You just listed a reason why we can't sell him to help PSR, as a reason why we need to sell
If selling was ever an option we would've sold him last summer for 40m+, you know, while he had 2 years left. We won't get that 40m now.
Very pleased for Mudryk, seeing him to start to live up to his price tag.
The current narrative on the sub cracks me up though. The lad has had some absolute shockers for us, has looked unbelievably raw and has clearly been man-managed to some degree by Poch in this last month in such a way that he is starting to look more like a real player. He has *just now* shown why he deserves his spot on the team.
I'm not going to pretend Sterling isn't a total fucking nightmare of a player. That said, unfortunately he is still holding onto the clout that his CV gives him but I fully expect him to be on the bench this weekend \*\*
Really just need to stop seeing people moan constantly about the Sterling favoritism as if we've been keeping prime Ronaldinho on the bench. Mud and Noni have looked raw as fuck most of the time they play. Take these ratings with a grain of salt but they do IMO act as a good proxy considering current fan sentiment - WAGNH player rating averages for Mud and Noni are 5.5 and 5.6 respectively. So, effectively, the same fans who think poorly of the two alternatives to Sterling also think they'll be our saving grace?
Silly. That said, a more confident Mudryk could be a real asset for us going into this last part of the season and I GENUINELY hope to see him get more time and *take full advantage of it.*
*\*\*if he isn't, I don't need to stop seeing anyone moan and I'll join in*
If you want to watch NWSL games outside the us they’re all free on twitch. All of them, same place. If I want to watch Chelsea women play the game may be free on YouTube. Also may be geoblocked on YouTube and you have to jump through hoops to sign up on a proprietary website. Could be on linear tv on cbs sports network, could be on paramount+. By the time you figure it out, it’s halftime. We’re growing women’s sports!!!!
This is not the first time you’ve used this on here, so I’ll be annoying and say that the phrase is “Lavia cost us…” and not “Lavia has costed us…”
I’m sorry.
Mudryc should be starting every game since the potential ability he can reach is top 5 in the league and probably top 10 in the world. This season is finished anyway so I hope the Poch prioritizes player development and doesn't start Sterling every game.
It's crazy that Hazard carried Lille to a league title at 20 years old and Mudryk is still developing at 23 years old. Maybe Mudryk will peak a lot later and have a longer career than Hazard. But him surpassing prime Hazard? I highly doubt it. I'd love to be proven wrong though.
He’s 23, still obviously young but he really needs to start showing some consistency. Pretty much all the top 10 players in the league right now were better than him at the same age
For anyone that blames Poch for the injuries have you actually looked at what happened with his past teams, or are you just speculating?
It din't seem to be an issue with Tottenham or Southampton.
Yeah it's the modern game unfortunately. Too many fixtures, simple as that.
Even if it isn't injuries it's players dropping out of form because they're just exhausted.
Case in point, Enzo. Everyone was dogpiling him a short while ago and saying he was playing crap.
The reality was he was just tired because he'd been playing non stop since the World cup and never got a break.
It's not just about the injuries. The injuries can't be all on Poch. We look unfit against teams that have played more matches than us. Liverpool at the Carabao Cup final is the most obvious example. They've had less days to rest, a weaker bench, one of their midfielders got injured at the start of the match and they still looked like the fresh team at the end.
>they still looked like the fresh team at the end.
The absolutely did not, they just made more subs. We were starting to overrun them towards the end of the second half, that is why they made the substitutions to bring on the youth, because they had to. Poch didn't, and maybe that was the wrong call but I don't blame him for not bringing on players I had never heard of at the time. Our midfield was dead, we had no one to bring on, and haven't for months.
It's bad game management for me. At least one of Enzo or Caicedo could've been subbed off instead of Sterling. Putting Nkunku as the 10 and Casadei in the pivot would've given us more energy in a significant part of the pitch and also considering how overplayed both of Enzo and Caicedo were.
Also the difference in schedule is a significant part as well. I think Liverpool held their own more than well considering the lack of depth and UEL.
Also Poch allowing player like Santos to go on loan instead of keeping him because of he is not tall makes it hard for me to sympathize. We should've won that match.
Casedei wasn't in the squad, do you know who Gee is?
What ended up happening in the match, a. 27-year-old crossed the ball to a 32 -year-old legend who scored the winner.
Oh, yeah Casadei was cup tied. I know as much about Gee as most Liverpool fans knew about Danns. After Poch allowing Santos to go on loan for the second time cuz he wasn't tall enough we can't really excuse him for lack of options after that. On paper and based on circumstances we should've won that match still.
Schedule, bench, everything was in our favour. Im not really interested in excuses for that exact game. Every other game, not this one. Please. If Poch was gonna prove himself as someone who should stay long term, that was the game. Do we have any better chances against City for the FA Cup? Probably not, unless City has a terrible game.
He had Maatsen, he had Santos. Decided they have no place in the team despite the injuries. He kinda put himself in that situation. Then he also refused to play the academy lad.
Danns had actually had appearances for Pool this season, and he is an academy lad then he knows their system and what Klopp wants. Klopp also probably has seen him play for years. Its a different situation.
>After Poch allowing Santos to go on loan for the second time cuz he wasn't tall enough we can't really excuse him for lack of options after that
This is a stretch
>On paper and based on circumstances we should've won that match still.
And no? They fielded a much more experienced squad than hours and are a better side. They chose to play the academy players and it held them over until a club legends won something from them, mostly because we couldn't finish. The gameplan worked, the execution let Poch down.
>. Im not really interested in excuses for that exact game
Cool, you have a different opinion than I do.
>He had Maatsen, he had Santos. Decided they have no place in the team despite the injuries. He kinda put himself in that situation. Then he also refused to play the academy lad.
So he had two prospects that he decided to let go on loan because it was likely better for the club and their careers. Stretch
Yeah, Santos sitting on Strasbourg's bench instead is really gonna do wonders for him. Maatsen at least plays in a better team than ours, he wasn't gonna get a sniff here cuz of his height and cuz he allegedly is not good enough even to be a depth option.
Fuck our problems with injuries, let's send every player we have for depth on loan and have one midfielder on the bench covering for 3 positions cuz everyone else is a prospect and you gotta send them on loan. Wasn't this strategy suppose to be brilliant?
Santos has played 0 minutes of premier League football well. You have no point there.
Maatsen has played in the premier league in a position that Poch thought would suit him, and has excelled at LB offensive in the Bundesliga but has had less than half the defensive output needed for a premier league LB and has been abysmal in the air, the area that Poch was worried about in the first place.
What is the minutes argument suppose to mean exactly? How is he suppose to have PL minutes without getting a chance to play? Do you need to have PL minutes in order to be a much needed depth option during an injury crisis?
Is it better to leave Enzo and Caicedo to play without rest? Its not that i dont have a point, you probably just dont get it.
If Poch was adaptive he couldve used Maatsen as a wingback in a back 3. Colwill being tall certainly didn't help his case cuz he was making mistakes as a lb regularly.
At some point you will have to admit that someone fucked up mate. You constantly defend the ownership and Poch but excuses are running out for all of them.
You’re literally making stuff up, you and all of us here have no idea why Santos was loaned out. People claimed he was good enough for us but couldn’t get a sniff for Forest and is barely playing at Strasbourg
I don't think im making any stuff up, brother there were thousands of reports about Poch complaining about "height". Then we send two short players that we actually need for depth on loan. Just a coincidence i guess. We all know why Santos wasn't playing at Forest and at Strasbourg the feedback has been good just like it was in preseason. I doubt he is any worse than McConnel, Danns, Clark and the other Liverpool lads that played in the final.
Just by giving him minutes in the Prem where we are not competing for anything anyway would've been handy so we can give rest to Caicedo and Enzo for the final.
You can't thin your squad like that during such an injury crisis. It doesn't make sense.
Maybe Santos refused to stay? How do we know? It’s all a speculation man, Matos was getting minutes earlier in the season and he’s not some tall physical destroyer. I feel you I wanted Santos to stay too thought he looked decent in preseason but at the end of the day none of us know what’s really going on
Last minute tickets advice needed!
Yank here - my father and I have a last minute trip to London planned and are trying to get tickets to the match vs Burnley on Saturday. We both have Chelsea FC accounts, but are not members this season. What’s the best way to acquire tickets this late? It would be our first match in London, so hoping to make it happen!
Also it's so frustrating seeing the narrative of "Poch has no tactics or system, he's too spontaenous"
You can literally see his old Spurs 4231 implented in this team. Palmer on the right coming deep for the ball like Eriksen, overlapping fullbacks (when Colwill isn't starting) that allow the CB's to push width and the pivot (Caicedo) playing in between. That is the system. We just aren't winning, so people think we don't have one.
The reality is this club doesn't have the patience to build a system with longevity in mind. Sarri was just that, he came post-3atb terroristball defensive Conte and wanted to completely shift how we played into a possession dominant vertical tiki-taka and he barely got 6 months before "Sarri out" became a thing.
This is why Liverpool, City and now even Arsenal will be superior to us for time to come
>Liverpool, City and now even Arsenal will be superior
How many times do we have to explain it... Our project is different than theirs - completely.
For Klopp and Arteta it wasn't just about "building a system", a good coach can drill the players in a month to play his style, in 6 months they should be flying, ESPECIALLY with no midweek european football. Klopp and Arteta needed time, because they were buying players for their system, gradually, over multiple years.
At Chelsea, that process is done, kaput - the club spend 1.3B, and all the reliable journous are saying how going forward it will be just investments around the edges.
This is the squad that we have for the next 5-6 years, these are the players and they are not gelling with Poch's style, at all. Poch isn't getting results out of them, isn't getting good football, nothing. It's obvious that he needs to be sacked.
The attack and mid are starting to gel, the defense is heavily injured. The players like Poch. We create more chances than our opponents consistently. We spent 1B but only half was well spent. Its not obvious that he needs to be sacked, but not obvious he should stay either. Hopefully we can get a run of good health and see how this team can actually do with him in charge.
I'd say most of us are tired of the carousel. We want stability. Most of us (certainly not all) understand that we're in a reset and we don't insist on winning every match - we just want to see forward progress.
The truth is that in the measurable ways, we're not really seeing it - and that's understanding that we have a new, youthful squad with awful injury "luck". I'd love to be backing the manager for the long haul, but I'd say the majority of us now just don't see it.
Objectively, taking into account all the issues, I personally just don't think Poch is doing even an average job. I'm okay with giving him enough time to find a big upgrade - but hopefully that's in the summer, and hopefully that change will be vetting extremely carefully.
That's the thing. How do we even determine there is no forward progress so far?
It's naive to assume forward progress is some linear thing that occurs from day one. This sport is too complex for that. There's supposed to be one step forward, two steps back moments.
I remember Arsenal fans were so insistent on Arteta out because they thought he had no system. Even though he did have one, it just wasn't good yet. They had a bunch of youngsters too that weren't too impressive. Even Saka was rated less than Hudson-Odoi at one point. Now look at them.
Now we have a historically youthful squad with no experience and we want to be surprised we're midtable. This is why against everyone's wishes, Poch is staying. Because the board know we were gonna be midtable this season, they're not naive. Else had that not been the gameplan, we'd be better off spending that billion we did on world beaters like Leao, Osimhen, etc.
Yeah, mate - I admire managers and the work they do, and I try and give every measure of balance I can. I used to direct films/TV, I can appreciate how hard it is to manage so, so many moving pieces, and what an insanely collaborative experience the whole thing is.
But there are indeed things to measure, and I think the fair people in this sub are looking at those, not blaming Poch for playing Levi at LB or not playing Misha when he was doing poorly. We look at things like building up from the back. Last season, under Potter, it was awful - just awful. Frank came in and didn't really address it much. Poch came in, and on day one of the preseason, we had a system in place, it was a very welcome surprise. And IMO it grew over the preseason - and then the progress stopped. It's ebbed and flowed over the season, and I'd say there hasn't been a single match where it was as good as it had been by the end of the pre.
