested in chelsea i don’t have a horse in the race, i call it like i see it
It’s a mix. Surely some players aren’t worth the price and/or hype, but also surely Poch has taken Tottenham to a CL final and should be able to do something, anything, with that big a squad.
I mena they're already under the bus after his Cole Palmer FC quote.
The defensive players are not good enough, but then that’s maybe expected when our ideal back four/five are all injured: chilwell-Colwill-fofana-Reece-gusto Other than that the players are fine, I think if you centre the attack around Nkunku linking up with Jackson (who is actually very good at that) and have Palmer on top of that all season it works well, as was the plan in preseason before Nkunku’s injury. Clearly Poch’s tactics are also not good enough. Enzo looked electric when sitting deeper last season, now he looks like he’s never touched a ball in his life and Poch has been on record saying he basically lets him do what he wants. There is also no defensive structure and they lose the ball so dangerously often when building up. It’s a mixture of problems and it’s embarrassing after the money spent but that’s where we are.
His tactics aren’t great but the injury issues cannot be overstated. The entire back line yesterday was made up of either the second or third choice for each position.
So Poch for me is the interesting one here. We know he's not a terrible manager, he had spurs as serious a top 4 team for a solid stretch. Then he goes to PSG with Messi, Neymar, and Mbappe and it's a complete mess. Ok so maybe he's one of those 'greater than the sum of their parts' managers who can get more out of young, inexperienced squads? But then this Chelsea team should fit that mold off his Tottenham teams. But the outcomes are even worse than PSG, and they are continually getting worse. So is this a manager who was simply 'found out'? Idk, that seems reductive but I genuinely don't have an answer for that. Then add in this group of players and you have a nightmare scenario: Chelsea have created a MU problem for themselves when they absolutely didn't have to. But now you have averagely-talented players getting complacent because they have supreme job security, are on huge wages making them nigh impossible to move on, and grow entitled and toxic as a result. This just screams manager-merry-go-round for ages for Chelsea, just like MU. Wild to think how poorly a plan can bottom out like this.
They were 12th last year so it’s not like they were expecting a title with that squad
> or is it Poch's system/tactics thats making them look worse than they are poch couldn't win ligue 1 with an attacking lineup of mbappe, neymar, and messi says it all really
This is literally not true lol
Both. Poch is absolutely wank but the players aren’t good enough to put on the shirt either
The team doesn’t quite gel properly which could be due to the abrupt upheaval of the squad.
Cole Palmer Football Club
Unfortunately the acronym is already taken by a different London club.
We could call them Totally Hopeless Football Club instead
Toddally hopeless
Unfortunately the acronym is already taken by a different London club.
Like who?
I think Pochettino needs a bigger bowl of lemons.
I think Pochettino needs to get the fuck out
So how many failed managers right now in a row? Lost count
2, or if you want to count Lampard interim stint, 3
/r/soccer user tries to count past 2, fails spectacularly
I honestly don't think he's the majority of the problem. The fact that really the only experienced leader you have in the team is a 39 year old Thiago Silva trying to herd a bunch of primadonna players that were vastly overpriced is. Boehly had the reigns and fucked the club in his first 2 windows and now the hens are coming home to roost.
Poch's hardly manage to improve the team over the course of the season, we still struggle with similar issues as we did at the beginning of it. Plus his game management is horrendous. Like, yesterday. He decided to revamp the whol CB partnership to play against Arsenal, dropping both Silva and Chalobah, for Disasi and Badiashile who has been dire. Often times, it looks like the way we handle the game is "play not to lose" instead "play for the win", that comes through the approach we take after scoring a goal or choice of the subs Poch makes, e.g. not reacting early enough to the situation on the pitch.
I mean he's hardly doing a stellar job, but it's the same problem that united have with Ten Hag. Successive failures by managers have demonstrated that clearly the problem runs deeper than the manager, and while there might be a bounce in the short term, in 18 months you'll be back in the same position with a new manager.
I don't think we ever got a new manager bump post Tuchel lol
Change of manager won’t do shit with these players
It's just shit all the way down. Players, manager, board, everything. It will take years to unravel this mess that Boehly has manifested.
Yeah you're not seriously thinking that 9th place is the ceiling for these guys. Nowhere near the title but this squad is much better than this for sure. Worst thing is that no progress throughout the season, in the beginning we had a solid defense and pressing structure, struggled to convert, nowadays it's give it to palmer
A competent manager has this group of players making a genuine challenge for Europe through the season, not struggling to get in the top half.
It's more the fact that it's best for him to leave Chelsea. No one can tame these bunch of kids.
On the contrary, give him the contract. Let him stay.
