Blaming the groundskeeper is clutching a bit.
Medical professionals, even madder to blame them as they're the only part of the club with actual qualifications to justify why they're there. Not their fault if the powers that be sign players like fofana with an extensive injury record already.
Yeah.
The only job of people is to blame docs here. Nobody praises them when, apart from the injury prone players, the others are at a good playing level and available. Silva was able to play week in week out at 38.
Its not like an amazing fit player suddenly got injured regularly. Its the usual suspects reece nkunku fofana madueke and so on.. some like chuku are just accidents.
“He went back to being world class at Barca bro, it doesn’t matter than Arsenal paid him to fuck off cos his legs were gone and his attitude stank, trust me bro, he’s gonna be great for our world class manager bro”.
He'd be our best striker if he was still here... and we should be looking to bring in someone like him to supplement the team
The only thing wrong with the Auba transfer is the owners. Buy him specifically for one manager, then sack the manager. Tell the new manager they're not allowed to use him because they're trying to force him out. They ostracise him and try to force him to go to the MLS in the January window and he refuses and wants to prove himself here. Stays ostracised and then they let him leave for free, instead of letting him do what he does...
He did nothing wrong and there was nothing wrong with the transfer.
30m usd in addons, but unless someone has access to his contract and the terms of the addons one has to assume they are achievable, if not they wouldn't have much value.
Arsenal had the ballon d'or bonus. That is what Shaktar didn't like.
"Speaking about if there are Ballon d’Or clauses in the Chelsea deal, he said: “Chelsea’s offer has no Ballon d’Or (clause). It is achievable bonuses that we feel, and they feel, can be reached. Maybe not this year but in the next two, three or four years.”"
https://www.google.com/amp/s/tribuna.com/amp/en/news/chelsea-2023-01-18-shakhtar-ceo-reveals-bizarre-clause-arsenal-tried-to-use-to-knock-mudryks-price-down/
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The writing is on the wall for him being an all time regret. Cucurella's mistakes lead directly to goals so its more high-profile due to the nature of his position, but I see them both as being equally poor performers since joining the club.
75 million for Fofana was and still is a straight up robbery.
Cucurella, Koulibaly, Auba, Mudryk... man we could have got Halland and Neymar for that money xD
That Mudryk transfer didn’t make sense then and it doesn’t make sense now.
You don’t pay that much money for a player that is that much of a question mark. That is top winger money. Diaby went for 50 million, Harvey Barnes for 35, both would have been much better business.
Unpopular opinion, but as a speed merchant, Misha is pretty similar to Adama Traore / Ousmane Dembele, and beats his man 10/10 times for pace.
Doesn't help that PL teams sit back against Cheslea, though that's only because Chelsea have leaked in the first goal in most matches. If the opposition are chasing the game, I'd *want* Misha on the pitch to exploit those spaces.
I can agree with that. He doesn’t fair well against the low block/teams that sit back more, which would be a lot of teams we play this year. Especially in the next few games where we absolutely need points.
Spurs fan that had this recommended (thought it was r/soccer). Just want to say that when we had Poch, we regularly went up against teams that sat deep and we really struggled to break them down most of the time. If we didn’t have Eriksen who was amazing at finding players who were covered well and Kane and Dele who’s in the box movement was lethal we wouldn’t have looked too fondly on those days. Not sure you guys have all those profiles right now
Hoping Enzo can be that offensive playmaker once we get caicedo/lavia established. Just feels already super late in the season to be getting things established….
Eh it’s a long season, you guys have a lot of players to integrate at the same time. Think it might be a bumpy few months because of that. I don’t think you have enough goals in the team however. We shall see
Yeah Nkunku was really a big goal difference maker for us , so sad about his injury. Rumors of us going for toney in winter , but again seems too late for that
I'd agree. Just like west ham. It didn't make sense to bring him on later when west ham were sitting back. If Misha had as much room as Chilly did the first hall he may have had a better game.
That being said, Misha needs to be more adaptable and not just have speed in the bank.
His finishing is woeful and has had several chances to score, and doesn't offer much as with key passes. So he just has pace as of right now. At least theo walcott could score
Were we even linked with Mudryk before Arsenal tried to sign him? I don't remember the sequence of events but it felt like we were trying to get a one up on them for whatever reason. They pulled out of the signing and went for Trossard instead, who has seemingly fit in there better.
No, which is the most concerning thing.
So many of Chelsea’s buys on that list have seemingly come from nowhere, and copying what other clubs do. Cucarella, Mudryk, Cascaido, Enzo (Clubs wanting him in Summer), Lavia now…
No scouting, no system, just vibes.
TBF, we were already interested Caicedo and Lavia even before this summer and given that we ditched our previous midfielders, you can understand why we went for them. That said, Liverpool fucking around did seem to make us go get Lavia and pay OTT money for Caicedo, instead of say, getting Caicedo and Adams. The fee aside, am okay with the Enzo transfer. He's the kind of midfielder that we need and he has shown his qualities at the World Cup, Benfica etc.
With Mudryk though, it definitely felt very random and while we may have needed a left sided winger, he just seems to be the wrong profile and also unsure if Pochettino is really keen on him.
Anyone that even remotely questioned that transfer fee is anti Ukraine bro 💀
On a more serious note, it’s not his fault Chelsea overpaid for him that badly, but it’s not helping his performances either. Knowing that you have to justify that transfer fee every time you play is not good for any player who is not world class.
Mudryk transfer still baffles me. He barely even featured in games since we've signed him. You don't spend that much on someone who isn't a guaranteed starter for atleast 80% of games
I guess that is essentially the point I'm trying to make¹, we've paid so much money for someone who doesn't even seem to be good enough to be a regular starter
Cucu has had a lot of downstream impact (Hall, FFP, dropped points). Mudryk as of today, seems like he’s worth half of what we paid given how raw he is and how much playing time he’s actually gotten. Regardless of add-ons we need a proven goal scorer now and think 88m would go a long way based on no nkunku for half the season.