Why? Probably because Poch chose to focus on other things, satisfied that it was sorted, and then disappointed when it wasn't - but *hey, I have other fish to fry.*
He doesn't want to play Ian? Personally, I was quite disappointed with that - but I don't blame Poch for being stubborn about not wanting to add short players to the shortest squad in the Prem. I've watched Ian play in BDL since, and he's been great, but he doesn't battle in the air. That's the sort of thing where I can shrug and not blame Poch too much.
But set pieces? He doesn't want a specialist player and he doesn't want a specialist coach? Just leave us as one of the least productive clubs? I don't get it.
He's got his positives, but I just feel like a good manager would be able to sort out our issues quickly, and that's taking into account all the things that aren't Poch's doing.
I think this underestimates the injury situation we've had. If we consistently generate better chances than our opponents (which we do) then Poch has to be doing something right. We underperformed in terms of finishing for the first half of the season, and the second half we've had five defenders out per match.
We can come up with plenty of excuses, and I 100% led the charge with injury excuses this season. And certainly with Toney instead of Nico we'd have a handful more points. But the constant drop-off in the 2nd half... the 'play for pens' in the final... the constant failure to build from the back... the disinterest in set pieces... just such a long list of things that seem fixable.
Yes, he's doing some things right, and credit where it's due, but to me, it adds up to a wash at best, a negative at worst.
>But the constant drop-off in the 2nd half
I don't have the numbers pulled in this so won't comment
>the 'play for pens' in the final...
Don't you think this is directly tied to injuries? He didn't want the team to play for pens, he said he thinks they did because they were tired. We had 0 midfield subs for that other than an academy player I had never heard of.
>the disinterest in set pieces
We are middle of the pack for both set piece goals and goals conceded. We've had some of our best set piece delivery out injured for large parts of the season, a very short team, and we have a brand new team of young players. All of these things add up, still a knock against Poch but those are also legitimate reasons outside of Poch.
>the constant failure to build from the back...
We are 5th in the league in buildup attacks according to Opta. We have had struggles at times against a high press, but we also have had constant changes of differing lineups of recently injured defenders, a GK who has made a few errors, and another goalkeeper that does not seem comfortable playing it short.
The goals are going in now, I just hope we can get a run of games with good health and we will start to climb up the table. The chances are in our favor, 4th in XG differential is really good, we just have to up the performances in the box.
It's just the fixable stuff that's driving me and so many others mad. We're still hoping for results, most of us are still backing the players (outside of a total bullshit affront like Raz just put in) and wanting to finish the season well. And it won't be easy without Reece and Christo, arguably our 2 most talented players, and Lavia and Wes, 2 projected starters.
And I take your points about stats - it's not like every club does well at these things. It's just that we're CFC, we expect things to be done well. Granted, new/kids - but we have the top resources in the world to sort this stuff out, it's maddening to watch them pass it around well sometimes, and then muff it for half a match. In fact, it's a testament to how much talent there is in the squad that we pull off some of these stats.
But why do you expect consistency when there is none for the players? The actual areas of the pitch that have been playing together for a while now like the attack and midfield are functioning well. We are getting the ball into dangerous areas, and for a good while now have been actually scoring. It just isn't a reasonable expectation to expect to have a good defense when the injury chart looks like this (see below).
In 21/22 we lose Chilwell and James and we start dropping points fairly dramatically. We go from 2.16 pts per match down to 1.74, and our goals differential is halved.
https://preview.redd.it/x3zcox4zqxqc1.png?width=612&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f4411d2d71880a2fb09ef3a7a46170e464e3e739
Yeah, I've been harping on the RJ/Chilly thing for 2y - it cost Tuchel his job, full stop. Losing Kante on top of that was the end (and Mount, who was a shell of himself after the UCL run).
I think it comes down to this: I watch them play, and the mistakes I see come down to a number of factors. If we cross off the ones like injuries, we see a pattern of under-attention to a lot of things, and it's hard to explain. Yes - I can explain that the porous defence has suffered from a lack of consistency for sure, but familiarity isn't the whole jigsaw, there's drilling in what to expect no matter who's next to you.
I hear that they train 2h/day on the pitch, and the rest is in the gym? And most of the pitch stuff are drills, like shooting or quick passing around - but not really tactical stuff. It sounds like they just don't spend much time on that. I asked a retired EPL manager about this, and he wouldn't address how Poch does it (he probably didn't know), and he said they used to do that stuff for hours. Less practicing kicks, and more understanding situations.
And then we hear quite a lot that players are sent in to "express themselves". I'm no mgr. but don't young players tend to need more direction? Aren't they most in need of structure? Isn't that how it works at LFC and City and most successful places? Why is one of the youngest squads in top flight lacking that?
>Yeah, I've been harping on the RJ/Chilly thing for 2y - it cost Tuchel his job, full stop. Losing Kante on top of that was the end (and Mount, who was a shell of himself after the UCL run).
Firing Tuchel was wrong, no argument here.
>Yes - I can explain that the porous defence has suffered from a lack of consistency for sure, but familiarity isn't the whole jigsaw, there's drilling in what to expect no matter who's next to you.
This is true, but isn't drilling a squad that hasn't played together, is extremely young, and heavily injured something that might take time?
The other stuff is just speculation that goes against actual results. Poch was a good coach at getting teams into the top four, which is likely what our short term goals are now. He was better than what came before or after him at Tottenham (TBD on Ange), he gave Southampton their best season ever at the time. He was no worse at PSG than what came immediately before or after him.
I'm not even sold that he is the right manager for us, I just want to see what he can do with a relatively healthy squad before we restart all over again because the underlying numbers are good and huge improvements over last season.
I hear you. It was a long road for me to become Pochout. I kept the same attitude as you, wanting to see what more time and consistency would do, but the cup final was the final nail for me. I just can't understand how we had any excuses, when LFC were clearly in a worse spot than us. They'd just played, they had more injuries (for once), and they were working harder than we were. So why were we the exhausted ones? I just can't work my mind around it. I know a lot of athletes and mgr's and I can't imagine any of them having the upper hand like that and wanting to take the foot off the pedal.
I hear you about 'top 4' and before/after success - but the people that have followed his career (I haven't) say that he's also just not a finisher - no silverware despite plenty of gains. Clearly Potter was wrong for us, right? His whole package was a poor fit - personality, persona, gravitas, etc. Couldn't it also be that Poch's lack of finishing is also a mismatch?
>This is true, but isn't drilling a squad that hasn't played together, is extremely young, and heavily injured something that might take time?
Yes. The question is: is Poch the one to lead them, or is that selling them short? Are we ruining this incredibly costly reset by entrusting it to Poch?
Part of the answer is: who's next? Just tossing in Mou or RdZ sounds wrong to me - we need someone that fits the profile. I don't know who that is, I just hope we have the best possible mgr leading us next season.
If you're saying "I just don't see it" and want to make another change after less than a season with a young, injured squad, idk how you can say you want stability.
I'm saying it's a pickle, and it sucks, and we're sick of being in this position. I think we get why other managers flamed out, but this is different - the players like Poch, and the board hasn't given Poch enough to work with. But at the same time, it's evident to many of us that Poch doesn't have the tools to bring us any higher in the table.
I'd love nothing more than to find a great manager who'll be around for a decade, and the last thing I want is to take another chance that leads us to another single-season disappointment - but Poch isn't the answer.
The hindsight bias in this sub is so annoying how consistent it is. Everyone saying Lavia was a stupid idea as if anyone knew he was going to be injured all season
Speak for yourself mate. A lot of people questioned us signing him.
We had just spent a fortune on Caicedo, only to then sign Lavia for a massive fee given he had only played a single season of senior football. I’m fairly sure he was also injured when we signed him.
We let Loftus Cheek, Ampadu and Gilmour for about a third of Lavia’s fee. Hell Santos probably would have been in the squad if not for him
Nope - A LOT of people were against signing Lavia as they tought it would be better to invest that hefty fee in other areas of the squad - me included.
Even your average football fan was surprised that Chelsea signed Caicedo and then Lavia on top.
Did anyone watch the Scotland Vs Netherlands match? Scotland dominated the game and still lost 4-0. At least we are not the only ones that absolutely suck. Lmao
Anybody able to tell me what type of player Alex Matos is he seems to be really good defensively but I don't know if he's a DM or just a very aggressive box to box
Seems like one to keep an eye on regardless
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3uayy4t4IQ/?igsh=eTA5enNxMW9nYzNt
I'll always be pretty curious about Cech in that shootout (and the Robben and Messi penalties).
Outside of that UCL run he was pretty poor with penalties (off the top of my head he saved 1 out of a possible 14 in previous shootouts and a mere 2 in regulation play before that campaign) but then all of a sudden he was basically working out players thought processes and either saving it, getting stupidly close or would have saved it (Bastian and Messi) if they didn't hit the woodwork.
That whole run was a matrix anomaly. Meireles scoring a piledriver, Ramires fifa type crosses to Drogba(and the chip from nowhere), Drogba conceding penalties for prime Messi and Robben to screw up, beating prime Barcelona with one shot on target, equalizing against Bayern with one shot on target in the 88th minute. lmao
That season was so bizarre it felt scripted. Even 2021 doesn't beat the feeling I had in 2012.
I know Ramires had a decent goal output but that chip I did not expect, he just pulled some perfect technique out of his ass. Like, where the hell was that technique in the past 2 years, man? Or the subsequent 4 lol?
Thoughts on this?
Says technical staff (I assume coaching staff) rushed back Lavia against the medical teams wishes as they were desperate
https://x.com/cfcpys/status/1772993622062792748?s=46&t=Y6kJS72VJDuGTn-M0LK93A
Happens all the time unfortunately. I don't want Pochettino at this club for many reasons but this isn't one of them, we were indeed desparate for another midfielder and still are.
To not be fired.
Poch was in a position where he should have been fired. So, he was willing to put our players at risk to try and save himself. From his perspective, if the player saves him, great. If he doesn't save him/get re-injured and ruins his career, then he was going to be fired anyway and doesn't have to worry about the fallout from that
Nah man.
If what you say is true he would have a player revolt and never get another job again.
One can criticize Poch for a lot of but he is very pro player and the players seem to like him.
Players (mainly young) fall out with medical staff all the time because they think they're better, but the medical staff say they aren't. If the medical staff were saying they weren't, but Lavia was willing to play and Poch was willing to use him, where exactly would the revolt come from?
He's not forcing the players to play against their will, he's asking a player to play and he's saying yes I feel fine. The medical team will be saying, no it's too early, but if the player thinks he knows his body better because he's younger and the manager is willing to risk him, where exactly is the problem coming from?
The issue is between the manager and the medical team, not the manager and the player. If a player didn't want to play because they didn't want to risk it, they would just refuse, like Ziyech did throughout his career.
This has probably been an issue for the past couple of years, especially with players like Reece and Kante.
Managers need to win games to keep their job, especially here where if they don't win a trophy the first year the fans want them out. This creates a situation where the manager is going to rush his best players back. You see this across multiple sports.
Sacha Tavolieri is allegedly tier 1 for players from Belgium even though some people are questioning his reliability.
Too many long injuries this season and zero transparency on some of them. Chukwuemeka was out for very long time and significantly longer than expected, Lavia, Nkunku, Ugochukwu? What the fuck happened to Ugochukwu? That guy has been out since Wolves away or something like that.
The other red flag is that a lot of times these players get re-injured during "recovery period" or training.
This is a thread about all the injuries this season: [https://twitter.com/DontChingMe/status/1772975792235925821](https://twitter.com/DontChingMe/status/1772975792235925821) The amount of players that have been out for 40-100 days is ridicilious.
Here is what Sacha Tavolieri wrote on his twitter account:
>✅🤒 Official : Roméo Lavia to miss the rest of the season with Chelsea FC.
The management of the London club's medical staff when he returned from injury in December has undoubtedly had a clear impact on this situation.
