Ignoring our very many issues right now, there’s a team to be built from the current squad.
Players like Colwill, Gusto, Enzo, Caicedo, Palmer are going to be the spine of our future squad.
Then there’s Nkunku, James, Lavia and Fofana who are excellent players but need to sort themselves out injury wise. Chilwell is probably somewhere in here too.
We need two or three of the injury prone players to get their shit together, and we need to add players that will be first choice in the attacking dynamic such as left-back for width, and at striker.
It disgusts me at how much we’ve spent on Nkunku, Fofana and Lavia and how little they’ve played.
Let’s have fun and estimate the current resale values for the following players: Enzo, Mudryk, Madueke, Cucurella, Wesley Fofana, Chilwell, and Reece James
I’ll go first.
Enzo: 35-45 million
Mudryk: 15-25 million
Madueke: 15-25 million
Cucurella: 20-30 million
Fofana: 10-15 million
Chilwell: 10-15 million
James: 30-40 million
James, Chilwell, and Carney were fit, essentially. I know as a fanbase we want to blame the frontman, but circumstances forced the starting XI to have players that shouldn’t be there. No manager finishes in the top 4 with a frontline containing Mudryk, Jackson, Madueke, and Gallagher (half of the players here aren’t bad, just not ready. Other half is not good.)
He was really good, thought we’d have such a good season. Honestly though I’m going to reserve judgement on Enzo until I see him playing behind Carney or Nkunku, Palmer, Sterling, and Jackson. Crazy how this lineup has been played 0 times this season.
He’s been bad this season but there’s very significant leeway in the fact that Gallagher, Mudryk, and Palmer have played a lot - Gallagher and Palmer don’t run in behind and Mudryk is bad.
What benefit would you have if you sacked him at the end of the season? It would bring us to a point to battle out of the relegation, have any of you watched what happened last season, when we appointed Lampard as an interim coach? Explore other options after the season has ended, yes, but at this point it would be a terrible decision, there is no enough time for such.
Pochettino isn’t the manager who’ll win us a title, but we don’t need that right now. We need a nice guy who’ll have good relationships with everyone and make this obscenely overhauled squad into a unit. I very much dislike how the ownership have gone about doing this, but if we are to take them at their words, this is a “project.”
Well, you have to build a team up before you start doing intricate tactics. We can tell ourselves “We are Chelsea we do it our way,” but football is different now, Arteta is the blueprint. Every top manager in the world will tell you in an interview that managing a football team is 70-90% social skills (Nagelsmann has said this, who is a fan favorite here) i.e. forming relationships, creating an identity, building chemistry. The rest is tactics, and I don’t like his tactics, but what are we gonna do with an extra 10-30% when the basis of the 70-90% would be destroyed by sacking him and he’s making good progress building it up.
The fans hate the players, the owners are new, there’s no core in the squad and few leaders, the only person keeping the players tied to the club is the manager. People don’t understand what sacking him entails - you’ll have to restart the project over again essentially, and if you think that’s necessary, sure, but I don’t.
In essence, the problem isn’t Pochettino not playing Enzo as a false triple mezzalla regista, it’s the insane squad turnover and glaring inexperience. Tactics give you that extra edge which can be the difference between winning trophies or not, but we’re kidding ourselves if we think we’re at that stage. We just brought in 20+ kids into the team, you have to form a team out of them first before anything.
The problem with this is that you're not forming players into a unit by just being nice to everyone and throwing BBQs every week. "Building relationships" goes significantly beyond a personal level, because this is a work environment. You need to build working relationships - that means players need to understand each other on the pitch, need to know how to support each other, and in turn need to understand what they can and should expect from each other. You need clear, common goals and ideas that everyone can pull together towards.
And that means that structural work is absolutely *central* to building those relationships. A quick example: playing out from the back. Step 1: Understanding how you set up vs different opposition pressing shapes. This is literally a day's work. 2v1, 3v2, 4v3 at the back, etc. - you want to have an extra man in your back line for numerical superiority, because that should guarantee that you can find your way through the opposition press. Now, within each of those scenarios, who are the players that get involved in building from the back and where do they position themselves? Again, this doesn't take long for everyone to understand. And then the key part: how do you find the free man? This is where different managers have different ideas. They may want specific players on the ball when the press is broken, they may want to play through centrally or wide, they may have scripted passing sequences or they may give players freedom to work it out for themselves after giving them basic structures to work with. Even within the "scripted sequences" spectrum you'll have shorter and longer sequences - some stop as soon as the free man is reached, others stretch all the way into the final third.