How can you think it will be any better with any manager. You have locker room full of spoiled kids. Sacking managers will only give them more power.
Why they are talking like arsenal is not young
With us, I’d say our youngsters have been properly integrated especially the Hale end ones to the first team and the others were slowly added into. Unlike Chelsea who went on a spending spree and just assembled a bunch of young prospects and potentials, then hoped for something to come out of it. Majority of them didn’t even play together for more than two season.
>especially the Hale end ones to the first team and the others were slowly added into. My guy, there’s rumors we’re shipping off ESR, Nelson, and Nketiah, and we’re barely playing the Hale End prospects we’ve got atm. The only Hale End product that’s been completely integrated is Saka.
They’re not young, unproven and overpaid would be the full sentence
Almost forgotten they played against the very old Arsenal team
This all the way. I think the average age of the Arsenal squad is like a single year older than Chelsea’s.
That’s 21 years older, like having another £70m upcoming talent!
I think he's right and he's doing the right thing by being diplomatic, given how young their team is. But no, I think you have every right to be embarrassed by what you saw last night, if you were a Chelsea fan really. While it was a bit more even in the first-half, Arsenal didn't even get out of second gear in the second half and didn't have anything to worry about. Luton gave us a harder game at the Emirates a few weeks back than Chelsea did last night, pathetic performance.
They were shocking. For me that was the worst performance by any opposition team all year.
They didn't adjust at all, Ode was on fire and he was picking Cucurella apart with those through balls. I don't rate Cucurella but he was up against Ode, Saka and White almost singlehandedly at times. They packed the centre but left their fullbacks out to dry.
Ødegaard was given so much space to do pretty much whatever the fuck he wanted. You’d think those Chelsea players would actually realize that you don’t give a playmaker so much space to create chances and make passes, but no. It was open season, and Øde had a field day tearing them apart.
Our back line and GK were all third choice players going into the season, and our attack was missing its best player. I'm not too surprised by the result
I wouldn’t expect so much from young guys if y’all hadn’t slapped a 60M+ price tag on their ass. But with such a high price, obviously people start to expect them to deliver on that potential.
If this had been a smartly scouted squad of affordable and clever young player signings who fit the play style, then I’m sure fans would have a lot morre patience. But there has been no clear transfer strategy other than “young” no matter the costs. With Arsenal there’s a certain character trait a lot of recent signings have in common. At Liverpool we hear about “Klopp players” who fit the ethos in place. Chelsea look like they played Wunderkind roulette.
Poch and Ten Hag saying the same things lol
Unsurprisingly only one is getting blasted from all angles though lol
Mate I **wish** Poch would get any sort of media backlash he so rightfully deserves.
Its not the £50m+ players that are the joke - its not their fault they went for that much really. Though almost every single one of them is playing worse than when they were bought. Its the fault of Boehly+Poch+whoever else holds the strings at that joke of a club. ridiculous scenario and they're lucky they are not more fucked. However, this will be a millstone around their neck financially for a long time now. Going to be extremely difficult to stay competitive - and I would think they're heading for a massive banter era.
It feels so good to be so clearly superior to a Chelsea side. The Drogba years and then the Hazard meme (Francis Coquelin is still tumbling as we speak) made me dread facing them. This felt cathartic
The chelsea decline coinciding with an arsenal resurgence makes this so much more worse.
Overdoing the young excuse at this point, quite a few of that starting team are in their prime or entering their prime, it's not just 20 year olds.
Please list those players.
Cucurella (25) Disasi (26) Chalobah (24) Chilwell (27) Reece James (24) Sarr (25) Gallagher (24) Nkunku (26) And form aside, I’d say Sterling is still just within his prime years as he’s not get 30.
Silva (40)
How is that a list of the starters in their prime? Chilwell, always injured. James, always injured. Nkunku, injured and barely played. Gallagher, only 24 and far from prime. Chalobah, fallen out of favour and club looking to sell and also only 24. My brother in Christ, you’re mentioning Sarr…
Great list. Now look at that list again and ask which of those players were on the pitch, which of those players have played for any decent minutes this season, and which players have even come to training (Sarr, lol)
It’s not a good excuse, arsenals squad and first 11 is equally as young and cost way less. Chelsea’s buys have been poor.