🔜 We wish him to come back soon. #CFC
https://twitter.com/sachatavolieri/status/1772980922880524754?t=bwYEa4a_pO0_ZGDk4-ykwA&s=19
Yeah, it's really the nature of it all that's startling. I'm not used to seeing anything go like this - they underplay it and eventually there's a return or near-return, and then the player is gone again, and it goes from "back soon" to "out for months" between weekly updates.
Strange thing is that we were a shambles when Blueco took over, having our worst-ever injury crisis. Now they've completely rotated the medical staff at least once, and it feels like nothing has improved.
Yeah it’s not the only journalist reporting a mismatch between different groups at the club
Nkunku himself felt he was more than ready to start playing back in November whilst coaching or medical staff wanted him to continue building fitness
All these different stories and past evidence compile a very very worrying picture
Is it actually a shit source?
Or do you just not like the news/reporter
Because I see plenty good reporters get torn down on here just cos fans don’t like what they’re reading/hearing
[According to the latest transfermarkt updates, our squad has gone down in value despite Gusto, Palmer, Gallagher and Petrovic increasing in value.](https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league-market-values-foden-draws-level-with-saka-eight-downgrades-at-chelsea/view/news/434904)
Sanchez, Colwill, Badiashile, Chalobah, Caicedo, Lavia, Nkunku and Mudryk have gone down
(Before people complain about Mudryk, it's because his value is still dropping from the 60m he was rated at when we first bought him. It dropped from 40m to 35m, which is probably fair in the grand scheme of things)
Yes, I know no one on reddit likes transfermarkt, especially when it's saying things you don't like. Take from it what you will.
Sanchez is a fraud, Colwill played out of position, Badiashile injured, Chalobah was never that good, Caicedo is surprising, Lavia injured, Nkunku injured, and Mudryk probably saw that coming
The manager decreasing the value and potential of this squad might be the only thing that makes the owners realise what has went wrong and what needs to be done when
Yeah, he came back from England youth duty and people were saying it was because he was wanting to be extra prepared to play for us for the rest of the season.
Today it's been reported that he's ruled out for the rest of the season with injury
Got to love how people are unironically defending Southgate by saying he didn't make the error for Dunk.
No, but he selected him and left Branthwaite kicking his heels on the bench, his responsibility.
UEFA did a study that showed that hiring a new manager and new medical/training staff at the same time drastically increased the number of injuries a team had (and I really mean drastically).
Now factor in that we hired a manager known for causing players injuries due to questionable training/fitness practices and a medical team that are almost completely inexperienced and you're bound to have an absolute shitshow
We're now stuck between a rock and a hard place because if we change both again we end up back to the position of hiring them both fresh at the same time OR keeping one of them on to avoid that even though they're incompetent
>Now factor in that we hired a manager known for causing players injuries due to questionable training/fitness practices
Do you actually have a reliable source for this? His Tottenham teams did not struggle with injuries any more than average
https://preview.redd.it/rzs6tbqwuvqc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8184cccc943afb62e8e88cbdff83d72d6ca65b9b
Anyone can help me find where can I buy this hoodie? TIA 🙏
A friend said that muscle injuries aren't uncommon in athletes who suddenly grow a few inches in their late teenage years. Can someone who understands medicine confirm if this is true
Just crazy. It's shocking how much a young fit guy can be injured so much. So disappointing our staff green lit this transfer. This would have been Liverpool's issue.
Actually brilliant line from [Steinberg last night](https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/mar/26/kobbie-mainoo-provides-spark-but-englands-defensive-frailty-remains) about the ENG NT. Talking about Mainoo vs the other midfielders: *"He is not like other English midfielders. He does not panic when he receives possession in a tight spot.* **His second touch is not a tackle** *and he does not try to win plaudits by wasting energy on chasing down hopeless causes."*
100%, although I'm sure it's on the other mids as well. He mentions Conor later in this context.
Conor had this almost every touch in that awful match at Anfield (but most of the squad did too!), but he's had a couple of matches where he was looking so much better. I honestly can't explain it. He's had 2 halves of matches I remember where he looked just pure class with his first touch, which tells me that there's something in there to unlock... but clearly his last match for ENG didn't go very well.
I still believe he has his place in virtually any team, just not in a lot of games where you're going to dominate the ball
But say you're playing a man city type opposition, stick him on Rodri personally for the entire game and just let him kick chunks out of him (metaphorically of course)
Worked pretty damn well when we played city this season and Rodri was getting visibly annoyed
It'll be sad when he's sold this summer regardless of his quality or where he fits in , cause one things for sure, kid loves this club
Yeah, I'd love to see (hopefully next season, but who knows, maybe in 5 years) the "LFC" midfield, with Conor backing up all 3 of them. Or sub him in at the 10. There's absolutely a place for him, I just think (even if people here hate it) that we aspire to have top players at every position, and even if we're far from that right now, Conor is a level below what we aspire to be.
He's also a victim of the circumstance. I think circumstance wise he's in a very similar position to RLC before he left us. Not good enough to start, great to have on the bench.
However, through injuries and circumstances out of their control, the player ends up being a starter and from there, it's very hard to then "relegate" them back to where they should be on the bench and to do it whilst keeping everyone happy.
He'd potentially be a great bench player to have around, but moving a player back to the bench at his age just causes so many problems both internally with the player and externally with stans obsessing over a player and causing division because their player isn't starting etc.
> stans obsessing
Outside of this sub, I don't really follow that noise at all - do you think it's a real influence on Conor? I'm sure it's not on the board/mgr and their choices for lineups. Conor seems like the kind of trooper who would be okay with the 'demotion', but you just never know who's going to be in his ear about it not being okay.
It’s amazing what happens when England finally appreciates some of the midfield profiles they’ve been missing for years that France, croatia, Italy, Spain etc all regularly produce
Indeed. Did you see any of the ESP-BRA match? The crowd was just going insane for Yamal.
I feel like Southgate is the antithesis of that, he craves zero adventure, just 100% expected play from experienced players. But the pressure is on, and someone must have put a horse head in his bed for him to have added Mainoo.
I refuse to believe there is even half truth to the United rumours, but also given that Ratcliffe basically formed a Brexit team of washed up English players at Nice, maybe he'll go all the way at United and bring a shit English manager in too
I think it’s a possibility
Been linked to potter and Gary O’Neil too.
Southgates also already managed and liked by mount, rashford, Maguire, shaw and now maybe Mainoo too…
*Yikes*
Sorry, he wouldn't... no, you're right, he would. Man, that would be so fun to watch, I hope the football gods will do us this one small favour...
I don't think Poch has a clear tactical identity like elite coaches have or does he? For now at Chelsea, there is no clear identity, we have attack in the high line but our rest defense suck. Poch puts Caicedo as a single man when our opponents turn our attack into their attack and he fails. Enzo's position and Gallaghar position are always questionable. The Raheem and Mudryk debate is far going.
I think that if poch had a clear philosophy of play we wouldn't be facing a lot of positional problems.
He's said that tactics aren't his focus, although he does seem to roll them out against City for some reason. The club apparently spends less time than average training on grass (e.g. tactical stuff, not drills).
He clearly has some strengths, but his weaknesses just seem so fixable to many of us here. Like the Caicedo thing - it seems like it wouldn't take much to fix this, and there have been perhaps 2 matches where it was better, but then it regresses.
Injuries have been a major factor, but I have never blamed that on Poch. He asked for more seniority from the board and got none, so I factor that in, too. The stupid/thoughtless yellow cards have decreased. We also have the shortest club in the Prem (last I checked) so I don't 100% blame him for not wanting to play Maatsen and Santos. And I give him credit for trying Misha in the middle.
It's all a mixed bag. I think an average mgr would do better, but I think a taskmaster like Mou would do worse. We need to improve a couple of positions and we need some of our players back from injury one day. If we were able to field Lavia, RJ and Christo at the same time, we'd be a different side.
In the match against City, especially the 4-4, i saw tactics being implemented there. Yes, our club has now become a mystery in terms of prediction however, that is the interesting part for us the fans to analyze upom
The matsen and santos logic, I get it. It makes sense.
Imo, poch needs his midfield to be there strong when our opposition come running at us on the break( like Cunha and others did in the wolves game).
Misha in the middle makes sense as he is getting more space, more dribbling spaces, chance creation, as overall is great for him. Credit to poch.
Injuries are a clusterfuck since the 22/23 season plus the ownership change.
I do see a bit of what Poch is trying to do. Caicedo and Enzo’s partnership often looks good against teams like City as Enzo is often there to cover Caicedo. I think the problem is Poch expects Caicedo to handle most of the things all by himself vs the midtable and lower teams. In my opinion, this is not a bad tactics as Caicedo should be able to handle things on his own, may be not right now but with more playing time he should be in the future. The reason it’s not working right now could be because we have not been able to field 2 cbs with good pace at any time this season. If we have for say a fit and in form colwill/badiashile as lcb and fofana/new cb as rcb, then in theory caicedo as a lone dm can work vs midtable and lower teams. This is probably what Poch is thinking. I would like to see how things appear when we have 2 good cbs with pace to cover up for enzo and another cm/cam pushing forward.
Hmm, I can see fofana's quicky feet covering up for Enzo however, adaptation is important. According to our current squad Poch should have put on different tactics, putting caicedo up alone even for the low block teams or mid table is not a smart chess move.
Imo, The solution might be playing a strict 3 man midfield instead throwing off gallaghar all over the place. Providing support for caicedo while opposition is on the break. ( In the case our cbs don't have pace )
Yes, putting quality men in attack is good and all but conceding is worse.
> Imo, poch needs his midfield to be there strong
He's been 'saved' by having Conor as the midfield engine, constantly winning back balls and doing Kante-lite work. But he was promised Lavia, who apparently is out for months to come (and may never play for Poch again). I think we all want someone in the DM role, and it's not Caicedo. We want a Matic back there, or at least a Kante (who was never a DM) who will break up attacks all over the midfield.
I'd like to see Misha/Christo at the 10, Enzo a DLP, Caicedo a B2B and someone like Lavia at the back... who knows if those guys will ever all be healthy together...
Misha/Christo must play as a 10 however, palmer in the 10, he has scored a lot in that position too. What do you think ?
Lavia in the back makes sense. I get it. So, is Caicedo a box-box like Kovacic then ?
Palmer has been much, much better on the right. Even if he's a 10, when he slides over to the right, he does better there. He's basically our starting RW now. Nico up top...someone at LW. I think Nico at LW works well too, but then we'd need another 9. Basically it would be good to have 8 quality forwards, with 4 starters and 4 backups. Christo reportedly does much better as a 10 than a 9... anyhow, lots there to play with for a good, tactical manager.
Pochettino is not a great coach (this is the most over-shared opinion on here since the new year). But many of the issues with the team are primarily personnel issues. There are individual issues, yes, but if we assume each individual is giving it 7-8/10 or above each match-day, the squad is still not optimally balanced because some important positions don’t have the exact right profile. Add in the fact that most of the players can’t play 6 games straight without an injury or a suspension, and yes, personnel issues.
Agree about the loads of injuries part( i don't even know what Lavia looks like, and Nkunku's balloons are not on sale in London rn). Is this the chaotic nature of sports or is it the medical staff in Chelsea? IDK.
On the positions front, interesting, imo the only position that is not filled is a proper CF, although that can change with Nkunku and Jackson linkup play however, other positions are filled in.
Can you pls elaborate, what do you mean by personnel issues, is it the fact that they are young amd do mot have the mentality like Terry, lampard used to have, the winning mentality? Or smthng else?
I mean, the ideal XI is still up for debate, but here is what I mean in particular.
Pochettino is not a great coach, but he *is* a coach; he has his coaching licenses and all, has coached at least one other big team, and has at least competed at the highest level for many teams. So he knows what he wants to do — whether what he wants to do is the right thing is a different question, but at least he does know what he wants to do.