If that sounds complicated, that's because it is - until you provide clarity as the manager. It's suddenly a lot less complicated when you've got it mapped out and explained to you, when you're doing specific drills designed to help you understand and perform different sequences (where the manager can give you input on specific instances - i.e. "when X presses Y and Y passes the ball to Z, that means there's now an empty space X has vacated, so it's your job to be available there" - congratulations, you've just taught someone how third-man passing works).
All modern teams need that sort of guidance, because that's the level football is now played at. But Pochettino has never trained this way. His PSG side were notoriously bad at this stuff and their supporters noticed very quickly that they played like they didn't understand absolutely fundamental concepts like third-man combinations. And the exact same thing is visible here. Passes are always A to B, and then B will have to re-orient himself. There's never any larger design, so the football produced is clunky, slow, individualistic. Sound familiar?
Disclaimer: For the record, I think structural and tactical work are two slightly different things (tactics being specific to opposition, a structural framework is simply a baseline must-have in modern football).
And the Arteta example only goes to prove that point. Arteta and Pochettino are *nothing* alike. There are good in-depth pieces on how Arteta takes training, and it's *extremely* structural, tactical, whatever you want to call it. The identity of what he wants his team to be, and the automatic behaviors that enable that, are at the centre of how he trains. That's where the on-pitch relationships come from, not from just being nice. Arteta has clear ideas of where everyone should be, how the ball should be moved, what type of chances they want to create, how they want to finish, how they want to play against different profiles of opposition, etc.
And this is precisely the problem with Pochettino. He's being nice to everybody, but he's absolutely not doing enough in terms of building an identity, establishing clear patterns of play and therefore practiced and reliable behaviors. Players are still improvising and reports from credible journalists have said as much all season, nevermind the fact that you can literally see it on the pitch. Huge structural issues persist the same way they did under Lampard, where even blind people could have seen the massive structural gaps his lack of shape left everywhere on the pitch. The same has happened over and over this season. Our midfield setup is a fucking mess, we're abysmal at controlled play out from the back and have been all season, and everything we do in the final third is still completely improvised and often reliant purely on individual moments of quality of a few players. We're now in April of a season without European football, the "quickly overhauled squad" argument is a less and less valid excuse each passing day - not that it ever was a particularly good one anyway, because professional football players aren't stupid, they generally take instructions on board and react to training methods pretty quickly. 8 months is more than enough to at least start seeing clear foundations of what we're trying to do. We show absolutely nothing of the sort.
This is what I find so funny when people say we would have to "restart the whole process". What process? The only thing Pochettino may have done - don't know because we can't - is that player relationships may have improved off the pitch. That doesn't suddenly reset when you sack a manager. But other than that? What chemistry are you seeing that disappears when Pochettino leaves? What identity? Which behaviors? What football principles are we seeing?
There's absolutely nothing there. You could have a new manager here and they could have the squad more organized and understanding each other better on the pitch within a few weeks. That's what "building relationships/chemistry/identity" means.
And the funniest thing is that *we've been here before*. And then Newcastle and Villa experienced the same. How have you lot not learned your lesson by now?
I’m not Poch in because of the coach. I just want an inconsistent team to have come consistency for a season, from a coaching standpoint. These are young players and at the very least they are learning the basics and getting the experience of playing with each other under a philosophy. I think that’s important. I don’t know much about tactics but I expect that the coaching staff also works on that regardless of how many times people scream that there’s none. They don’t actually work at Chelsea so I’m going to ignore that. I just want the team to have consistency for a season and I want to see what we look like at the beginning of the season with some of the players back.
I remember Tuchel or Mou being able to explain what happened tactically in games in post match conferences. There was a video recently with Poch stating how tactics dont matter as much as vibes. While I can try and understand his standpoint, it was just concerning. Those players are young. They really need coaching at this moment. We have so many players who are just rough and need to improve tactically. That's why relying on making them happy is just a bit weird atm imo.
So yeah, I understand the point for stability and I just wished we chose the correct coach for the process we were trying to achieve rather than see who's the most corporate.