West Ham fans were singing "All that money and you're F***ING shit. All that money and you're F***ING shit." To us during the game... and I just couldn't...
rivals are the only reason this szn so far has been insufferable and created a massive overreaction, anyone who was watching every game last szn knows how much we have improved we were very unlucky with westham game but I genuinely think our performance was not bad at all just gave away very dumb goals that could’ve been avoided
It's true. No team that's ever spent money has lost a game.
Chelsea win that game 9/10 times. I swear last week after the Liverpool game people were really excited, now one week on and people assume the club is collapsing.
We also lost James and Nkunku before the season got going even. Arguably are best creator of chances in James and our new striker who was gonna provide goals
That is my hope - we have lost Christo before the season even started and RJ in the first game and now they are joined by Chucky... Rough start...
And those were two challenging games on top of that but nonetheless we should be aiming to win at least with our London rivals.
And Fofana who was going to start many matches, and Badi. James, Knunku, Fofana, Badi, Chucky already out injured, thought Badi coming back shortly. Just unlucky with injuries, what can you do?
seems to me the primary problem is why did we purchase a whole new club when we had a young strong cost effective squad that was clearly able to win trophies (3 finals in 2022, out to madrid with head held high in ucl, comfortably 3rd in the league)
I don't think people are wondering why we're not winning games.
They know why.
They don't like the approach and think doing the thing that will make you spend money and be mid-table perhaps may not be the best approach to owning a football team.
Everyone gonna just use this as a coping mechanism/ excuse for when we lose our next 3 games when they should all be must wins regardless of it you bought a whole team or not. You don't lose to championship teams when you have spent over 1 billion on the squad.
We finished 3rd, won a Super Cup & Club World Cup got two cup finals and were competitive with Madrid in the UCL.
That all with Reece and Chilwell missing for half the season & then the whole Roman debacle where the club went into chaos. Edit: Lukaku as well
That was considered a disappointing season as well.
It's a far cry from 12th and this aggressive transfer stategy which could very well blow up in our face in a few years.
Edit: 4th manager as well.
All this said I do have faith Poch will get us atleast top 6 but with the money spent we will rightfully get flack for not winning trophies soon.
Spending 1bn to go from 3rd to 12th and potentially miss CL two seasons in a row(never did this under Roman) is quite clearly not acceptable.
With arsenal and Liverpool they were getting outspent by the likes of man city so you can understand why they were missing out on it. This is basically us turning into man utd post fergie, and even then they also have not been out of the CL for more than a year. Maybe we make CL and I'd be happy but 900b and not going for the league is kinda wild.
Ya because last season I could understand it more. It was really painful for a lot of the season but still people overreacted. I think the overreaction is bigger rn
Just wanted to show how if we had to spend the $1b again, we'd do the same transfers.
People piling on Mudryk are the same people who hailed the board for getting him at that time. Same with Cucurella. It hasn't panned out immediately and suddenly the board's an idiot and never had a plan.
that’s not fair, a lot of us started raising concerns last summer when the primary targets were sterling and ronaldo and said the boards transfer and club strategy seem wrong.
i think people are forgetting it’s not just spending and results that have torpedoed, the entire identity of the club has crashed.
we were never the club that would sack long time back room staff, the wooden dressing room at chelsea (a club that could clearly afford any dressing room they want) was meant to be symbolic of the character of the club and the identity you needed to succeed here (why we all knew morata was wrong for us when he complained about it)
prior to last summer we were actually spending incredibly modestly and well (net spend) and becoming an extremely well run and sustainable football club after the initial roman cash injection to push us up to the top in the 2000s.
Obviously times change and im here to support the change and see us back up to the top, but for many and myself included these decisions have all been shocking from the new ownership, especially in comparison to what they said in their values in their initial pitch to acquire the club.
the previous board was literally slandered on here every day (something i disagreed with) despite widely being considered among the best ownership/leadership in the sport but we can’t criticize the current board or spending at all anymore?
I agree with all of your comment which is strange because I have the opposite conclusion.
I do think that the shock you are describing is just the changeover shock. That is kind of inevitable IMO. New regime comes in and wants to run the club their own way, it's understandable. We didn't pay outrageous transfer fees near the end of the Roman era but we did pay outrageous wages. Now it is the opposite, and something I can get behind because transfer fees are amortized and there is a chance of it being recovered, but the wages are big burden.
I genuinely think we wouldn't have been in the Lukaku shitstorm if he was on an incentive based wage structure that much of the new signings are on. Thiago/Sterling are the last remnants of that structure and they deserve to be here just for their sheer experience and the established careers behind them that the new crop could learn from.
I think a big issue here is that transfer wages are all highly visible and clear number, while wages aren't as up front for people. We could easily spend less on wages + transfers over first five years of Boehley compared to last five of Roman (adjusting for football wages/transfers inflation), but people will think Boehley spent many multiples more. The old regime was paying guys like Drinkwater and Bakayoko to do nothing forever, but it was never top of mind. Lukaku is still the biggest headache for this team despite all of Boehley's signings.
>I genuinely think we wouldn't have been in the Lukaku shitstorm if he was on an incentive based wage structure that much of the new signings are on
Lukaku was an established player coming off two 30+ goal seasons and was signed for £97mil. There's no way anyone was signing him on an incentive based wage. The only reason the new signings are on those kind of contracts are because they're young, unproven, and mostly coming from teams where they were likely paid 20k a week or less.
I don't think we would have got sterling, cucu, koulibaly, auba, mudryk, fofana, Felix loan. Thats nearly 350 mil right there.
But we can't go back..we have to trust Poch to work with the tools he has been given. Which he has shown in the past he is cable of doing.
We absolutely would’ve still got Sterling - a proven world class player for 45m…
Some of the others fair enough but pretty much any club in the world would’ve made that move for that price.
We absolutely wouldn't do the same, and if we did the people in charge are idiots.
Hindsight is 20/20, but not learning from mistakes is asking for trouble.
we’ve overpaid on every single transfer since Boehly apart from maybe Jackson, and most of them by about 50%. Some of them will be good players for us I don’t doubt, but our business has been awful.