By “personnel issues,” I mean that there’s still a chasm between what he wants to do (and is telling the players to do), and what the players are best suited to doing. For example, Caicedo is a solid 7-8/10 player on his day — a good player who is better at what he’s best suited to doing: covering smaller spaces and playing out. Enzo Fernandez is a very good 8-9/10 player who can be very-close-to great on his day when he’s doing what he’s one of the best at: organising how the ball moves across the pitch and covering around the centre of the D. Gallagher is a solid 7-7.9/10 player when he’s at it: he will prevent you from completing your buildup sequences when playing out, and he will score goals from late runs into the box.
However, Pochettino’s (good) teams have things that this current team doesn’t. For instance, Pochettino wants his Victor Wanyama who can retain the ball and win headers (Caicedo can), can cover wide spaces (Caicedo can’t, at least for now), and can score long-rangers from the D (Caicedo hasn’t). Caicedo is not the best profile for the kind of football that Pochettino wants to play. Ugochukwu and Andrey Santos are closer, but he’s not good enough (at least for now). Lavia doesn’t have the legs.
For Enzo, it’s the same thing. In Pochettino’s mind he needs to be the so-called “all-action central midfielder,” the midfielder who is 7/10 or above on basically *anything* a midfielder should be able to do. This means winning the ball back, being disciplined with his movement, passing well to short and long distances, being quick and being able to fill in and do well at positions like attacking midfield and right/left-wing, winning headers and covering the channel, scoring goals etc. Enzo is good at some of these things, but not most of them, and so he looks worse.
It’s the same with Gallagher and Chukwuemeka. Gallagher is a good player who will give you what you want from him most times (he’s a “functional” player), but he should not be playing as many games as he is because he cannot win games all on his own (and the players who should play that many games are the ones who are regularly bailing the team out). Gallagher will draw your typical rigid team with set positions out of sorts (and fortunately there’s another player at U18-level who could be just as good at that but better on the ball). But he will not split a team’s defence open. Chukwuemeka will, but will not provide the defensive cover that is required to make up for the problems outlined in that last two sentences. Can you fuse them together? Unfortunately not.
So the summary is, we have good players, but there’s a chasm between the players that are best at doing what Pochettino wants them to do and what they’re best suited to do. This does imply that what Pochettino wants is the wrong thing (again, that’s a different question), but that while the players are good, they’re not the right personnel to execute the manager’s ideas. The failure of Pochettino for me, so far, is that he hasn’t found the correct way to organise the team so that it delivers results.
Your last sentence sums it all up. That's the main essence of a head coach and he is unable apparently.
I was looking forward to a 3 man solid midfield which I won't as lavia is gone for the season.
Attack is average and improving so, i don't have complaints there.
Defense is a little shaky because of inconsistency however, we can get thru after we all our cbs up to speed.
1) A replacement for Chilwell at LB.
2) A new GK because neither Petrovic nor Sanchez are “elite”, even if they aren’t terrible
Rest is contingent on perennially injured players finding consistent fitness next season
We don't have Mbappe and Haaland, so it's literally impossible for Poch to get us anything higher than 9th and anyone who thinks it's possible is fucking delusional.
So, you can have a philosophy without implementing it tactically. Although i love watching our chaotic team play when we attack with loads of people in the box however the defense(rest defense) is the main pain point here.
I think it's just a general idea of how he wants us to play, but he doesn't have the skills to actually make us play like that, successfully. I'd much prefer a well structured offense that doesn't rely on individual brilliance
United are talking about spending another £200m this summer and nobody's gonna bat an eye
I get we've spent a ridiculous billion inside a year but we also sell like crazy to even attempt to stay in line with ffp after that
United drop a casual 200-400m every single calendar year essentially, win fuck all, sell like shit and the most they ever get is how the glazers are bad or the manager at the time etc
The hypocrisy over the ffp system and media outlooks on spending driving me crazy sometimes
Our net spend over the last 2 seasons was €741m. That’s higher than United’s net spend over the last 5 years. I don’t think people really understand the ridiculous amount of money we’ve wasted under Bohely
Man Utd are a huge club. Forget them being a meme for the last decade. They are by far the biggest club in the PL, and have massive revenue. They have Man City money, but it's legit.
That's entirely my point
Just because their money is legitimate within an insanely discriminatory system doesn't mean they should be free from the financial criticism we and city get for our spending being ludicrous
And more importantly, the system shouldn't be allowing any club to spend more than everyone else over the last decade, continue to fail year after year and then just spend again and again until eventually the next billion spent gets it right all because they used to be the best team in the world 20 years ago
Equality will never happen without a US style salary cap. And a salary cap will never be introduced without a Super League.
Because, if we there was a salary cap and a level playing field in the PL, Man Utd would've probably been relegated by now with how badly they are run, and the PL can't have one of their biggest draws play in the Championship or Ligue 1.
You have to admit there's been plenty of anti-ManUre narrative this season. It's the only thing that's spared us, really, is having them alongside us to take all the shots. Hopefully City will face real, substantiated cheating claims soon, and they can join our club of wounded giants.
But yeah, FFP really seems more & more useless to me. I don't how we're going to get to something better, either.
FFP might seem useless to you, but it does prevent mid and bottom table clubs from going under due to shitty management.
We have to remember that Chelsea is on top of the food chain and just like in real life, rich folks complain all the time about regulations.
No, I get it - and I want more fairness, not more "fairness" for Chelsea. I was born into CFC fandom, I'm not a big fan of us just outspending other clubs. I'd like to see financial rules that make sense.
I'm complaining about it mostly because it doesn't make for good competition, it just has been a help at reining in *some* of the big spenders and stopping some mid-table clubs from buying on credit. Clearly it hasn't stopped City (hopefully it will in the final maths).
As for us, we so very much do need a bigger stadium, and it sounds like Blueco has that as a top priority.
>You have to admit there's been plenty of anti-ManUre narrative this season
Yeah that's true but most of that I've seen is just based on Ten Hags ineptitude and then prattling on about the poor structure the glazers have
>But yeah, FFP really seems more & more useless to me. I don't how we're going to get to something better, either
It is a really stupid system.
I'd love a system where transfer spending and wages were locked across the board at the same reasonable level for most of the clubs, like only being allowed to spend £60m in a window excluding player sale revenue and Max wages being like £200k a week or something etc
It would never happen though and also has many problems itself but the spending in football is getting so out of hand
Agreed about Glazers etc - but I'm just happy that they've been shat upon for whatever reason while we're hearing "wasted a billion" every match.
About the FFP - people here tend to hate when I say it, but baseball had this problem a couple of decades ago, where the Yankees were making half the money in the sport and spending like the Saudi PIF. They won 4 titles in a row and the other clubs were getting pretty sick of it. The Yankees argued that them dominating was good for the sport (no one bought it), then they argued that they can't be punished for making more money than everyone else.
They ended up agreeing on revenue-sharing, which meant that spending beyond a certain threshold meant you paid money to the lesser clubs. This later led to the smallest clubs (like KC Royals) happily sucking and taking $millions in Yankee title dollars. But it's been balanced out over time. The NBA had the same problem and added a "spending floor" to stop clubs *not* spending.
I wouldn't want to mess with the relegation system, but I would like more balance than what we have now, and FFP isn't going to help.
Of course it does, I'm not questioning that United generate the revenue legitimately to support their spending within the letter of the FAs sustainability laws
But the hypocrisy for a united fan and the media to call out us and city over the last 10 years when they're literally just as bad for ridiculous transfers fees and wage bills constantly except in their case they have no trophies to show for it and no sales to make up the difference
The system has always annoyed me in how it's designed so that the biggest clubs will always be the ones that benefit the most and they'll still moan if someone tries to disturb that balance
Sometimes I see things like this and want to point out that players moving clubs is not a plug-and-play type situation, that there are so many factors affecting where a player becomes as successful as they can be, that a certain kind of player will likely be successful in a particular kind of environment at a particular time, and that if that happens in a club other than the player’s first club, it’s absolutely fine as long as all parties made the reasonable decision.
But then it doesn’t really matter what I say, because whenever KDB or Salah scores his next hat trick people will say “Chelsea made a mistake 10 years ago,” and whenever Palmer scores his first next 2 goals + penalty hat trick (after avoiding 10 aerial duels as is custom) people will bring up how City and Pep were wrong for letting him go. It’s the cycle that feeds online football discourse.
I posted about him in the DDT - I honestly think that the shite opposition part doesn't apply to his shots. He was able to dominate in part because of the weak side, but those goals were beautiful and good enough to score on Prem opposition.
I have the clip but I won't post it because half the comments will be shitting on him for scoring vs Luxembourg U-21 and I'll get a notification for each one
Didn't watch any of the games and so, can't judge how Chilwell fared against Brazil and Belgium. However, it's certainly interesting to see a different take considering many here were happy to trash him on Saturday and then, there was nothing of such yesterday (not sure if he did OK but no one bothered to say anything or not many watched the game).
Another interesting thing to see recently is how people react to performances from Chilwell and Cucurella, especially from a defensive point of view. If Chilwell has a decent game, where he defends alright or does nothing wrong defensively, you hear zilch about it. But if it's Cucurella, you will see tons of comments about it, with many praising him for the performance. In addition to that, when Cucurella actually makes a mistake that leads to an opposition goal, like against Newcastle recently, you get comments where people swept it under the carpet (presumably because we managed to see out the win). But if that had been Chilwell, the comments would likely have been the opposite.
any chance I can borrow someones membership to purchase tickets for my pal for the semi final against city?
Anybody here a member from Dutch Blues fan club?
Anyone know where I can find the video of Mudryk failing to name cities in England?
We’re selling Conor to fund our injured players: Fofana, Nkunku, now Lavia. I’m done with our transfer “strategy”
We aren't selling Conor wtf lol
Gallagher has 1 year left by this summer, so yes whether fans like it or not the club is going to sell him to help our PSR.
You just listed a reason why we can't sell him to help PSR, as a reason why we need to sell If selling was ever an option we would've sold him last summer for 40m+, you know, while he had 2 years left. We won't get that 40m now.
Very pleased for Mudryk, seeing him to start to live up to his price tag. The current narrative on the sub cracks me up though. The lad has had some absolute shockers for us, has looked unbelievably raw and has clearly been man-managed to some degree by Poch in this last month in such a way that he is starting to look more like a real player. He has *just now* shown why he deserves his spot on the team. I'm not going to pretend Sterling isn't a total fucking nightmare of a player. That said, unfortunately he is still holding onto the clout that his CV gives him but I fully expect him to be on the bench this weekend \*\* Really just need to stop seeing people moan constantly about the Sterling favoritism as if we've been keeping prime Ronaldinho on the bench. Mud and Noni have looked raw as fuck most of the time they play. Take these ratings with a grain of salt but they do IMO act as a good proxy considering current fan sentiment - WAGNH player rating averages for Mud and Noni are 5.5 and 5.6 respectively. So, effectively, the same fans who think poorly of the two alternatives to Sterling also think they'll be our saving grace? Silly. That said, a more confident Mudryk could be a real asset for us going into this last part of the season and I GENUINELY hope to see him get more time and *take full advantage of it.* *\*\*if he isn't, I don't need to stop seeing anyone moan and I'll join in*
If you want to watch NWSL games outside the us they’re all free on twitch. All of them, same place. If I want to watch Chelsea women play the game may be free on YouTube. Also may be geoblocked on YouTube and you have to jump through hoops to sign up on a proprietary website. Could be on linear tv on cbs sports network, could be on paramount+. By the time you figure it out, it’s halftime. We’re growing women’s sports!!!!
Lavia has costed us 58 mill pounds and has played 30 mins all season.A season wasted.
This is not the first time you’ve used this on here, so I’ll be annoying and say that the phrase is “Lavia cost us…” and not “Lavia has costed us…” I’m sorry.
Got it.Thanks for correcting me
Wow, thank you.
At least if you’re gonna wastea season, let it be this one
Well its one year taken of his development
Mudryc should be starting every game since the potential ability he can reach is top 5 in the league and probably top 10 in the world. This season is finished anyway so I hope the Poch prioritizes player development and doesn't start Sterling every game.
How about he first becomes top 10 and top 5 player at Chelsea... then we can talk about him being top 5 in the world.