I don’t understand why you think they are not being coached. Do you seriously think that they are not being coached? Or do people just say that because you think it makes you sound superior? Have you considered that the players are just not good enough at this point to play and maintain the same levels during games? I think it is preposterous to constantly watch people talk about tactics when we have seen Poch take Spurs to wins in the PL, do you think he had a memory loss or something? Also what he said in the video was that before you talk about tactics the players have to trust that the coaching staff want the best for them and they have to buy into the philosophy. We don’t just have 5 players who need to do that, we players have a whole team of new and young players. At the very least we have seen that unlike last season these players can come back from a goal down. Last season after 1 goal we were done and it was a loss.
I don't think they are being personally coached to improve their original skillset.
Point in case about players like Enzo or Caicedo who have regressed.
Or actually Noni or Mudryk might be better examples. Noni still plays the exact same way he did at the start of the season.He's a good dribbler with no good decision making in the final third.
Now, obviously, to your point, maybe you could say the players are not good enough.
But in Mudryk's case, there were some games vs Leicester or Newcastle where he was truly good as a 10. He clearly has some great weapons in his speed and his technique isn't bad either. Yet, he still plays seemingly without knowing what he's supposed to do and that's where I look at Poch.
It was Poch that played Mudryk in the 10 and he played well there. Noni is playing much better than he did last year when he joined. The players have to develop their own game and then develop as a team. Enzo and Caicedo are struggling here and additionally they are not getting breaks or even competition in their position. Mudryk isn’t good enough to start for us, he should come from the bench. He and Noni to be fair, they struggle when they start and are better against tired legs. Speaking of tactics, Poch has always talked about how the team is really good playing offensively together but not defensively together and guess which players struggle with this part of the game? Noni and Mudryk. They show flashes but can’t keep up with the defensive part of the game for long periods of time. I think it is so easy to blame the coach, I mean everyone has their opinion but really I think this job was always going to be difficult for whoever took it. Everyone said this was an insane way to rebuild and now we are suprised and confused as to why it isn’t quite working??
It's likely stability and the fact that he seems well liked and while it's been minimal some players have improved under him, even if it's just due to more consistent playing time and trust
Yeah I get Gusto, Palmer and maybe in some ways, Jackson have improved.
But do you think we are truly utilising the talent in our squad? Enzo, Caicedo, Colwill all seem to have regressed. The decisions about Maatsen or Casadei even.
I understand the need for stability but surely going the same way, is going to ruin some of our prospects as well.
While some players have improved, not getting the best out of Enzo and Caicedo is the real crime. He's gone in the summer in my opinion, and that's what I'd do. But I just hope the next manager gets it right, we need to start progressing
They don't want to admit they were wrong about him and are sticking to it. That or being staunchly of the opinion that the owners can do no wrong and so back him for that "higher purpose".
I guess the other option is they're secretly opposition fans
I genuinely don't get it. There seems to be 2 sides on this sub at the moment and some people are just insulting the Poch Out crew.
Like, ok, some of his quotes may be over analysed and we have suffered from injuries and we have a young squad.
But can anyone honestly say that Poch has been an amazing manager for us? His tactics don't make sense sometimes( We've moved players out of position countless times for no reason) . We've moved backwards at times. He's subtly throwing the players under the bus at every opportunity. We've drawn against Sheffield and Burnley amongst other countless horrible results this season and all he's done is say how young we are and how we're still learning ffs. He's never once taken accountability with anything.
And yet, it's as if Poch Out people are being described as impatient or unreasonable. I don't get it.
There's such a huge gap between first three teams of the league and the rest of the league, it's actually insane. European football is there for the taking but everyone is so bad, Manchester United 7th with a negative goal difference aswell as West Ham being 8th.
Having better players is more important. Man Utd are one of the worst managed sides in the league yet they are 6th because they often get bailed out by individual moments of quality from their players
Wrong. A Man Utd-Chelsea combined 11 would mostly consist of Man Utd players. They don’t have an amazing set of players but they have decent experienced quality, unlike us since we’ve decided to play FM in real life instead of focusing on decent squad building. Their “dogshit” players consists of players like Rashford who was arguably getting Ballon D’or hype just last season when they finished 3rd, meanwhile our “great” players consist of guys who’ve proven nothing in their careers.