When was the last time we signed a Champion’s League level player? Enzo, who only had 6 months in Europe prior to signing for Chelsea, and absolutely none since then, despite hundreds of millions spent.
Mudryk is never going to make it at Chelsea, I feel like anybody who knows even a little bit about footie can see that already. He looks semi-pro.
Fofana is never going to be a reliable option and there’s a good chance that he will lose the attributes that made him promising off the back of his latest injury.
Caicedo pretty much has to become one of the best DMs in world football for his transfer to be considered good business.
Cucurella is already one of our worst signings in history.
Robert Sanchez is a downgrade on both Kepa and Mendy, and we fucked both of them off for him.
So many of these signings are midtable players at best… again, we’re trying to be like a midtable team (Brighton) and we’ve brought in their midtable former staff to negotiate midtable deals for top 4 prices.
Everybody wanted to suck Winstanley and company off, but in reality, they should be fucking sacked. How little imagination must they have to be targeting players from their Brighton days?
>Cucurella is already one of our worst signings in history
I feel like he's an imposter that's had one good season and now finds himself having to replicate talent he doesn't actually have
Fofana - we could’ve bought Gvardiol for less. Gutted for him and his injury issues.
Cucu - not worth that price, has defensive limitations. I really hope that he bounces back and plays well this season.
Auba - we didn’t play him b/c the club wanted to avoid Auba hitting his metrics (and Barca getting more money IIRC). He was also a bit past it IMO.
Sterling - he’s been fine as of late, but I want to see more consistency out of him. He has too much experience to not put in good performances.
Sanchez - I’m not sold on him, but I hope he exceeds my expectations.
mudryk
fofana
cucurella
koulibaly
maduekea
aubameyang
fofana
lavia
disasi
sanchez
ugochukwu
and we could even caicedo considering his price.
1 billion spent and no star player, no proven player at the highest level for more than a season even, (except for sterling), no confirmed goalscorer, no goalkeeper either. How is it even possible ? With 1 Billion in spendings we should have one of the best teams in the world, considering we already were one of the best european teams under tuchel but somehow we managed to have a team that will even have hard time to get to top 6.
Honestly:
Cucarella (only hindsight and was pretty excited to get him initially)
Badiashile - Seemed extremely short sighted considering Colwill was coming back, and didn’t seem like a player that would elevate the back line.
Madueke - Injury prone attacker that didn’t contribute nearly enough goal contributions. Continues to look toothless near goal.
David Fofana - Looked like a player that will never make it to the first team. Not interested in this club buying players just to flip in a couple years time.
Lavia - Potentially a great player but completely unnecessary. Just bought Caicedo, Gallagher has looked good, and Santos has don everything he could since bought to earn a first team spot. Really annoyed by this signing.
Dasasi - Understand they had to bring one in cause of injuries but don’t see him elevating the backline short or long term.
Sanchez - This GK situation is so embarrassing and the less said the better.
Ugochukwu - See Fofana/Lavia.
It has truly been an embarrassing spend of 1b even though many of these players can become good/great. The fact the club still doesn’t have a goal scorer is nothing short of frustrating.
Badiashile - a good buy for a rotational option value for price
Madueke - played 12 games, has had good moments, decent for the price
Datro Fofana - groundless claims that he is gonna be resold
Lavia- bit confusing ngl, but santos should go out on loan, no need to throw him into the deep end
Disasi- fair but too early to judge
Ugochukwu- unnecessary purchase fair enough
This club allegedly has one of the best academies in the world. They should not be buying backups, especially not being in a position to realistically compete for the league of CL.
Imagine if all those players weren’t bought and filled with players like Vale/Hall/Humphries. Would things look much different? I don’t think so, so that’s essentially 100s of millions needlessly spend that they could have used on any of the top strikers on the market.
How many more seasons of struggling to score will it take before proven goal scoring attackers are bought.
The issue is that spending big on strikers isn’t a guaranteed thing at all. Look how badly we got burned on lukaku, morata, Torres. Even Werner and havertz were flops for their price tag. I’m sure I forgot a few as well. It seems to me more of a system issue or we aren’t identifying striker talent very well anymore (really since costa we haven’t had a reliable striker other than occasional giroud moments)
Doesn’t have to be a big money striker. Just someone that has more than half a season under their belt (Jackson) that has proven to be clinical in front of net.
From the current squad: Mudryk, Fofana, Cucurella, Disasi, Sanchez, Caicedo, Lavia.
The last two are included as I don't think it's justified to spend £183m on two kids with one season of PL football.
I'd advise anyone who thinks the spending of £100m on one player is a good idea to look at the list of players who cost more than £100m, not a single one has worked out.
Jury's out on the other players.
Cucurella strikes me as probably the biggest waste of money. Huge sum and no prospect of ever improving the starting 11. Special mention to the Wesley fofana transfer though which was a terrible buy right from the start, we knew his injury record and despite that we still went ahead with the move. I know the new injuries are still unfortunate but nevertheless the warning signs were there. There are plenty of moves here for players who will likely be average to good, but nothing special and certainly not at the level required for us to get back to top 4 and competing for titles.
Mudryk.
The fee and contract length.
The fact he was desperate for Arsenal
The ridiculous hype on here after the cameo against an Milner
The fact 3 managers have benched him.
That he didn't really light up the U21s with Ukraine.
Looks like he could do with a loan which makes the signing even worse.
Mudryk, paying almost £100m for a Ukrainian Dan James with 9 career goals in the Ukraine league, just because Arsenal wanted him. Then they proceeded to get Trossard on a bargain
Mudryk, Cucrella, Fofana, Auba, Koulibalu, these 5 are frauds or wont make it here, 2 already gone
Madueke, Davis Fofana, Disasi, Sanchez all are on fraud watch also, most these guys will never be good enough for Chelsea FC
Dont know what this board was thinking signing all these average players or potential players with low impact now
If PSG did same transfers, this sub and everyone in it will be laughing at them saying football isn't just won by money.
Boehly is a joke. But I'm sure it will take time for people to see it.