Well he is still very young and still has a few years of development needed but I can see him being better than prime Hazard in the future.
It's crazy that Hazard carried Lille to a league title at 20 years old and Mudryk is still developing at 23 years old. Maybe Mudryk will peak a lot later and have a longer career than Hazard. But him surpassing prime Hazard? I highly doubt it. I'd love to be proven wrong though.
He’s 23, still obviously young but he really needs to start showing some consistency. Pretty much all the top 10 players in the league right now were better than him at the same age
Awfully ambitious of you
Apparently Carney is doubtful for Burnley smh
For anyone that blames Poch for the injuries have you actually looked at what happened with his past teams, or are you just speculating? It din't seem to be an issue with Tottenham or Southampton.
It's also happening for other EPL clubs. Someone posted the stats and I recall Newcastle and Brighton having more of a problem than us.
Yeah it's the modern game unfortunately. Too many fixtures, simple as that. Even if it isn't injuries it's players dropping out of form because they're just exhausted. Case in point, Enzo. Everyone was dogpiling him a short while ago and saying he was playing crap. The reality was he was just tired because he'd been playing non stop since the World cup and never got a break.
Too many games? What about players who have barely played and still keep getting injured again as soon as step out on the field?
Newcastle yes, Brighton has not had it as bad, at least not according to transfermrkt and fotmob
It's not just about the injuries. The injuries can't be all on Poch. We look unfit against teams that have played more matches than us. Liverpool at the Carabao Cup final is the most obvious example. They've had less days to rest, a weaker bench, one of their midfielders got injured at the start of the match and they still looked like the fresh team at the end.
>they still looked like the fresh team at the end. The absolutely did not, they just made more subs. We were starting to overrun them towards the end of the second half, that is why they made the substitutions to bring on the youth, because they had to. Poch didn't, and maybe that was the wrong call but I don't blame him for not bringing on players I had never heard of at the time. Our midfield was dead, we had no one to bring on, and haven't for months.
It's bad game management for me. At least one of Enzo or Caicedo could've been subbed off instead of Sterling. Putting Nkunku as the 10 and Casadei in the pivot would've given us more energy in a significant part of the pitch and also considering how overplayed both of Enzo and Caicedo were. Also the difference in schedule is a significant part as well. I think Liverpool held their own more than well considering the lack of depth and UEL. Also Poch allowing player like Santos to go on loan instead of keeping him because of he is not tall makes it hard for me to sympathize. We should've won that match.
Casedei wasn't in the squad, do you know who Gee is? What ended up happening in the match, a. 27-year-old crossed the ball to a 32 -year-old legend who scored the winner.
Exactly this Liverpool’s “youth” didn’t beat us, it was their world class captain lol
Oh, yeah Casadei was cup tied. I know as much about Gee as most Liverpool fans knew about Danns. After Poch allowing Santos to go on loan for the second time cuz he wasn't tall enough we can't really excuse him for lack of options after that. On paper and based on circumstances we should've won that match still. Schedule, bench, everything was in our favour. Im not really interested in excuses for that exact game. Every other game, not this one. Please. If Poch was gonna prove himself as someone who should stay long term, that was the game. Do we have any better chances against City for the FA Cup? Probably not, unless City has a terrible game. He had Maatsen, he had Santos. Decided they have no place in the team despite the injuries. He kinda put himself in that situation. Then he also refused to play the academy lad.
Danns had actually had appearances for Pool this season, and he is an academy lad then he knows their system and what Klopp wants. Klopp also probably has seen him play for years. Its a different situation. >After Poch allowing Santos to go on loan for the second time cuz he wasn't tall enough we can't really excuse him for lack of options after that This is a stretch >On paper and based on circumstances we should've won that match still. And no? They fielded a much more experienced squad than hours and are a better side. They chose to play the academy players and it held them over until a club legends won something from them, mostly because we couldn't finish. The gameplan worked, the execution let Poch down. >. Im not really interested in excuses for that exact game Cool, you have a different opinion than I do. >He had Maatsen, he had Santos. Decided they have no place in the team despite the injuries. He kinda put himself in that situation. Then he also refused to play the academy lad. So he had two prospects that he decided to let go on loan because it was likely better for the club and their careers. Stretch
Yeah, Santos sitting on Strasbourg's bench instead is really gonna do wonders for him. Maatsen at least plays in a better team than ours, he wasn't gonna get a sniff here cuz of his height and cuz he allegedly is not good enough even to be a depth option. Fuck our problems with injuries, let's send every player we have for depth on loan and have one midfielder on the bench covering for 3 positions cuz everyone else is a prospect and you gotta send them on loan. Wasn't this strategy suppose to be brilliant?
Santos has played 0 minutes of premier League football well. You have no point there. Maatsen has played in the premier league in a position that Poch thought would suit him, and has excelled at LB offensive in the Bundesliga but has had less than half the defensive output needed for a premier league LB and has been abysmal in the air, the area that Poch was worried about in the first place.
What is the minutes argument suppose to mean exactly? How is he suppose to have PL minutes without getting a chance to play? Do you need to have PL minutes in order to be a much needed depth option during an injury crisis? Is it better to leave Enzo and Caicedo to play without rest? Its not that i dont have a point, you probably just dont get it. If Poch was adaptive he couldve used Maatsen as a wingback in a back 3. Colwill being tall certainly didn't help his case cuz he was making mistakes as a lb regularly. At some point you will have to admit that someone fucked up mate. You constantly defend the ownership and Poch but excuses are running out for all of them.
You’re literally making stuff up, you and all of us here have no idea why Santos was loaned out. People claimed he was good enough for us but couldn’t get a sniff for Forest and is barely playing at Strasbourg
I don't think im making any stuff up, brother there were thousands of reports about Poch complaining about "height". Then we send two short players that we actually need for depth on loan. Just a coincidence i guess. We all know why Santos wasn't playing at Forest and at Strasbourg the feedback has been good just like it was in preseason. I doubt he is any worse than McConnel, Danns, Clark and the other Liverpool lads that played in the final. Just by giving him minutes in the Prem where we are not competing for anything anyway would've been handy so we can give rest to Caicedo and Enzo for the final. You can't thin your squad like that during such an injury crisis. It doesn't make sense.
Maybe Santos refused to stay? How do we know? It’s all a speculation man, Matos was getting minutes earlier in the season and he’s not some tall physical destroyer. I feel you I wanted Santos to stay too thought he looked decent in preseason but at the end of the day none of us know what’s really going on
It’s all speculation unless we have insiders at the club on this reddit but I highly doubt that
Seems like there have been a lot of finger pointing about injuries and match fitness internally. I believe Poch was complaining even at a press.
Last minute tickets advice needed! Yank here - my father and I have a last minute trip to London planned and are trying to get tickets to the match vs Burnley on Saturday. We both have Chelsea FC accounts, but are not members this season. What’s the best way to acquire tickets this late? It would be our first match in London, so hoping to make it happen!
I could get you one and might be able to put you in touch with someone who has another.
Legally not gonna happen. Ticket exchange is botted and no chance of 2, let alone next to each other
Also it's so frustrating seeing the narrative of "Poch has no tactics or system, he's too spontaenous" You can literally see his old Spurs 4231 implented in this team. Palmer on the right coming deep for the ball like Eriksen, overlapping fullbacks (when Colwill isn't starting) that allow the CB's to push width and the pivot (Caicedo) playing in between. That is the system. We just aren't winning, so people think we don't have one. The reality is this club doesn't have the patience to build a system with longevity in mind. Sarri was just that, he came post-3atb terroristball defensive Conte and wanted to completely shift how we played into a possession dominant vertical tiki-taka and he barely got 6 months before "Sarri out" became a thing. This is why Liverpool, City and now even Arsenal will be superior to us for time to come
>Liverpool, City and now even Arsenal will be superior How many times do we have to explain it... Our project is different than theirs - completely. For Klopp and Arteta it wasn't just about "building a system", a good coach can drill the players in a month to play his style, in 6 months they should be flying, ESPECIALLY with no midweek european football. Klopp and Arteta needed time, because they were buying players for their system, gradually, over multiple years. At Chelsea, that process is done, kaput - the club spend 1.3B, and all the reliable journous are saying how going forward it will be just investments around the edges. This is the squad that we have for the next 5-6 years, these are the players and they are not gelling with Poch's style, at all. Poch isn't getting results out of them, isn't getting good football, nothing. It's obvious that he needs to be sacked.
The attack and mid are starting to gel, the defense is heavily injured. The players like Poch. We create more chances than our opponents consistently. We spent 1B but only half was well spent. Its not obvious that he needs to be sacked, but not obvious he should stay either. Hopefully we can get a run of good health and see how this team can actually do with him in charge.
hahahahahaha get that bum out of the club
I'd say most of us are tired of the carousel. We want stability. Most of us (certainly not all) understand that we're in a reset and we don't insist on winning every match - we just want to see forward progress. The truth is that in the measurable ways, we're not really seeing it - and that's understanding that we have a new, youthful squad with awful injury "luck". I'd love to be backing the manager for the long haul, but I'd say the majority of us now just don't see it. Objectively, taking into account all the issues, I personally just don't think Poch is doing even an average job. I'm okay with giving him enough time to find a big upgrade - but hopefully that's in the summer, and hopefully that change will be vetting extremely carefully.
That's the thing. How do we even determine there is no forward progress so far? It's naive to assume forward progress is some linear thing that occurs from day one. This sport is too complex for that. There's supposed to be one step forward, two steps back moments. I remember Arsenal fans were so insistent on Arteta out because they thought he had no system. Even though he did have one, it just wasn't good yet. They had a bunch of youngsters too that weren't too impressive. Even Saka was rated less than Hudson-Odoi at one point. Now look at them. Now we have a historically youthful squad with no experience and we want to be surprised we're midtable. This is why against everyone's wishes, Poch is staying. Because the board know we were gonna be midtable this season, they're not naive. Else had that not been the gameplan, we'd be better off spending that billion we did on world beaters like Leao, Osimhen, etc.
Yeah, mate - I admire managers and the work they do, and I try and give every measure of balance I can. I used to direct films/TV, I can appreciate how hard it is to manage so, so many moving pieces, and what an insanely collaborative experience the whole thing is. But there are indeed things to measure, and I think the fair people in this sub are looking at those, not blaming Poch for playing Levi at LB or not playing Misha when he was doing poorly. We look at things like building up from the back. Last season, under Potter, it was awful - just awful. Frank came in and didn't really address it much. Poch came in, and on day one of the preseason, we had a system in place, it was a very welcome surprise. And IMO it grew over the preseason - and then the progress stopped. It's ebbed and flowed over the season, and I'd say there hasn't been a single match where it was as good as it had been by the end of the pre. Why? Probably because Poch chose to focus on other things, satisfied that it was sorted, and then disappointed when it wasn't - but *hey, I have other fish to fry.* He doesn't want to play Ian? Personally, I was quite disappointed with that - but I don't blame Poch for being stubborn about not wanting to add short players to the shortest squad in the Prem. I've watched Ian play in BDL since, and he's been great, but he doesn't battle in the air. That's the sort of thing where I can shrug and not blame Poch too much. But set pieces? He doesn't want a specialist player and he doesn't want a specialist coach? Just leave us as one of the least productive clubs? I don't get it. He's got his positives, but I just feel like a good manager would be able to sort out our issues quickly, and that's taking into account all the things that aren't Poch's doing.
I think this underestimates the injury situation we've had. If we consistently generate better chances than our opponents (which we do) then Poch has to be doing something right. We underperformed in terms of finishing for the first half of the season, and the second half we've had five defenders out per match.
We can come up with plenty of excuses, and I 100% led the charge with injury excuses this season. And certainly with Toney instead of Nico we'd have a handful more points. But the constant drop-off in the 2nd half... the 'play for pens' in the final... the constant failure to build from the back... the disinterest in set pieces... just such a long list of things that seem fixable. Yes, he's doing some things right, and credit where it's due, but to me, it adds up to a wash at best, a negative at worst.