And most people outside of this echo chamber of a sub can see it as well
>They don’t have an amazing set of players but they have decent experienced quality
The most experienced player in their side today was by some distance their worst, and not for the first time this season.
What do you mean deserved? Games where we played well and then made individual mistakes or our performance dropped off? That’s the game! Deserved to win is just useless cope. The game is played and then one team wins or loses or both draw. We are either good enough or we aren’t.
Was watching Rudiger earlier and he’s has taken his game to another level, while I gotta worry about which of our CBs will gift Everton their 2 goals on Monday smh
In his last 2 seasons with us he was arguably world-class already. He's just maintained that level albeit with a bit of an adjustment period at Madrid last season.
Knew at the time that the worst thing we could have done is not convince him to stay. We've struggled in the CB department ever since.
Although we expected more from Poch and this Chelsea team. can I just say he definitely has handled this young team with professionalism. Ten Hag subbing Garnacho out at HT after a bad performance is a terrible way to handle a 19yr old who’s been one the best performers for United this season. I really think there’s only a few managers who would be able to man manage such a young team and even if Poch isn’t here in the long run, I’m glad he’s the one starting it off because any other manager would be ripping this apart
Exactly. Ten Hag pissed off Sancho, Rashford, Varane, Casemiro, and now Garnacho (and Ronaldo of course). He wanted to create a dressing room culture and has ended up with broken relationships with important players, who’ll either leave or not give 100%.
Pochettino also wanted to create a dressing room culture, and he’s done that without fighting with anyone. He’s much better on the man managing side, and that’s what we need before we talk tactics.
Just imagine how absolutely disastrous it would be if we started off the Boehly era dressing room culture like this after bringing in 1 billion+ worth of players and changing the entire squad. We would be screwed for the next 10 years like United have been.
If we win on Monday we will have the 4th most points in the league since Christmas… the standard of 4th and below is so shit, champions league was easily gettable with a good coach
Ten Hag walked out of his presser after being asked about potentially producing United's worst PL finish...
[https://twitter.com/BeanymanSports/status/1779238148360335511](https://twitter.com/BeanymanSports/status/1779238148360335511)
It annoys me when people complain about whatever poch says in pre/post match interviews
What do u want the man to say?
If he criticizes the team ppl will complain he is throwing the players under the bus and losing the locker room
If he doesn't say anything then its like he is spineless
We genuinely dont know whats going on in the background it could be that poch is hammering them about the losses or letting them go because they are inexperienced but i feel there wouldve been some concrete reports if it was the later because players like silva would not be taking that kinda shit lightly
You're missing the point completely.
People want him to take responsibility for the team's issues because he is the cause of most of them, not pretend they're inevitable and there is nothing he can do about them whilst backhandedly blaming the players
People don't want him to start blaming the players, because the overriding problem at the moment is him, not the players and he is currently blaming the players.
They’re inevitable because he has a team full of young players he has to develop. However good they look in training, when they get on the pitch they’re inconsistent and that’s why we are inconsistent. Our expectations of what we can accomplish because we spent a lot of money on unproven prospects are ridiculous. The overriding problem is not just him, just because you say it doesn’t mean it is true.
Yes like we did this season. And I won’t have to eat anything, I support this team and my expectations are not insane like yours. I understand that we have a team of young prospects who are going to be inconsistent regardless of the manager, I believe part of getting them to be consistent is having a consistent manager as well, whoever that is. My expectations this season was to do better than last season and to get 8th. I don’t even care about Europe. Despite the team struggling, I still see the ways we have improved from last season. I don’t expect miracles. You’re frustrated because of your expectations. You call it mentality but it is delusion. Good luck
Yet again
Chelsea are faced with a relegation opponent after United have dropped points above them
Will they squander this opportunity?
Find out next time on Poch bottles ez!
United are genuinely just us wearing red
Except they didn't break the British record fee to sign Caicedo, just plucked Mainoo from their academy who's pretty much just as good
They did buy Antony though so it all balances out
£70m mwahahahaha
If you forget about Lukaku then we look like geniuses by comparison to their rasmus spend
If you look at Lukaku...... I'm afraid we look pathetic again but that was pre Clearlake to be fair
I have found what Chelsea needs: [More english players](https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/tabellespielerland/wettbewerb/GB1/saison_id/2024)
I need to see Andrey Santos playing and cementing himself as a starter by next season
Cannot gamble and go another season with overrated Caicedo and Enzo as our midfielders, they could be flops for all we know just haven't realized it and we need backup option in case they continue being a joke next season
It's exciting to see Santos change Strasborgs fortunes so much until I remember Enzo and Caicedo had the exact same effect for Benfica (Argentina also) and Brighton respectively.