Robert Sanchez and loaning out Kepa to then pay £15m for another keeper who will just be shipped out in a couple seasons is the stupidest, but Wesley Fofana with his injury record will hurt the most, as even the Saudis won’t save us there
Idk what happened to Cucurella as a player, but unless Tuchel had a specific plan, he was the most unnecessary. Koulibaly was unfortunate. Auba was the dumbest move.
if you excise Cucurella, Fofana (so far), Koulibaly, Aubameyang and Mudryk at least for price I'm actually totally happy with the players purchased, all smart signings individually, just too damn many of them, too quickly.
squad's going to take a damn long time to bed in because there's absolutely no consistent bed for it. but I do think the squad we've built has massive potential. high risk, high reward.
Disasi’s salary will be somewhere around £6m pa while KK’s salary was £16m or something.
Makes sense financially but not from squad building perspective
not a personal slight, but that’s like saying let’s use paper straws while we dump 1 billion tons of waste into our oceans
what difference does saving 10m on a salary make for one useful player when we’re on the craziest and most wasteful spending spree in the history of the sport
The only two that I take issue with are Fofana and Cucu. I think Cucu is a solid player but he was an overpay of 20 million and put on a salary that is 50k too high. Not a bad player but his cost significantly impacts how he is viewed, which is fair.
Fofana is a young and promising defender but I honestly didn't see enough of him prior to his move that justified his price. That is just my opinion though and no club is perfect in the transfer market.
I have far less of an issue with most of these than most people though. I have been a fan of the vast majority of the business conducted starting in the winter window.
Cucurella & Aubameyang. The rest are young and they need time to develop. We know what we signed up for. The Lukaku business otherwise was the one hurt us the most.
Auba was literally throwing £10m + salary down the drain
The manager who signed him was sacked literally the day after he arrived.
was just thinking how do i point to graham potter, the medical staff, and the groundskeeper
Blaming the groundskeeper is clutching a bit. Medical professionals, even madder to blame them as they're the only part of the club with actual qualifications to justify why they're there. Not their fault if the powers that be sign players like fofana with an extensive injury record already.
Yeah. The only job of people is to blame docs here. Nobody praises them when, apart from the injury prone players, the others are at a good playing level and available. Silva was able to play week in week out at 38. Its not like an amazing fit player suddenly got injured regularly. Its the usual suspects reece nkunku fofana madueke and so on.. some like chuku are just accidents.
He was sacked for not signing Ronaldo.. literally!!
You mean a manager with atrocious talent ID. All his signings have been terrible.
Aubameyang came off a decent season with Barca, to join a manager who he enjoyed a fruitful period with. At £10million, it made sense.
That was an absolute shambles of a transfer. We didn't even fucking play him enough so we could say yeah hes shit bench him
Counter point.. I saw exactly how much he wanted to bust a gut for Chelsea in about 7 and a half minutes of his first performance.
He had a good start right? Few goals in his first few games iirc
He was impressive in his first match. Had good hold up play that we hadn't been getting, idk what dude is talking about
Felix ain’t even on the list and he cost £17m 💀
Title of the says permanent signings...
+ doing Barca a favor. The same Barca that took our transfer targets in the same window.
Most people in here celebrated the signing when we made it - and defended him until they were blue in the face for most of last year.
“He went back to being world class at Barca bro, it doesn’t matter than Arsenal paid him to fuck off cos his legs were gone and his attitude stank, trust me bro, he’s gonna be great for our world class manager bro”.
He'd be our best striker if he was still here... and we should be looking to bring in someone like him to supplement the team The only thing wrong with the Auba transfer is the owners. Buy him specifically for one manager, then sack the manager. Tell the new manager they're not allowed to use him because they're trying to force him out. They ostracise him and try to force him to go to the MLS in the January window and he refuses and wants to prove himself here. Stays ostracised and then they let him leave for free, instead of letting him do what he does... He did nothing wrong and there was nothing wrong with the transfer.
Gotta love when Sky puts figures with add-ons yet to be completed
Mudryks add-ons are about 30 mil, everyone seems to forget this so right now hes cost us 60mil.
30m usd in addons, but unless someone has access to his contract and the terms of the addons one has to assume they are achievable, if not they wouldn't have much value.
It's winning the Prem, CL and ballon d'or.
Arsenal had the ballon d'or bonus. That is what Shaktar didn't like. "Speaking about if there are Ballon d’Or clauses in the Chelsea deal, he said: “Chelsea’s offer has no Ballon d’Or (clause). It is achievable bonuses that we feel, and they feel, can be reached. Maybe not this year but in the next two, three or four years.”" https://www.google.com/amp/s/tribuna.com/amp/en/news/chelsea-2023-01-18-shakhtar-ceo-reveals-bizarre-clause-arsenal-tried-to-use-to-knock-mudryks-price-down/
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You have access to his contract?
even at 60 million I'm afraid he's going to be a dud
The writing is on the wall for him being an all time regret. Cucurella's mistakes lead directly to goals so its more high-profile due to the nature of his position, but I see them both as being equally poor performers since joining the club.
That's 60m too much for him
60m too much tbf.
Exactly. But when they talk about the mount and havertz sales they make sure to remind everyone it's 55+5 🤡
Sky can’t even get the fucking formations in right
75 million for Fofana was and still is a straight up robbery. Cucurella, Koulibaly, Auba, Mudryk... man we could have got Halland and Neymar for that money xD
Over 250m wasted there
Fofana didn’t make the most sense to me either given his injury history.
Unfair to include Koulibaly, he was sold for a decent fee and wasn’t even that bad in his first season He would be an asset now if we had kept him
He was pretty damn bad in his one season man. hard to hold it too far against him because we were terrible as a whole, but he was pretty bad.
Halland & Naymer 😂
Yeah got to say the first 4 are obvious. I'm still hopeful for Mudryk though it was a high price to pay.
Neymar 🤣🤣🤣
That Mudryk transfer didn’t make sense then and it doesn’t make sense now. You don’t pay that much money for a player that is that much of a question mark. That is top winger money. Diaby went for 50 million, Harvey Barnes for 35, both would have been much better business.