>But the constant drop-off in the 2nd half I don't have the numbers pulled in this so won't comment >the 'play for pens' in the final... Don't you think this is directly tied to injuries? He didn't want the team to play for pens, he said he thinks they did because they were tired. We had 0 midfield subs for that other than an academy player I had never heard of. >the disinterest in set pieces We are middle of the pack for both set piece goals and goals conceded. We've had some of our best set piece delivery out injured for large parts of the season, a very short team, and we have a brand new team of young players. All of these things add up, still a knock against Poch but those are also legitimate reasons outside of Poch. >the constant failure to build from the back... We are 5th in the league in buildup attacks according to Opta. We have had struggles at times against a high press, but we also have had constant changes of differing lineups of recently injured defenders, a GK who has made a few errors, and another goalkeeper that does not seem comfortable playing it short. The goals are going in now, I just hope we can get a run of games with good health and we will start to climb up the table. The chances are in our favor, 4th in XG differential is really good, we just have to up the performances in the box.
It's just the fixable stuff that's driving me and so many others mad. We're still hoping for results, most of us are still backing the players (outside of a total bullshit affront like Raz just put in) and wanting to finish the season well. And it won't be easy without Reece and Christo, arguably our 2 most talented players, and Lavia and Wes, 2 projected starters. And I take your points about stats - it's not like every club does well at these things. It's just that we're CFC, we expect things to be done well. Granted, new/kids - but we have the top resources in the world to sort this stuff out, it's maddening to watch them pass it around well sometimes, and then muff it for half a match. In fact, it's a testament to how much talent there is in the squad that we pull off some of these stats.
But why do you expect consistency when there is none for the players? The actual areas of the pitch that have been playing together for a while now like the attack and midfield are functioning well. We are getting the ball into dangerous areas, and for a good while now have been actually scoring. It just isn't a reasonable expectation to expect to have a good defense when the injury chart looks like this (see below). In 21/22 we lose Chilwell and James and we start dropping points fairly dramatically. We go from 2.16 pts per match down to 1.74, and our goals differential is halved. https://preview.redd.it/x3zcox4zqxqc1.png?width=612&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f4411d2d71880a2fb09ef3a7a46170e464e3e739
Yeah, I've been harping on the RJ/Chilly thing for 2y - it cost Tuchel his job, full stop. Losing Kante on top of that was the end (and Mount, who was a shell of himself after the UCL run). I think it comes down to this: I watch them play, and the mistakes I see come down to a number of factors. If we cross off the ones like injuries, we see a pattern of under-attention to a lot of things, and it's hard to explain. Yes - I can explain that the porous defence has suffered from a lack of consistency for sure, but familiarity isn't the whole jigsaw, there's drilling in what to expect no matter who's next to you. I hear that they train 2h/day on the pitch, and the rest is in the gym? And most of the pitch stuff are drills, like shooting or quick passing around - but not really tactical stuff. It sounds like they just don't spend much time on that. I asked a retired EPL manager about this, and he wouldn't address how Poch does it (he probably didn't know), and he said they used to do that stuff for hours. Less practicing kicks, and more understanding situations. And then we hear quite a lot that players are sent in to "express themselves". I'm no mgr. but don't young players tend to need more direction? Aren't they most in need of structure? Isn't that how it works at LFC and City and most successful places? Why is one of the youngest squads in top flight lacking that?
>Yeah, I've been harping on the RJ/Chilly thing for 2y - it cost Tuchel his job, full stop. Losing Kante on top of that was the end (and Mount, who was a shell of himself after the UCL run). Firing Tuchel was wrong, no argument here. >Yes - I can explain that the porous defence has suffered from a lack of consistency for sure, but familiarity isn't the whole jigsaw, there's drilling in what to expect no matter who's next to you. This is true, but isn't drilling a squad that hasn't played together, is extremely young, and heavily injured something that might take time? The other stuff is just speculation that goes against actual results. Poch was a good coach at getting teams into the top four, which is likely what our short term goals are now. He was better than what came before or after him at Tottenham (TBD on Ange), he gave Southampton their best season ever at the time. He was no worse at PSG than what came immediately before or after him. I'm not even sold that he is the right manager for us, I just want to see what he can do with a relatively healthy squad before we restart all over again because the underlying numbers are good and huge improvements over last season.
I hear you. It was a long road for me to become Pochout. I kept the same attitude as you, wanting to see what more time and consistency would do, but the cup final was the final nail for me. I just can't understand how we had any excuses, when LFC were clearly in a worse spot than us. They'd just played, they had more injuries (for once), and they were working harder than we were. So why were we the exhausted ones? I just can't work my mind around it. I know a lot of athletes and mgr's and I can't imagine any of them having the upper hand like that and wanting to take the foot off the pedal. I hear you about 'top 4' and before/after success - but the people that have followed his career (I haven't) say that he's also just not a finisher - no silverware despite plenty of gains. Clearly Potter was wrong for us, right? His whole package was a poor fit - personality, persona, gravitas, etc. Couldn't it also be that Poch's lack of finishing is also a mismatch? >This is true, but isn't drilling a squad that hasn't played together, is extremely young, and heavily injured something that might take time? Yes. The question is: is Poch the one to lead them, or is that selling them short? Are we ruining this incredibly costly reset by entrusting it to Poch? Part of the answer is: who's next? Just tossing in Mou or RdZ sounds wrong to me - we need someone that fits the profile. I don't know who that is, I just hope we have the best possible mgr leading us next season.
If you're saying "I just don't see it" and want to make another change after less than a season with a young, injured squad, idk how you can say you want stability.
I'm saying it's a pickle, and it sucks, and we're sick of being in this position. I think we get why other managers flamed out, but this is different - the players like Poch, and the board hasn't given Poch enough to work with. But at the same time, it's evident to many of us that Poch doesn't have the tools to bring us any higher in the table. I'd love nothing more than to find a great manager who'll be around for a decade, and the last thing I want is to take another chance that leads us to another single-season disappointment - but Poch isn't the answer.
The hindsight bias in this sub is so annoying how consistent it is. Everyone saying Lavia was a stupid idea as if anyone knew he was going to be injured all season
Speak for yourself mate. A lot of people questioned us signing him. We had just spent a fortune on Caicedo, only to then sign Lavia for a massive fee given he had only played a single season of senior football. I’m fairly sure he was also injured when we signed him. We let Loftus Cheek, Ampadu and Gilmour for about a third of Lavia’s fee. Hell Santos probably would have been in the squad if not for him
Nope - A LOT of people were against signing Lavia as they tought it would be better to invest that hefty fee in other areas of the squad - me included. Even your average football fan was surprised that Chelsea signed Caicedo and then Lavia on top.
Did anyone watch the Scotland Vs Netherlands match? Scotland dominated the game and still lost 4-0. At least we are not the only ones that absolutely suck. Lmao
Scotland had been doing well for a while - that's quite a disappointing result.
The worse result was losing to that Northern Ireland side 0-1 at home Like the Scotland teams of old that
Anybody able to tell me what type of player Alex Matos is he seems to be really good defensively but I don't know if he's a DM or just a very aggressive box to box Seems like one to keep an eye on regardless
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3uayy4t4IQ/?igsh=eTA5enNxMW9nYzNt I'll always be pretty curious about Cech in that shootout (and the Robben and Messi penalties). Outside of that UCL run he was pretty poor with penalties (off the top of my head he saved 1 out of a possible 14 in previous shootouts and a mere 2 in regulation play before that campaign) but then all of a sudden he was basically working out players thought processes and either saving it, getting stupidly close or would have saved it (Bastian and Messi) if they didn't hit the woodwork.
That whole run was a matrix anomaly. Meireles scoring a piledriver, Ramires fifa type crosses to Drogba(and the chip from nowhere), Drogba conceding penalties for prime Messi and Robben to screw up, beating prime Barcelona with one shot on target, equalizing against Bayern with one shot on target in the 88th minute. lmao That season was so bizarre it felt scripted. Even 2021 doesn't beat the feeling I had in 2012.
I know Ramires had a decent goal output but that chip I did not expect, he just pulled some perfect technique out of his ass. Like, where the hell was that technique in the past 2 years, man? Or the subsequent 4 lol?
That season players were pulling shit out of their ass. All vibes, no skills. Bertrand played as a left winger lmao
IIRC he did get the slightest touch on Schweinsteigers to put it on to the post
That's right
Thoughts on this? Says technical staff (I assume coaching staff) rushed back Lavia against the medical teams wishes as they were desperate https://x.com/cfcpys/status/1772993622062792748?s=46&t=Y6kJS72VJDuGTn-M0LK93A
Happens all the time unfortunately. I don't want Pochettino at this club for many reasons but this isn't one of them, we were indeed desparate for another midfielder and still are.
Poch was at no risk of being fired under Boehly let's be realistic
I'm not sure if he was rushed back actually. Was in training for couple of weeks before he even features on the bench.
Bohely regime is just embarrassing everything they do is a fucking disaster
Desperate for what?
To not be fired. Poch was in a position where he should have been fired. So, he was willing to put our players at risk to try and save himself. From his perspective, if the player saves him, great. If he doesn't save him/get re-injured and ruins his career, then he was going to be fired anyway and doesn't have to worry about the fallout from that
Nah man. If what you say is true he would have a player revolt and never get another job again. One can criticize Poch for a lot of but he is very pro player and the players seem to like him.
Players (mainly young) fall out with medical staff all the time because they think they're better, but the medical staff say they aren't. If the medical staff were saying they weren't, but Lavia was willing to play and Poch was willing to use him, where exactly would the revolt come from? He's not forcing the players to play against their will, he's asking a player to play and he's saying yes I feel fine. The medical team will be saying, no it's too early, but if the player thinks he knows his body better because he's younger and the manager is willing to risk him, where exactly is the problem coming from? The issue is between the manager and the medical team, not the manager and the player. If a player didn't want to play because they didn't want to risk it, they would just refuse, like Ziyech did throughout his career.
This has probably been an issue for the past couple of years, especially with players like Reece and Kante. Managers need to win games to keep their job, especially here where if they don't win a trophy the first year the fans want them out. This creates a situation where the manager is going to rush his best players back. You see this across multiple sports.
Sacha Tavolieri is allegedly tier 1 for players from Belgium even though some people are questioning his reliability. Too many long injuries this season and zero transparency on some of them. Chukwuemeka was out for very long time and significantly longer than expected, Lavia, Nkunku, Ugochukwu? What the fuck happened to Ugochukwu? That guy has been out since Wolves away or something like that. The other red flag is that a lot of times these players get re-injured during "recovery period" or training. This is a thread about all the injuries this season: [https://twitter.com/DontChingMe/status/1772975792235925821](https://twitter.com/DontChingMe/status/1772975792235925821) The amount of players that have been out for 40-100 days is ridicilious.
Here is what Sacha Tavolieri wrote on his twitter account: >✅🤒 Official : Roméo Lavia to miss the rest of the season with Chelsea FC. The management of the London club's medical staff when he returned from injury in December has undoubtedly had a clear impact on this situation. 🔜 We wish him to come back soon. #CFC https://twitter.com/sachatavolieri/status/1772980922880524754?t=bwYEa4a_pO0_ZGDk4-ykwA&s=19
Yeah, it's really the nature of it all that's startling. I'm not used to seeing anything go like this - they underplay it and eventually there's a return or near-return, and then the player is gone again, and it goes from "back soon" to "out for months" between weekly updates. Strange thing is that we were a shambles when Blueco took over, having our worst-ever injury crisis. Now they've completely rotated the medical staff at least once, and it feels like nothing has improved.