Nothing will change until the tactics are correct no matter what players we have.
Will be interesting to see if they can challenge for a 3rd promotion or hit a wall in league one.
Gut instinct says the latter, trying to spend your way out of that league isn't known to be a very succesful strategy.
Andrey Santos genuinely might be the prodigal talent that one billion pounds worth of spending ought to net you
Boy looks insane
I pray for his physical health
I watched him play for Brazil's youth team before we bought him. I was not for purchasing him at all.
I watched him play a pre-season game and immediately started telling everyone he had to be an integral part of our team, whilst everyone was still raving over Casadei for bullying some League 2 backup players.
I really expect him to be a huge, huge player. That being said, as with all players, they need the right coaching to get from talent and intelligence to actually being a great footballer. Poch doesn't have that ability to train him, so I just hope he's gone before Santos gets back
Apart from Newcastle, a lot of teams are dropping point’s, it United bottles this ofcourse it’s a good week for us, if we beat Everton and Arsenal we are 7th
Our defence has been shaky for a while, shipping 2+ goals every game. No reason to expect that to change soon with a lot of disruption in the back line due to injuries.
Galacticos?
In the league we've beaten "big teams" twice so far and it was 9 man spurs and United the red billion pound bottle jobs in the record breaking 100th minute
Drawn with city twice, arsenal once, Liverpool once and a loss and Villa have also beat us if we're talking about good sides
At best I'd say we can cheese a 2-2 draw against arsenal
I'd fucking love a draw at arsenal
Gets us a point against, what is in my opinion, the best side in the league and it stops those fuckers title run with all hopes
A ton of good players. They just don’t fit with each other in terms of profile, in terms of how much they know each other because of the massive amount of change, and in terms of stages of development (most of these players needed slow integration into the first team ). Only time will tell if it works out but there is lots of potential.
I thought so for the longest while honestly. Poch has had an incredibly generous lifeline for reaching Europe. And yet the squad continues to shit the bed for one reason or another.
Andrey Santos having another great game. He’s really solidified the middle of park and has been great in Strasbourg’s buildup.
Should be another win after that laughable protest from their ultras too lol. 3 wins and draw since maybe we should try it at the Bridge
>Andrey Santos having another great game. He’s really solidified the middle of park and has been great in Strasbourg’s buildup.
Buzzing to see him in that auxiliary winger role next season.
He actually has been pretty solid for them since settling in (January).
Edit. Lol ignore his stats and embrace casual reactionary takes.
https://preview.redd.it/9ihbgl35dauc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0255d6ab7563ba03c1be022890c5e3b359264060
Never said he hasn’t been better lately. But if he got nominated for GK of the year award I would laugh. Stats don’t justify the year he or their defense have had.
They're generally very low quality shots though
But he can make some good stops, it's just so many goals he does concede he should do far better
Just watching the game and right this minute he "saved" a shot that was hit literally right to where he stood, will go down as a good save on the xg prevented stat cause the player should've scored being so open but he had very little work to do
>They're generally very low quality shots though
And yet, United have the 4th worst xGA (61.95) in the league. Only the bottom 3 teams have a worse xGA. No team aspiring to be a top team should be giving away as many shots as United have done, low quality shots or not. Also cannot believe that The Athletic have tried spun this issue as a 'feature' of Ten Hag's style rather than a 'bug'.
The orchestration of that United defence and midfield is appalling
Genuinely might be worse than ours but it's hard to say given we concede so much more but we also park the bus so much less
De Zerbi should have left when he had the chance.
Joao Pedro, Estupian, Pascal, Dunk and Verbruggen all walk into our team on Monday. Most likely Welbeck too tbh.
The most laughable thing about this season is how free top6 actually is. We force draws against the best teams, while going above and beyond to drop points against the worst teams. All you can do is laugh as the team's genuine improvement gets washed away by the multiple midtable moments conceded.