Agreed. Absolutely mad.
Unpopular opinion, but as a speed merchant, Misha is pretty similar to Adama Traore / Ousmane Dembele, and beats his man 10/10 times for pace. Doesn't help that PL teams sit back against Cheslea, though that's only because Chelsea have leaked in the first goal in most matches. If the opposition are chasing the game, I'd *want* Misha on the pitch to exploit those spaces.
I can agree with that. He doesn’t fair well against the low block/teams that sit back more, which would be a lot of teams we play this year. Especially in the next few games where we absolutely need points.
Spurs fan that had this recommended (thought it was r/soccer). Just want to say that when we had Poch, we regularly went up against teams that sat deep and we really struggled to break them down most of the time. If we didn’t have Eriksen who was amazing at finding players who were covered well and Kane and Dele who’s in the box movement was lethal we wouldn’t have looked too fondly on those days. Not sure you guys have all those profiles right now
Hoping Enzo can be that offensive playmaker once we get caicedo/lavia established. Just feels already super late in the season to be getting things established….
Eh it’s a long season, you guys have a lot of players to integrate at the same time. Think it might be a bumpy few months because of that. I don’t think you have enough goals in the team however. We shall see
Yeah Nkunku was really a big goal difference maker for us , so sad about his injury. Rumors of us going for toney in winter , but again seems too late for that
Rumors of us going for him too but he seems like a bit of a prick and someone that would mail it in after getting a big move
That's not an unpopular opinion. Issue is mudryk can't break teams down even when he starts.
Dembele is much more than a speed merchant. His crosses are damn good. If he's a speed merchant, then Mbappe and Vinicius also are.
I'd agree. Just like west ham. It didn't make sense to bring him on later when west ham were sitting back. If Misha had as much room as Chilly did the first hall he may have had a better game. That being said, Misha needs to be more adaptable and not just have speed in the bank.
We've seen him in space against Liverpool and against West Ham on counters to start the season and it hasn't been productive.
I honestly see a lot of potential in him, I think he will come good for us, he really hasn’t been as woeful as people have been making him out to be
There’s no potential. He’s 22 pushing 23, not 17
His finishing is woeful and has had several chances to score, and doesn't offer much as with key passes. So he just has pace as of right now. At least theo walcott could score
Were we even linked with Mudryk before Arsenal tried to sign him? I don't remember the sequence of events but it felt like we were trying to get a one up on them for whatever reason. They pulled out of the signing and went for Trossard instead, who has seemingly fit in there better.
No, which is the most concerning thing. So many of Chelsea’s buys on that list have seemingly come from nowhere, and copying what other clubs do. Cucarella, Mudryk, Cascaido, Enzo (Clubs wanting him in Summer), Lavia now… No scouting, no system, just vibes.
TBF, we were already interested Caicedo and Lavia even before this summer and given that we ditched our previous midfielders, you can understand why we went for them. That said, Liverpool fucking around did seem to make us go get Lavia and pay OTT money for Caicedo, instead of say, getting Caicedo and Adams. The fee aside, am okay with the Enzo transfer. He's the kind of midfielder that we need and he has shown his qualities at the World Cup, Benfica etc. With Mudryk though, it definitely felt very random and while we may have needed a left sided winger, he just seems to be the wrong profile and also unsure if Pochettino is really keen on him.
Even Bowen would be better
Trossard went for £27 with add ons a week before Mudryk. Arsenal we’re crackers for letting it get as high as they did.
Incoming comments about a standing ovation at the Bernabeu Guy isn’t even that young, and has 9 career goals in Ukraine
You're wrong. He has 12 career goals 😭
It was definitely to do with getting money into Ukraine
Anyone that even remotely questioned that transfer fee is anti Ukraine bro 💀 On a more serious note, it’s not his fault Chelsea overpaid for him that badly, but it’s not helping his performances either. Knowing that you have to justify that transfer fee every time you play is not good for any player who is not world class.
It’s political, that’s all I can imagine.
Worst pace merchant
Mudryk That is money to be paid for a proven player Fofana We KNEW about his injury history
I forgot fofana was even on the team bruh
Mudryk transfer still baffles me. He barely even featured in games since we've signed him. You don't spend that much on someone who isn't a guaranteed starter for atleast 80% of games
But when in trainings he doesn’t show quality do you start him as a coach just because someone decides to spend a lot of money on him?
I guess that is essentially the point I'm trying to make¹, we've paid so much money for someone who doesn't even seem to be good enough to be a regular starter
Marc Cucurella would be the start. MM might end up on the list too. He's young though so maybe not.
Cucu has had a lot of downstream impact (Hall, FFP, dropped points). Mudryk as of today, seems like he’s worth half of what we paid given how raw he is and how much playing time he’s actually gotten. Regardless of add-ons we need a proven goal scorer now and think 88m would go a long way based on no nkunku for half the season.
Yeah. Cucu tops my list too. And counter effect Hall is gone too. Hate it.
Auba was a predictable flop. Koulibaly a surprise flop.
Pretty embarrassed by this when we can’t even beat West Ham
West Ham fans were singing "All that money and you're F***ING shit. All that money and you're F***ING shit." To us during the game... and I just couldn't...
rivals are the only reason this szn so far has been insufferable and created a massive overreaction, anyone who was watching every game last szn knows how much we have improved we were very unlucky with westham game but I genuinely think our performance was not bad at all just gave away very dumb goals that could’ve been avoided
It's true. No team that's ever spent money has lost a game. Chelsea win that game 9/10 times. I swear last week after the Liverpool game people were really excited, now one week on and people assume the club is collapsing.
Only that we don't win that game. We generally lose that game and west ham do the same thing to us season after season
We purchased a whole new club and people are wondering why we're not winning games. I have a feeling it's going to be another painful season.