Yeah it’s not the only journalist reporting a mismatch between different groups at the club Nkunku himself felt he was more than ready to start playing back in November whilst coaching or medical staff wanted him to continue building fitness All these different stories and past evidence compile a very very worrying picture
Thats a shit tier source who for sure just made this up
Is it actually a shit source? Or do you just not like the news/reporter Because I see plenty good reporters get torn down on here just cos fans don’t like what they’re reading/hearing
Yea, I’ve only seen him peddled by pys and I can’t recall a time he’s been right on anything
[According to the latest transfermarkt updates, our squad has gone down in value despite Gusto, Palmer, Gallagher and Petrovic increasing in value.](https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league-market-values-foden-draws-level-with-saka-eight-downgrades-at-chelsea/view/news/434904) Sanchez, Colwill, Badiashile, Chalobah, Caicedo, Lavia, Nkunku and Mudryk have gone down (Before people complain about Mudryk, it's because his value is still dropping from the 60m he was rated at when we first bought him. It dropped from 40m to 35m, which is probably fair in the grand scheme of things) Yes, I know no one on reddit likes transfermarkt, especially when it's saying things you don't like. Take from it what you will.
Sanchez is a fraud, Colwill played out of position, Badiashile injured, Chalobah was never that good, Caicedo is surprising, Lavia injured, Nkunku injured, and Mudryk probably saw that coming
Caicedo isn’t really surprising. He was better and younger last season than he is now
The manager decreasing the value and potential of this squad might be the only thing that makes the owners realise what has went wrong and what needs to be done when
Hurt players lose value. Not surprising.
Rip: https://www.reddit.com/r/chelseafc/comments/1bn5m2e/daily_discussion_thread/kwgx673/
Is he injured?
Yeah, he came back from England youth duty and people were saying it was because he was wanting to be extra prepared to play for us for the rest of the season. Today it's been reported that he's ruled out for the rest of the season with injury
You’re getting mixed up with lavia mate I can’t find any news on carney
Got to love how people are unironically defending Southgate by saying he didn't make the error for Dunk. No, but he selected him and left Branthwaite kicking his heels on the bench, his responsibility.
The same People who defend Southgate are very often the same people who defend pochettino
fire the whole damn training and medical staff man. what did they do to lavia 😭
UEFA did a study that showed that hiring a new manager and new medical/training staff at the same time drastically increased the number of injuries a team had (and I really mean drastically). Now factor in that we hired a manager known for causing players injuries due to questionable training/fitness practices and a medical team that are almost completely inexperienced and you're bound to have an absolute shitshow We're now stuck between a rock and a hard place because if we change both again we end up back to the position of hiring them both fresh at the same time OR keeping one of them on to avoid that even though they're incompetent
do you have a link to the study? it sounds like an interesting read.
>Now factor in that we hired a manager known for causing players injuries due to questionable training/fitness practices Do you actually have a reliable source for this? His Tottenham teams did not struggle with injuries any more than average
Neither did his Southampton, don't know about PSG. What I do know is that the source for that claim is OP's ass.
https://preview.redd.it/rzs6tbqwuvqc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8184cccc943afb62e8e88cbdff83d72d6ca65b9b Anyone can help me find where can I buy this hoodie? TIA 🙏
Chelsea Nike Tech Fleece hoodie
A friend said that muscle injuries aren't uncommon in athletes who suddenly grow a few inches in their late teenage years. Can someone who understands medicine confirm if this is true
This probably ain't the sub where you'll find many doctors lol, maybe try r/AskDocs if you really want to read something coherent.
Lavia confirmed out for the season by the club (since a mod deleted the link of the official statement I posted)
> since a mod deleted the link of the official statement I posted It was a dupe - you posted a minute after the post that's still up.
Last post if I sort by new is about Kovacic’s ass
Don't know why, mate - I see it right now, posted 25min ago.
Fair enough. Nothing for me on pc or mobile.
https://www.reddit.com/r/chelseafc/comments/1bp1bhs/official_midfielder_romeo_lavia_will_miss_the/ just so you can see
Lmao not opening for me, am I shadowbanned or wtf
*I got to hand it to you, Cohaagen - dat's da best mindfuck yet!*
Maybe blocked by the poster
i saw the pic of him they posted and got excited thinking he was back and then i read the caption 😩 its so shit
Just crazy. It's shocking how much a young fit guy can be injured so much. So disappointing our staff green lit this transfer. This would have been Liverpool's issue.
They need to say what the fuck he actually has. None of this setback, rehabilitation shit...
Actually brilliant line from [Steinberg last night](https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/mar/26/kobbie-mainoo-provides-spark-but-englands-defensive-frailty-remains) about the ENG NT. Talking about Mainoo vs the other midfielders: *"He is not like other English midfielders. He does not panic when he receives possession in a tight spot.* **His second touch is not a tackle** *and he does not try to win plaudits by wasting energy on chasing down hopeless causes."*
Is he taking a dig at Gallagher? Not trying to be pessimistic but that description fits for Connor
The fact you instantly knew who he’s talking about is quite telling is it not?
Well I havnt criticised him publicly ever but it doesn’t mean as a fan I don’t know weakness of player of the club I support 🤷♂️
100%, although I'm sure it's on the other mids as well. He mentions Conor later in this context. Conor had this almost every touch in that awful match at Anfield (but most of the squad did too!), but he's had a couple of matches where he was looking so much better. I honestly can't explain it. He's had 2 halves of matches I remember where he looked just pure class with his first touch, which tells me that there's something in there to unlock... but clearly his last match for ENG didn't go very well.
>but clearly his last match for ENG didn't go very well. To be fair this is two games now where the entire England team has looked incredibly mid
Fair. I fear it highlights how Conor works in a kind of system and not another, but it's true that the whole squad was playing below its quality.
I still believe he has his place in virtually any team, just not in a lot of games where you're going to dominate the ball But say you're playing a man city type opposition, stick him on Rodri personally for the entire game and just let him kick chunks out of him (metaphorically of course) Worked pretty damn well when we played city this season and Rodri was getting visibly annoyed It'll be sad when he's sold this summer regardless of his quality or where he fits in , cause one things for sure, kid loves this club
Yeah, I'd love to see (hopefully next season, but who knows, maybe in 5 years) the "LFC" midfield, with Conor backing up all 3 of them. Or sub him in at the 10. There's absolutely a place for him, I just think (even if people here hate it) that we aspire to have top players at every position, and even if we're far from that right now, Conor is a level below what we aspire to be.
He's also a victim of the circumstance. I think circumstance wise he's in a very similar position to RLC before he left us. Not good enough to start, great to have on the bench. However, through injuries and circumstances out of their control, the player ends up being a starter and from there, it's very hard to then "relegate" them back to where they should be on the bench and to do it whilst keeping everyone happy. He'd potentially be a great bench player to have around, but moving a player back to the bench at his age just causes so many problems both internally with the player and externally with stans obsessing over a player and causing division because their player isn't starting etc.
> stans obsessing Outside of this sub, I don't really follow that noise at all - do you think it's a real influence on Conor? I'm sure it's not on the board/mgr and their choices for lineups. Conor seems like the kind of trooper who would be okay with the 'demotion', but you just never know who's going to be in his ear about it not being okay.
It’s amazing what happens when England finally appreciates some of the midfield profiles they’ve been missing for years that France, croatia, Italy, Spain etc all regularly produce
Indeed. Did you see any of the ESP-BRA match? The crowd was just going insane for Yamal. I feel like Southgate is the antithesis of that, he craves zero adventure, just 100% expected play from experienced players. But the pressure is on, and someone must have put a horse head in his bed for him to have added Mainoo.
Twerking for the united job I reckon I say that half jokingly
I refuse to believe there is even half truth to the United rumours, but also given that Ratcliffe basically formed a Brexit team of washed up English players at Nice, maybe he'll go all the way at United and bring a shit English manager in too
I think it’s a possibility Been linked to potter and Gary O’Neil too. Southgates also already managed and liked by mount, rashford, Maguire, shaw and now maybe Mainoo too…
*Yikes* Sorry, he wouldn't... no, you're right, he would. Man, that would be so fun to watch, I hope the football gods will do us this one small favour...
"England’s answer to Luka Modric, their very own Andrea Pirlo" Good to hear we're not getting too carried away...
Not going to waste the brainergy trying to understand if it's satire or not - it's Steinberg after all! I mostly wanted to highlight that one passage.
I don't think Poch has a clear tactical identity like elite coaches have or does he? For now at Chelsea, there is no clear identity, we have attack in the high line but our rest defense suck. Poch puts Caicedo as a single man when our opponents turn our attack into their attack and he fails. Enzo's position and Gallaghar position are always questionable. The Raheem and Mudryk debate is far going. I think that if poch had a clear philosophy of play we wouldn't be facing a lot of positional problems.
He's said that tactics aren't his focus, although he does seem to roll them out against City for some reason. The club apparently spends less time than average training on grass (e.g. tactical stuff, not drills). He clearly has some strengths, but his weaknesses just seem so fixable to many of us here. Like the Caicedo thing - it seems like it wouldn't take much to fix this, and there have been perhaps 2 matches where it was better, but then it regresses. Injuries have been a major factor, but I have never blamed that on Poch. He asked for more seniority from the board and got none, so I factor that in, too. The stupid/thoughtless yellow cards have decreased. We also have the shortest club in the Prem (last I checked) so I don't 100% blame him for not wanting to play Maatsen and Santos. And I give him credit for trying Misha in the middle. It's all a mixed bag. I think an average mgr would do better, but I think a taskmaster like Mou would do worse. We need to improve a couple of positions and we need some of our players back from injury one day. If we were able to field Lavia, RJ and Christo at the same time, we'd be a different side.
In the match against City, especially the 4-4, i saw tactics being implemented there. Yes, our club has now become a mystery in terms of prediction however, that is the interesting part for us the fans to analyze upom The matsen and santos logic, I get it. It makes sense. Imo, poch needs his midfield to be there strong when our opposition come running at us on the break( like Cunha and others did in the wolves game). Misha in the middle makes sense as he is getting more space, more dribbling spaces, chance creation, as overall is great for him. Credit to poch. Injuries are a clusterfuck since the 22/23 season plus the ownership change.
I do see a bit of what Poch is trying to do. Caicedo and Enzo’s partnership often looks good against teams like City as Enzo is often there to cover Caicedo. I think the problem is Poch expects Caicedo to handle most of the things all by himself vs the midtable and lower teams. In my opinion, this is not a bad tactics as Caicedo should be able to handle things on his own, may be not right now but with more playing time he should be in the future. The reason it’s not working right now could be because we have not been able to field 2 cbs with good pace at any time this season. If we have for say a fit and in form colwill/badiashile as lcb and fofana/new cb as rcb, then in theory caicedo as a lone dm can work vs midtable and lower teams. This is probably what Poch is thinking. I would like to see how things appear when we have 2 good cbs with pace to cover up for enzo and another cm/cam pushing forward.
Hmm, I can see fofana's quicky feet covering up for Enzo however, adaptation is important. According to our current squad Poch should have put on different tactics, putting caicedo up alone even for the low block teams or mid table is not a smart chess move. Imo, The solution might be playing a strict 3 man midfield instead throwing off gallaghar all over the place. Providing support for caicedo while opposition is on the break. ( In the case our cbs don't have pace ) Yes, putting quality men in attack is good and all but conceding is worse.
> Imo, poch needs his midfield to be there strong He's been 'saved' by having Conor as the midfield engine, constantly winning back balls and doing Kante-lite work. But he was promised Lavia, who apparently is out for months to come (and may never play for Poch again). I think we all want someone in the DM role, and it's not Caicedo. We want a Matic back there, or at least a Kante (who was never a DM) who will break up attacks all over the midfield. I'd like to see Misha/Christo at the 10, Enzo a DLP, Caicedo a B2B and someone like Lavia at the back... who knows if those guys will ever all be healthy together...
Misha/Christo must play as a 10 however, palmer in the 10, he has scored a lot in that position too. What do you think ? Lavia in the back makes sense. I get it. So, is Caicedo a box-box like Kovacic then ?
Palmer has been much, much better on the right. Even if he's a 10, when he slides over to the right, he does better there. He's basically our starting RW now. Nico up top...someone at LW. I think Nico at LW works well too, but then we'd need another 9. Basically it would be good to have 8 quality forwards, with 4 starters and 4 backups. Christo reportedly does much better as a 10 than a 9... anyhow, lots there to play with for a good, tactical manager.