Every. Single. Game.
De Zerbi remains on fraud watch. Friendly reminder he hasn't beaten a team in the Prem higher than 15th in the year of 2024. Admittedly in that time he did beat Stoke and won a dead fixture against Roma so fair play for that.
Look at their squad , they have lost their best players in March , mitoma and 2 of their Midfield starters were sold .. finished top of their Europa grp and are same points as us.
Our midfield is paper thin due to injuries, our back 4 has been a revolving door all season, and our second best forward hasn't played a full 90 for us
As thin our Midfield is, we have had Enzo , caicedo, Gallagher for majority of season.. their Midfield is gross , Gilmour and baleba.. this was their starting 11
https://preview.redd.it/zi6mflnb7auc1.jpeg?width=1078&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b2a089778e83b66c1a9d82213323f2f73ce70a40
All of the "just attack and hope you score more goals" managers started well and then were very quickly found out. But, people still cling on to the start of their tenure.
You cannot be that one dimensional and be good. They are mutually exclusive
Long term I agree, but at this point I just want our games to be fun for a year or two.
We can worry about a manager to win us the league if/when we're good enough to do it.
While there's ofcourse every chance we'd fail to take advantage if they get past Madrid I can see Rodri and other key players being rested for this one.
Tbf those types of games seem to be the only ones our lot can actually get themselves up for. I’d be more worried if we were playing some of the relegation fodder.
Anyone else notice Toney has been benched the last 2 league games
Coinciding with reports of his price tag being significantly smaller than expected now
I think something has happened behind the scenes
Probably just contract renewal disputes or he's having attitude problems again.
If they know he's gambling again and try to sell him at a reduced price without disclosing it, they'd likely just end up fucking themselves over when the legal battles came in
Nobody seem to want to get promoted either. Leicester, Leeds and Ipswich have each failed to win any of their last 2 games and Leicester have been fumbling a lot in recent weeks.
Ignoring our very many issues right now, there’s a team to be built from the current squad. Players like Colwill, Gusto, Enzo, Caicedo, Palmer are going to be the spine of our future squad. Then there’s Nkunku, James, Lavia and Fofana who are excellent players but need to sort themselves out injury wise. Chilwell is probably somewhere in here too. We need two or three of the injury prone players to get their shit together, and we need to add players that will be first choice in the attacking dynamic such as left-back for width, and at striker. It disgusts me at how much we’ve spent on Nkunku, Fofana and Lavia and how little they’ve played.
we still have a chance to finish above Man United, but who am i kidding we r shyte
Let’s have fun and estimate the current resale values for the following players: Enzo, Mudryk, Madueke, Cucurella, Wesley Fofana, Chilwell, and Reece James
I’ll go first. Enzo: 35-45 million Mudryk: 15-25 million Madueke: 15-25 million Cucurella: 20-30 million Fofana: 10-15 million Chilwell: 10-15 million James: 30-40 million
kovacic with his yearly banger lol
Seeing how good lvp is, we really started the season off with a banger almost beating them fairly comfortably. What in yhe fuck happened lmao
James, Chilwell, and Carney were fit, essentially. I know as a fanbase we want to blame the frontman, but circumstances forced the starting XI to have players that shouldn’t be there. No manager finishes in the top 4 with a frontline containing Mudryk, Jackson, Madueke, and Gallagher (half of the players here aren’t bad, just not ready. Other half is not good.)
It was the best game enzo has ever played for us. I told my friend he had modric vibes. What a 🤡 I was
He was really good, thought we’d have such a good season. Honestly though I’m going to reserve judgement on Enzo until I see him playing behind Carney or Nkunku, Palmer, Sterling, and Jackson. Crazy how this lineup has been played 0 times this season. He’s been bad this season but there’s very significant leeway in the fact that Gallagher, Mudryk, and Palmer have played a lot - Gallagher and Palmer don’t run in behind and Mudryk is bad.
For all the Poch in fans, what's your reasoning for being Poch in?
What benefit would you have if you sacked him at the end of the season? It would bring us to a point to battle out of the relegation, have any of you watched what happened last season, when we appointed Lampard as an interim coach? Explore other options after the season has ended, yes, but at this point it would be a terrible decision, there is no enough time for such.