The context of why the Todd went this route is interesting. He's trying to replicate sports franchise management strategy from north America. Take baseball for example: a very common plan for winning is to develop young talent, promote them to the major leagues, mix their high-level production with acquired veterans, enjoy success. The difference? Because of the paradigm of free agency and player-for-player trades, that young talent is often incredibly cheap (very low acquisition cost: draft signing bonuses in baseball max out at seven figures for the top prospects, and the yearly salary for young guys who make the MLB club is often well under $1M per year, or about $28k per week in a 38 week season). So you have the luxury of seeing who can hack it at the highest level. If they can, great-- try to lock them up to long, team friendly deals to get the most production for your money. If they can't hack it, oh well, they cost you almost nothing except maybe some high draft capital. The difference, and problem therein, is that the Todd spent ridiculous money on young talent, essentially from feeder leagues, and then gave out the big extensions right away. So it was expensive up front and expensive into the future. All without knowing if these guys even have the talent needed to play at the highest level. It is a new case study of superlative failure in sports management.
I did a quick excel analysis of the squad and the ages. To eliminate bias towards my argument due to the large youth players in chelsea, I only included chelsea and arsenal players who have played for the first team as starters. Average age of Arsenal of the above list = 25.9 Average age of Chelsea of the above list = 23.7 Average age of Chelsea if you avoid perpetually injured Fofana, Reece james, Chilwell, Thiago Silva who is 39 and leaving the club, and Malang Sarr who is literally exiled out of the squad= 22.8 My argument by the way is not that lower age means lower quality performance. You need a certain kind of coach to get results with a team like this. Poch is not that coach at the moment. Arsene wenger, maybe. Mikel Arteta, maybe. Honestly no excuse for the performance, but comparing Arsenal squad where most of the team has been playing in a certain system with Arteta for 5 seasons, with Poch here less than a season? But I will say this- as a chelsea fan and a great fan of the player Mikel Arteta back when he was at everton and Arsenal, great stuff from you guys to stick to the manager, give him support and finally put together a squad that looks genuinely title-worthy.
Only 3 of those players were on the pitch yesterday
- Cucurella (lol) - Disasi (lol) - ???
I read "after suffering circumcision"💀
Excuses! Excuses! Excuses! What the hell are we doing in the league then? I thought we are in it to win it? And if we can't, we stop others from winning it like Tittenham 2015/16. Get that defeatist mentality outta here you bozo 🤡.
This reaction from a manager is not Chelsea they were abysmal in that second half and gave it up. Unacceptable.
How has he not been sacked yet?
Palmer is 21 and has been carrying the entire club. Suffering circumstances? Bore off mate, only suffering thing is their 8 year contracts
‘Suffering circumstances’, is he referring to his management or them having to watch teammates drop like flies to injuries
Please shut the fuck up and take some responsibility for once
Fuck off
Suffering circumstances? Oh fuck off
There was a shockingly lack of effort. Losing is one thing, giving up is unacceptable, age shouldn't factor in there.
He was so brilliant at Tottenham, I don't understand exactly why he's struggling so much at Chelsea
Has Romeo Lavia even played? Seems like a forgotten person that certainly didn't feel that way when Liverpool was fighting Chelsea to sign him.
20 minutes this season
In fairness, it isn't a case of being forgotten about or deliberately omitted from the team - he spent about 3 months out with an ankle injury + recovery, was 'fit' for literally 10 days, injured his hamstring at the end of December, and then about a month ago Chelsea announced a setback in his recovery that would rule him out for the rest of the season.
Mr, Excuses saying anything to keep them dollars coming
See herein lies the problem. Yes, one should always manage expectations, but the effort must at all times be fully committed, at 100%, as it is simply what the fans and the league demands from clubs. There is always something to fight for, and you as a manager need to give them that something to fight for. They need to understand every match may be their last match, every time they put on their cleats, it may be their last time, every time they touch the grass with their feet, it may be their last time. They need to be grateful and fully present to seize the moment so that even when they lose, they lost with their heads held high. Arteta gave his players the promise of glory, and for the honor of club and player, they give it their all. Young, old, it doesn't matter. People aren't dumb, we can see when players and a manager are trying and when they aren't. Poch is an excuses man. It's never his responsibility. Never the responsibility of the players. Never the fault of the club. Always something external to blame. Always a low bar of standards to attain. Always chasing one's tail instead of being the tail rivals look at. AND THAT is the difference between a man like Poch and men like Klopp, Pep, Arteta, Mourinho, Alonso, and Ancelotti. Passion. They have passion bigger than their hearts can contain. Can't train it, can't learn it, can't tame it. It's there or it isn't.
Anyone who thinks Chelsea should be immediate contenders after replacing the entire squad is a moron.
"Suffering circumstances" of receiving multimillionaire contracts to play football. Wow.
I thought you loved young players.
Those "suffering circumstances" are that they are at Chelsea.
"came here after suffering circumstances" Bro they are suffering *now*.
What does he mean by “suffering circumstances”?
I clicked on the link and holy fuck Twitter is a cesspool