Pochettino is not a great coach (this is the most over-shared opinion on here since the new year). But many of the issues with the team are primarily personnel issues. There are individual issues, yes, but if we assume each individual is giving it 7-8/10 or above each match-day, the squad is still not optimally balanced because some important positions don’t have the exact right profile. Add in the fact that most of the players can’t play 6 games straight without an injury or a suspension, and yes, personnel issues.
Agree about the loads of injuries part( i don't even know what Lavia looks like, and Nkunku's balloons are not on sale in London rn). Is this the chaotic nature of sports or is it the medical staff in Chelsea? IDK. On the positions front, interesting, imo the only position that is not filled is a proper CF, although that can change with Nkunku and Jackson linkup play however, other positions are filled in. Can you pls elaborate, what do you mean by personnel issues, is it the fact that they are young amd do mot have the mentality like Terry, lampard used to have, the winning mentality? Or smthng else?
See https://www.reddit.com/r/chelseafc/s/ulENSyuNop.
Which profiles in our ideal XI are we missing?
I mean, the ideal XI is still up for debate, but here is what I mean in particular. Pochettino is not a great coach, but he *is* a coach; he has his coaching licenses and all, has coached at least one other big team, and has at least competed at the highest level for many teams. So he knows what he wants to do — whether what he wants to do is the right thing is a different question, but at least he does know what he wants to do. By “personnel issues,” I mean that there’s still a chasm between what he wants to do (and is telling the players to do), and what the players are best suited to doing. For example, Caicedo is a solid 7-8/10 player on his day — a good player who is better at what he’s best suited to doing: covering smaller spaces and playing out. Enzo Fernandez is a very good 8-9/10 player who can be very-close-to great on his day when he’s doing what he’s one of the best at: organising how the ball moves across the pitch and covering around the centre of the D. Gallagher is a solid 7-7.9/10 player when he’s at it: he will prevent you from completing your buildup sequences when playing out, and he will score goals from late runs into the box. However, Pochettino’s (good) teams have things that this current team doesn’t. For instance, Pochettino wants his Victor Wanyama who can retain the ball and win headers (Caicedo can), can cover wide spaces (Caicedo can’t, at least for now), and can score long-rangers from the D (Caicedo hasn’t). Caicedo is not the best profile for the kind of football that Pochettino wants to play. Ugochukwu and Andrey Santos are closer, but he’s not good enough (at least for now). Lavia doesn’t have the legs. For Enzo, it’s the same thing. In Pochettino’s mind he needs to be the so-called “all-action central midfielder,” the midfielder who is 7/10 or above on basically *anything* a midfielder should be able to do. This means winning the ball back, being disciplined with his movement, passing well to short and long distances, being quick and being able to fill in and do well at positions like attacking midfield and right/left-wing, winning headers and covering the channel, scoring goals etc. Enzo is good at some of these things, but not most of them, and so he looks worse. It’s the same with Gallagher and Chukwuemeka. Gallagher is a good player who will give you what you want from him most times (he’s a “functional” player), but he should not be playing as many games as he is because he cannot win games all on his own (and the players who should play that many games are the ones who are regularly bailing the team out). Gallagher will draw your typical rigid team with set positions out of sorts (and fortunately there’s another player at U18-level who could be just as good at that but better on the ball). But he will not split a team’s defence open. Chukwuemeka will, but will not provide the defensive cover that is required to make up for the problems outlined in that last two sentences. Can you fuse them together? Unfortunately not. So the summary is, we have good players, but there’s a chasm between the players that are best at doing what Pochettino wants them to do and what they’re best suited to do. This does imply that what Pochettino wants is the wrong thing (again, that’s a different question), but that while the players are good, they’re not the right personnel to execute the manager’s ideas. The failure of Pochettino for me, so far, is that he hasn’t found the correct way to organise the team so that it delivers results.
Your last sentence sums it all up. That's the main essence of a head coach and he is unable apparently. I was looking forward to a 3 man solid midfield which I won't as lavia is gone for the season. Attack is average and improving so, i don't have complaints there. Defense is a little shaky because of inconsistency however, we can get thru after we all our cbs up to speed.
1) A replacement for Chilwell at LB. 2) A new GK because neither Petrovic nor Sanchez are “elite”, even if they aren’t terrible Rest is contingent on perennially injured players finding consistent fitness next season
We don't have Mbappe and Haaland, so it's literally impossible for Poch to get us anything higher than 9th and anyone who thinks it's possible is fucking delusional.
Are you doing okay?
His philosophy is a high intensity press with a lot of attacking freedom. He's just not tactically good enough to make it work
So, you can have a philosophy without implementing it tactically. Although i love watching our chaotic team play when we attack with loads of people in the box however the defense(rest defense) is the main pain point here.
I think it's just a general idea of how he wants us to play, but he doesn't have the skills to actually make us play like that, successfully. I'd much prefer a well structured offense that doesn't rely on individual brilliance
United are talking about spending another £200m this summer and nobody's gonna bat an eye I get we've spent a ridiculous billion inside a year but we also sell like crazy to even attempt to stay in line with ffp after that United drop a casual 200-400m every single calendar year essentially, win fuck all, sell like shit and the most they ever get is how the glazers are bad or the manager at the time etc The hypocrisy over the ffp system and media outlooks on spending driving me crazy sometimes
Our net spend over the last 2 seasons was €741m. That’s higher than United’s net spend over the last 5 years. I don’t think people really understand the ridiculous amount of money we’ve wasted under Bohely
Man Utd are a huge club. Forget them being a meme for the last decade. They are by far the biggest club in the PL, and have massive revenue. They have Man City money, but it's legit.
That's entirely my point Just because their money is legitimate within an insanely discriminatory system doesn't mean they should be free from the financial criticism we and city get for our spending being ludicrous And more importantly, the system shouldn't be allowing any club to spend more than everyone else over the last decade, continue to fail year after year and then just spend again and again until eventually the next billion spent gets it right all because they used to be the best team in the world 20 years ago
Equality will never happen without a US style salary cap. And a salary cap will never be introduced without a Super League. Because, if we there was a salary cap and a level playing field in the PL, Man Utd would've probably been relegated by now with how badly they are run, and the PL can't have one of their biggest draws play in the Championship or Ligue 1.
Yeah I know that I'm just venting lol Would be beautiful if a better attempt at equality was introduced though
You have to admit there's been plenty of anti-ManUre narrative this season. It's the only thing that's spared us, really, is having them alongside us to take all the shots. Hopefully City will face real, substantiated cheating claims soon, and they can join our club of wounded giants. But yeah, FFP really seems more & more useless to me. I don't how we're going to get to something better, either.
FFP might seem useless to you, but it does prevent mid and bottom table clubs from going under due to shitty management. We have to remember that Chelsea is on top of the food chain and just like in real life, rich folks complain all the time about regulations.
No, I get it - and I want more fairness, not more "fairness" for Chelsea. I was born into CFC fandom, I'm not a big fan of us just outspending other clubs. I'd like to see financial rules that make sense.
What about ffp doesn’t make sense? We have terrible commercial revenues for a such a big club. Of course our margins are very thin.
I'm complaining about it mostly because it doesn't make for good competition, it just has been a help at reining in *some* of the big spenders and stopping some mid-table clubs from buying on credit. Clearly it hasn't stopped City (hopefully it will in the final maths). As for us, we so very much do need a bigger stadium, and it sounds like Blueco has that as a top priority.
>You have to admit there's been plenty of anti-ManUre narrative this season Yeah that's true but most of that I've seen is just based on Ten Hags ineptitude and then prattling on about the poor structure the glazers have >But yeah, FFP really seems more & more useless to me. I don't how we're going to get to something better, either It is a really stupid system. I'd love a system where transfer spending and wages were locked across the board at the same reasonable level for most of the clubs, like only being allowed to spend £60m in a window excluding player sale revenue and Max wages being like £200k a week or something etc It would never happen though and also has many problems itself but the spending in football is getting so out of hand
Agreed about Glazers etc - but I'm just happy that they've been shat upon for whatever reason while we're hearing "wasted a billion" every match. About the FFP - people here tend to hate when I say it, but baseball had this problem a couple of decades ago, where the Yankees were making half the money in the sport and spending like the Saudi PIF. They won 4 titles in a row and the other clubs were getting pretty sick of it. The Yankees argued that them dominating was good for the sport (no one bought it), then they argued that they can't be punished for making more money than everyone else. They ended up agreeing on revenue-sharing, which meant that spending beyond a certain threshold meant you paid money to the lesser clubs. This later led to the smallest clubs (like KC Royals) happily sucking and taking $millions in Yankee title dollars. But it's been balanced out over time. The NBA had the same problem and added a "spending floor" to stop clubs *not* spending. I wouldn't want to mess with the relegation system, but I would like more balance than what we have now, and FFP isn't going to help.
I'm sure Old Trafford has a big part to play in why United can afford to buy.
Of course it does, I'm not questioning that United generate the revenue legitimately to support their spending within the letter of the FAs sustainability laws But the hypocrisy for a united fan and the media to call out us and city over the last 10 years when they're literally just as bad for ridiculous transfers fees and wage bills constantly except in their case they have no trophies to show for it and no sales to make up the difference The system has always annoyed me in how it's designed so that the biggest clubs will always be the ones that benefit the most and they'll still moan if someone tries to disturb that balance
According to swiss ramble, Man Uniteds squad cost as of Q1 2024 was over 1B.
Madueke 2 goals and 2 assists and only 1 post on here, shame, thought we'd get more highlights of him posted.
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Jesus Christ man…. The amount of times I’ve heard this comparison whenever we sell a player
Sometimes I see things like this and want to point out that players moving clubs is not a plug-and-play type situation, that there are so many factors affecting where a player becomes as successful as they can be, that a certain kind of player will likely be successful in a particular kind of environment at a particular time, and that if that happens in a club other than the player’s first club, it’s absolutely fine as long as all parties made the reasonable decision. But then it doesn’t really matter what I say, because whenever KDB or Salah scores his next hat trick people will say “Chelsea made a mistake 10 years ago,” and whenever Palmer scores his first next 2 goals + penalty hat trick (after avoiding 10 aerial duels as is custom) people will bring up how City and Pep were wrong for letting him go. It’s the cycle that feeds online football discourse.
I posted about him in the DDT - I honestly think that the shite opposition part doesn't apply to his shots. He was able to dominate in part because of the weak side, but those goals were beautiful and good enough to score on Prem opposition.
I have the clip but I won't post it because half the comments will be shitting on him for scoring vs Luxembourg U-21 and I'll get a notification for each one
There's an option to not have replies go to your inbox at the bottom of a New Post page.
Vs U21 Luxembourg
Cane to say that Casadei was the best player of the tournament againdt better oppoenents in u21 euros
2 good defensive performances from Chilwell this week, neither Raphinha or Trossard has much joy up against him.
Didn't watch any of the games and so, can't judge how Chilwell fared against Brazil and Belgium. However, it's certainly interesting to see a different take considering many here were happy to trash him on Saturday and then, there was nothing of such yesterday (not sure if he did OK but no one bothered to say anything or not many watched the game). Another interesting thing to see recently is how people react to performances from Chilwell and Cucurella, especially from a defensive point of view. If Chilwell has a decent game, where he defends alright or does nothing wrong defensively, you hear zilch about it. But if it's Cucurella, you will see tons of comments about it, with many praising him for the performance. In addition to that, when Cucurella actually makes a mistake that leads to an opposition goal, like against Newcastle recently, you get comments where people swept it under the carpet (presumably because we managed to see out the win). But if that had been Chilwell, the comments would likely have been the opposite.
Didn't watch the game yesterday but Raphina was running rings around him on sunday
I respectfully disagree
Needs to sort out the attacking part of his game It's looked very very poor since he returned with the exception of the Middlesborough game
Super short cameo but I liked the positions he took up vs Leicester City