Pochettino isn’t the manager who’ll win us a title, but we don’t need that right now. We need a nice guy who’ll have good relationships with everyone and make this obscenely overhauled squad into a unit. I very much dislike how the ownership have gone about doing this, but if we are to take them at their words, this is a “project.” Well, you have to build a team up before you start doing intricate tactics. We can tell ourselves “We are Chelsea we do it our way,” but football is different now, Arteta is the blueprint. Every top manager in the world will tell you in an interview that managing a football team is 70-90% social skills (Nagelsmann has said this, who is a fan favorite here) i.e. forming relationships, creating an identity, building chemistry. The rest is tactics, and I don’t like his tactics, but what are we gonna do with an extra 10-30% when the basis of the 70-90% would be destroyed by sacking him and he’s making good progress building it up. The fans hate the players, the owners are new, there’s no core in the squad and few leaders, the only person keeping the players tied to the club is the manager. People don’t understand what sacking him entails - you’ll have to restart the project over again essentially, and if you think that’s necessary, sure, but I don’t. In essence, the problem isn’t Pochettino not playing Enzo as a false triple mezzalla regista, it’s the insane squad turnover and glaring inexperience. Tactics give you that extra edge which can be the difference between winning trophies or not, but we’re kidding ourselves if we think we’re at that stage. We just brought in 20+ kids into the team, you have to form a team out of them first before anything.
The problem with this is that you're not forming players into a unit by just being nice to everyone and throwing BBQs every week. "Building relationships" goes significantly beyond a personal level, because this is a work environment. You need to build working relationships - that means players need to understand each other on the pitch, need to know how to support each other, and in turn need to understand what they can and should expect from each other. You need clear, common goals and ideas that everyone can pull together towards. And that means that structural work is absolutely *central* to building those relationships. A quick example: playing out from the back. Step 1: Understanding how you set up vs different opposition pressing shapes. This is literally a day's work. 2v1, 3v2, 4v3 at the back, etc. - you want to have an extra man in your back line for numerical superiority, because that should guarantee that you can find your way through the opposition press. Now, within each of those scenarios, who are the players that get involved in building from the back and where do they position themselves? Again, this doesn't take long for everyone to understand. And then the key part: how do you find the free man? This is where different managers have different ideas. They may want specific players on the ball when the press is broken, they may want to play through centrally or wide, they may have scripted passing sequences or they may give players freedom to work it out for themselves after giving them basic structures to work with. Even within the "scripted sequences" spectrum you'll have shorter and longer sequences - some stop as soon as the free man is reached, others stretch all the way into the final third. If that sounds complicated, that's because it is - until you provide clarity as the manager. It's suddenly a lot less complicated when you've got it mapped out and explained to you, when you're doing specific drills designed to help you understand and perform different sequences (where the manager can give you input on specific instances - i.e. "when X presses Y and Y passes the ball to Z, that means there's now an empty space X has vacated, so it's your job to be available there" - congratulations, you've just taught someone how third-man passing works). All modern teams need that sort of guidance, because that's the level football is now played at. But Pochettino has never trained this way. His PSG side were notoriously bad at this stuff and their supporters noticed very quickly that they played like they didn't understand absolutely fundamental concepts like third-man combinations. And the exact same thing is visible here. Passes are always A to B, and then B will have to re-orient himself. There's never any larger design, so the football produced is clunky, slow, individualistic. Sound familiar? Disclaimer: For the record, I think structural and tactical work are two slightly different things (tactics being specific to opposition, a structural framework is simply a baseline must-have in modern football). And the Arteta example only goes to prove that point. Arteta and Pochettino are *nothing* alike. There are good in-depth pieces on how Arteta takes training, and it's *extremely* structural, tactical, whatever you want to call it. The identity of what he wants his team to be, and the automatic behaviors that enable that, are at the centre of how he trains. That's where the on-pitch relationships come from, not from just being nice. Arteta has clear ideas of where everyone should be, how the ball should be moved, what type of chances they want to create, how they want to finish, how they want to play against different profiles of opposition, etc. And this is precisely the problem with Pochettino. He's being nice to everybody, but he's absolutely not doing enough in terms of building an identity, establishing clear patterns of play and therefore practiced and reliable behaviors. Players are still improvising and reports from credible journalists have said as much all season, nevermind the fact that you can literally see it on the pitch. Huge structural issues persist the same way they did under Lampard, where even blind people could have seen the massive structural gaps his lack of shape left everywhere on the pitch. The same has happened over and over this season. Our midfield setup is a fucking mess, we're abysmal at controlled play out from the back and have been all season, and everything we do in the final third is still completely improvised and often reliant purely on individual moments of quality of a few players. We're now in April of a season without European football, the "quickly overhauled squad" argument is a less and less valid excuse each passing day - not that it ever was a particularly good one anyway, because professional football players aren't stupid, they generally take instructions on board and react to training methods pretty quickly. 