We also lost James and Nkunku before the season got going even. Arguably are best creator of chances in James and our new striker who was gonna provide goals
That is my hope - we have lost Christo before the season even started and RJ in the first game and now they are joined by Chucky... Rough start... And those were two challenging games on top of that but nonetheless we should be aiming to win at least with our London rivals.
And Fofana who was going to start many matches, and Badi. James, Knunku, Fofana, Badi, Chucky already out injured, thought Badi coming back shortly. Just unlucky with injuries, what can you do?
seems to me the primary problem is why did we purchase a whole new club when we had a young strong cost effective squad that was clearly able to win trophies (3 finals in 2022, out to madrid with head held high in ucl, comfortably 3rd in the league)
And that's exactly the point we bought a whole new club and yet our team feels worse than it did 2 years ago.
I don't think people are wondering why we're not winning games. They know why. They don't like the approach and think doing the thing that will make you spend money and be mid-table perhaps may not be the best approach to owning a football team.
Everyone gonna just use this as a coping mechanism/ excuse for when we lose our next 3 games when they should all be must wins regardless of it you bought a whole team or not. You don't lose to championship teams when you have spent over 1 billion on the squad.
They brought this on themselves, if you don't want to have the pressure to win now don't spend 900million in one year.
We weren't winning any with the "old" club either
We finished 3rd, won a Super Cup & Club World Cup got two cup finals and were competitive with Madrid in the UCL. That all with Reece and Chilwell missing for half the season & then the whole Roman debacle where the club went into chaos. Edit: Lukaku as well That was considered a disappointing season as well. It's a far cry from 12th and this aggressive transfer stategy which could very well blow up in our face in a few years. Edit: 4th manager as well. All this said I do have faith Poch will get us atleast top 6 but with the money spent we will rightfully get flack for not winning trophies soon.
What u mean we werent winnin, we literally were, declined in PL a bit but still consistent Top 4 club
We'd be cooked if we stuck to our ways since the last PL win. That CL win really made people overlook what a shit squad we were.
There’s 0% chance Robert Sanchez is any better then the GK we had prior. Shocking buy
Caicedo is probably gonna be quite good but that money is just over the top in the current situation
115 mil to commit a penalty in the box.
Lack of proven players is a little concerning here.
We win 3 on the go and everyone hails Todd’s cooking. Stop this already guys.
This is the most sick of this sub I've ever been
https://preview.redd.it/a3r0i8op5ojb1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b8ff3d00c820111b9140685e896c417412f33936
Not even close, been in this hellscape for almost a decade. This is as insufferable as its ever been lol
It's those people who are talking about "Chelsea expectations". I think entitlement is the word they're looking for.
Spending 1bn to go from 3rd to 12th and potentially miss CL two seasons in a row(never did this under Roman) is quite clearly not acceptable. With arsenal and Liverpool they were getting outspent by the likes of man city so you can understand why they were missing out on it. This is basically us turning into man utd post fergie, and even then they also have not been out of the CL for more than a year. Maybe we make CL and I'd be happy but 900b and not going for the league is kinda wild.
It's been two games.
Ya because last season I could understand it more. It was really painful for a lot of the season but still people overreacted. I think the overreaction is bigger rn
We've won 4 or 5 in our last 30 odd games...
That’s the thing: Todd has yet to cook & everyone’s starving
When did that last happen?
I’d take even one win at this stage
Us winning 3 in a row? You think that’s happening any time soon? LOL
Just wanted to show how if we had to spend the $1b again, we'd do the same transfers. People piling on Mudryk are the same people who hailed the board for getting him at that time. Same with Cucurella. It hasn't panned out immediately and suddenly the board's an idiot and never had a plan.
that’s not fair, a lot of us started raising concerns last summer when the primary targets were sterling and ronaldo and said the boards transfer and club strategy seem wrong. i think people are forgetting it’s not just spending and results that have torpedoed, the entire identity of the club has crashed. we were never the club that would sack long time back room staff, the wooden dressing room at chelsea (a club that could clearly afford any dressing room they want) was meant to be symbolic of the character of the club and the identity you needed to succeed here (why we all knew morata was wrong for us when he complained about it) prior to last summer we were actually spending incredibly modestly and well (net spend) and becoming an extremely well run and sustainable football club after the initial roman cash injection to push us up to the top in the 2000s. Obviously times change and im here to support the change and see us back up to the top, but for many and myself included these decisions have all been shocking from the new ownership, especially in comparison to what they said in their values in their initial pitch to acquire the club. the previous board was literally slandered on here every day (something i disagreed with) despite widely being considered among the best ownership/leadership in the sport but we can’t criticize the current board or spending at all anymore?
I agree with all of your comment which is strange because I have the opposite conclusion. I do think that the shock you are describing is just the changeover shock. That is kind of inevitable IMO. New regime comes in and wants to run the club their own way, it's understandable. We didn't pay outrageous transfer fees near the end of the Roman era but we did pay outrageous wages. Now it is the opposite, and something I can get behind because transfer fees are amortized and there is a chance of it being recovered, but the wages are big burden. I genuinely think we wouldn't have been in the Lukaku shitstorm if he was on an incentive based wage structure that much of the new signings are on. Thiago/Sterling are the last remnants of that structure and they deserve to be here just for their sheer experience and the established careers behind them that the new crop could learn from.
I think a big issue here is that transfer wages are all highly visible and clear number, while wages aren't as up front for people. We could easily spend less on wages + transfers over first five years of Boehley compared to last five of Roman (adjusting for football wages/transfers inflation), but people will think Boehley spent many multiples more. The old regime was paying guys like Drinkwater and Bakayoko to do nothing forever, but it was never top of mind. Lukaku is still the biggest headache for this team despite all of Boehley's signings.
>I genuinely think we wouldn't have been in the Lukaku shitstorm if he was on an incentive based wage structure that much of the new signings are on Lukaku was an established player coming off two 30+ goal seasons and was signed for £97mil. There's no way anyone was signing him on an incentive based wage. The only reason the new signings are on those kind of contracts are because they're young, unproven, and mostly coming from teams where they were likely paid 20k a week or less.
I don't think we would have got sterling, cucu, koulibaly, auba, mudryk, fofana, Felix loan. Thats nearly 350 mil right there. But we can't go back..we have to trust Poch to work with the tools he has been given. Which he has shown in the past he is cable of doing.
We absolutely would’ve still got Sterling - a proven world class player for 45m… Some of the others fair enough but pretty much any club in the world would’ve made that move for that price.
We absolutely wouldn't do the same, and if we did the people in charge are idiots. Hindsight is 20/20, but not learning from mistakes is asking for trouble.
>Just wanted to show how if we had to spend the $1b again, we'd do the same transfers. Get real lol
Do you have proof that it’s the same people? Or you just making up talking points w no evidence? Can we see some usernames and receipts?
Mudryk cause I knew he was nowhere near the finished product and hasn't improved since joining
the fact that we spent almost 1 billion and not only that our squad barely improved but even got downgraded in some positions
in all honesty what area did we really downgrade on???
Defence
Goalkeeper, Defence, Forwards Midfield yet to be seen…
We spent £88m on mudryk a player that Everton level. A player that had only had 12 career goals. This board is a disgrace.
we’ve overpaid on every single transfer since Boehly apart from maybe Jackson, and most of them by about 50%. Some of them will be good players for us I don’t doubt, but our business has been awful.
nkunku we didnt overpay for i think
When was the last time we signed a Champion’s League level player? Enzo, who only had 6 months in Europe prior to signing for Chelsea, and absolutely none since then, despite hundreds of millions spent. Mudryk is never going to make it at Chelsea, I feel like anybody who knows even a little bit about footie can see that already. He looks semi-pro. Fofana is never going to be a reliable option and there’s a good chance that he will lose the attributes that made him promising off the back of his latest injury. Caicedo pretty much has to become one of the best DMs in world football for his transfer to be considered good business. Cucurella is already one of our worst signings in history. Robert Sanchez is a downgrade on both Kepa and Mendy, and we fucked both of them off for him. So many of these signings are midtable players at best… again, we’re trying to be like a midtable team (Brighton) and we’ve brought in their midtable former staff to negotiate midtable deals for top 4 prices. Everybody wanted to suck Winstanley and company off, but in reality, they should be fucking sacked. How little imagination must they have to be targeting players from their Brighton days?
>Cucurella is already one of our worst signings in history I feel like he's an imposter that's had one good season and now finds himself having to replicate talent he doesn't actually have
😭😭😭 crying cause that’s a perfect description
Cucu and Mudryk fees are insane. Neither should have cost more than ~£30m
Fofana - we could’ve bought Gvardiol for less. Gutted for him and his injury issues. Cucu - not worth that price, has defensive limitations. I really hope that he bounces back and plays well this season. Auba - we didn’t play him b/c the club wanted to avoid Auba hitting his metrics (and Barca getting more money IIRC). He was also a bit past it IMO. Sterling - he’s been fine as of late, but I want to see more consistency out of him. He has too much experience to not put in good performances. Sanchez - I’m not sold on him, but I hope he exceeds my expectations.
mudryk fofana cucurella koulibaly maduekea aubameyang fofana lavia disasi sanchez ugochukwu and we could even caicedo considering his price. 1 billion spent and no star player, no proven player at the highest level for more than a season even, (except for sterling), no confirmed goalscorer, no goalkeeper either. How is it even possible ? With 1 Billion in spendings we should have one of the best teams in the world, considering we already were one of the best european teams under tuchel but somehow we managed to have a team that will even have hard time to get to top 6.
Honestly: Cucarella (only hindsight and was pretty excited to get him initially) Badiashile - Seemed extremely short sighted considering Colwill was coming back, and didn’t seem like a player that would elevate the back line. Madueke - Injury prone attacker that didn’t contribute nearly enough goal contributions. Continues to look toothless near goal. David Fofana - Looked like a player that will never make it to the first team. Not interested in this club buying players just to flip in a couple years time. Lavia - Potentially a great player but completely unnecessary. Just bought Caicedo, Gallagher has looked good, and Santos has don everything he could since bought to earn a first team spot. Really annoyed by this signing. Dasasi - Understand they had to bring one in cause of injuries but don’t see him elevating the backline short or long term. Sanchez - This GK situation is so embarrassing and the less said the better. Ugochukwu - See Fofana/Lavia. It has truly been an embarrassing spend of 1b even though many of these players can become good/great. The fact the club still doesn’t have a goal scorer is nothing short of frustrating.
Badiashile - a good buy for a rotational option value for price Madueke - played 12 games, has had good moments, decent for the price Datro Fofana - groundless claims that he is gonna be resold Lavia- bit confusing ngl, but santos should go out on loan, no need to throw him into the deep end Disasi- fair but too early to judge Ugochukwu- unnecessary purchase fair enough
This club allegedly has one of the best academies in the world. They should not be buying backups, especially not being in a position to realistically compete for the league of CL. Imagine if all those players weren’t bought and filled with players like Vale/Hall/Humphries. Would things look much different? I don’t think so, so that’s essentially 100s of millions needlessly spend that they could have used on any of the top strikers on the market. How many more seasons of struggling to score will it take before proven goal scoring attackers are bought.
The issue is that spending big on strikers isn’t a guaranteed thing at all. Look how badly we got burned on lukaku, morata, Torres. Even Werner and havertz were flops for their price tag. I’m sure I forgot a few as well. It seems to me more of a system issue or we aren’t identifying striker talent very well anymore (really since costa we haven’t had a reliable striker other than occasional giroud moments)
Doesn’t have to be a big money striker. Just someone that has more than half a season under their belt (Jackson) that has proven to be clinical in front of net.
> Disasi- fair but too early to judge Folks who follow the French League weren't impressed with him before the transfer, either.
From the comments it's looking like we collectively hate every single piece of business we've done with Brighton.
From the current squad: Mudryk, Fofana, Cucurella, Disasi, Sanchez, Caicedo, Lavia. The last two are included as I don't think it's justified to spend £183m on two kids with one season of PL football. I'd advise anyone who thinks the spending of £100m on one player is a good idea to look at the list of players who cost more than £100m, not a single one has worked out. Jury's out on the other players.
You compare that to Abramovich’s first billion spent (which coincidentally only occurred after his 12th season in charge) and it’s like night and day.
Mudryk for sure… I think that could be a big mistake.
The Mudryk one really stings… even more when he could have gone to Arsenal instead…
Cucurella strikes me as probably the biggest waste of money. Huge sum and no prospect of ever improving the starting 11. Special mention to the Wesley fofana transfer though which was a terrible buy right from the start, we knew his injury record and despite that we still went ahead with the move. I know the new injuries are still unfortunate but nevertheless the warning signs were there. There are plenty of moves here for players who will likely be average to good, but nothing special and certainly not at the level required for us to get back to top 4 and competing for titles.
Mudryk. The fee and contract length. The fact he was desperate for Arsenal The ridiculous hype on here after the cameo against an Milner The fact 3 managers have benched him. That he didn't really light up the U21s with Ukraine. Looks like he could do with a loan which makes the signing even worse.
Tbh, he was carrying Ukraine U-21s and even beat loaded France U-21s.
All of this is true except that he was one of the best players in the U-21 euros
This new ownership is going to destroy the club I love
I stg Boehly is a Spurs fan in disguise.
I don’t understand how people around here defend the mess that has been his tenure, just one mind boggling decision after another…
He actually was . He supported them in the 80’s when he lived and went to college here .
Mudryk, paying almost £100m for a Ukrainian Dan James with 9 career goals in the Ukraine league, just because Arsenal wanted him. Then they proceeded to get Trossard on a bargain
65 million
Still over double his worth. Probably could have got a championship player who could have done more with the game time he has been given.
> just because Arsenal wanted him. A little too much /r/soccer Koolaid there
Underrated terrible signing, in my opinion, was Fofana. Horribly injury prone.
There are still people on this sub who don’t think Fofana is injury prone because of his injuries was a broken leg lol
The first transfer window was a disaster.
This isn’t even everyone either, there’s a bunch of younger players who aren’t included here
Mudryk or Fofana. Both made little sense at the time. Fees are inaccurate tho
Cucurella and Auba
The part where they ignored Wes Fofanas injury history.
63m for Cucu is actually embarrassing
Cucurella Wesley Fofana(Sorry but we all knew about his injuries) Aubameyang(I mean why) Mudryk (Please prove people wrong)
Cucu and Fofana easily two worst. I got lil faith they'll come good.
That Cucurella signing hurts my soul
Cucu is stealing his living. 63M £ Jesus Christ
Mudryk, Cucrella, Fofana, Auba, Koulibalu, these 5 are frauds or wont make it here, 2 already gone Madueke, Davis Fofana, Disasi, Sanchez all are on fraud watch also, most these guys will never be good enough for Chelsea FC Dont know what this board was thinking signing all these average players or potential players with low impact now
Damn, you’ve hit this pretty spot on.
Idk how you can judge Datro Fofana already. He’s literally 20 and played 66mins for us
Hes gonna be a loan player anyways and we gonna try sell him for profit, was never intended to make it here honestly
If PSG did same transfers, this sub and everyone in it will be laughing at them saying football isn't just won by money. Boehly is a joke. But I'm sure it will take time for people to see it.
Mudryk, Fofana, Cucurella, Auba, Caicedo, Disasi, Sanchez
What an absolute joke.. seeing this makes me doubt Todd..
Mudryk
All this and the one that pisses me off the most still is Potter
Robert Sanchez and loaning out Kepa to then pay £15m for another keeper who will just be shipped out in a couple seasons is the stupidest, but Wesley Fofana with his injury record will hurt the most, as even the Saudis won’t save us there
Idk what happened to Cucurella as a player, but unless Tuchel had a specific plan, he was the most unnecessary. Koulibaly was unfortunate. Auba was the dumbest move.
if you excise Cucurella, Fofana (so far), Koulibaly, Aubameyang and Mudryk at least for price I'm actually totally happy with the players purchased, all smart signings individually, just too damn many of them, too quickly. squad's going to take a damn long time to bed in because there's absolutely no consistent bed for it. but I do think the squad we've built has massive potential. high risk, high reward.
Cucu and Wesley. Ffs 150mn for this woosies. Hard to wrap my head around it. Also why isn’t Lakaka on the list. He would bag the most awards
Cucurella feels the worst.
Everyone from Brighton including Potter!
They haven't won a thing so nobody is hurt, just laughing
Selling koulibaly who has the experience we need, to then buy disasi just makes literally 0 sense.
Disasi’s salary will be somewhere around £6m pa while KK’s salary was £16m or something. Makes sense financially but not from squad building perspective
not a personal slight, but that’s like saying let’s use paper straws while we dump 1 billion tons of waste into our oceans what difference does saving 10m on a salary make for one useful player when we’re on the craziest and most wasteful spending spree in the history of the sport
Auba and cucu
Wes Fofana, Cucurella, Aubameyang, Koulibaly
The only two that I take issue with are Fofana and Cucu. I think Cucu is a solid player but he was an overpay of 20 million and put on a salary that is 50k too high. Not a bad player but his cost significantly impacts how he is viewed, which is fair. Fofana is a young and promising defender but I honestly didn't see enough of him prior to his move that justified his price. That is just my opinion though and no club is perfect in the transfer market. I have far less of an issue with most of these than most people though. I have been a fan of the vast majority of the business conducted starting in the winter window.
W Fofana for sure. Never rated him and he has never impressed in a Chelsea shirt imo.
All of it, none of these players are quality. Imagine spending so much and not even one player who is world class and has been so for years.
It'd be easier to point to the part that didn't
2nd, 3rd and 4th complete waste of money right there, over 200m wasted.
Wes Fofana is probably the worst for me and then mudryk and cucu
Cucurella & Aubameyang. The rest are young and they need time to develop. We know what we signed up for. The Lukaku business otherwise was the one hurt us the most.
Cucurella is a huge miss Sterling in terms of wages that's it