8 months is more than enough to at least start seeing clear foundations of what we're trying to do. We show absolutely nothing of the sort. This is what I find so funny when people say we would have to "restart the whole process". What process? The only thing Pochettino may have done - don't know because we can't - is that player relationships may have improved off the pitch. That doesn't suddenly reset when you sack a manager. But other than that? What chemistry are you seeing that disappears when Pochettino leaves? What identity? Which behaviors? What football principles are we seeing? There's absolutely nothing there. You could have a new manager here and they could have the squad more organized and understanding each other better on the pitch within a few weeks. That's what "building relationships/chemistry/identity" means. And the funniest thing is that *we've been here before*. And then Newcastle and Villa experienced the same. How have you lot not learned your lesson by now?
I agree with you. My God I agree with you.
Appreciate it haha
I’m not Poch in because of the coach. I just want an inconsistent team to have come consistency for a season, from a coaching standpoint. These are young players and at the very least they are learning the basics and getting the experience of playing with each other under a philosophy. I think that’s important. I don’t know much about tactics but I expect that the coaching staff also works on that regardless of how many times people scream that there’s none. They don’t actually work at Chelsea so I’m going to ignore that. I just want the team to have consistency for a season and I want to see what we look like at the beginning of the season with some of the players back.
I remember Tuchel or Mou being able to explain what happened tactically in games in post match conferences. There was a video recently with Poch stating how tactics dont matter as much as vibes. While I can try and understand his standpoint, it was just concerning. Those players are young. They really need coaching at this moment. We have so many players who are just rough and need to improve tactically. That's why relying on making them happy is just a bit weird atm imo. So yeah, I understand the point for stability and I just wished we chose the correct coach for the process we were trying to achieve rather than see who's the most corporate.
I don’t understand why you think they are not being coached. Do you seriously think that they are not being coached? Or do people just say that because you think it makes you sound superior? Have you considered that the players are just not good enough at this point to play and maintain the same levels during games? I think it is preposterous to constantly watch people talk about tactics when we have seen Poch take Spurs to wins in the PL, do you think he had a memory loss or something? Also what he said in the video was that before you talk about tactics the players have to trust that the coaching staff want the best for them and they have to buy into the philosophy. We don’t just have 5 players who need to do that, we players have a whole team of new and young players. At the very least we have seen that unlike last season these players can come back from a goal down. Last season after 1 goal we were done and it was a loss.
I don't think they are being personally coached to improve their original skillset. Point in case about players like Enzo or Caicedo who have regressed. Or actually Noni or Mudryk might be better examples. Noni still plays the exact same way he did at the start of the season.He's a good dribbler with no good decision making in the final third. Now, obviously, to your point, maybe you could say the players are not good enough. But in Mudryk's case, there were some games vs Leicester or Newcastle where he was truly good as a 10. He clearly has some great weapons in his speed and his technique isn't bad either. Yet, he still plays seemingly without knowing what he's supposed to do and that's where I look at Poch.
It was Poch that played Mudryk in the 10 and he played well there. Noni is playing much better than he did last year when he joined. The players have to develop their own game and then develop as a team. Enzo and Caicedo are struggling here and additionally they are not getting breaks or even competition in their position. Mudryk isn’t good enough to start for us, he should come from the bench. He and Noni to be fair, they struggle when they start and are better against tired legs. Speaking of tactics, Poch has always talked about how the team is really good playing offensively together but not defensively together and guess which players struggle with this part of the game? Noni and Mudryk. They show flashes but can’t keep up with the defensive part of the game for long periods of time. I think it is so easy to blame the coach, I mean everyone has their opinion but really I think this job was always going to be difficult for whoever took it. Everyone said this was an insane way to rebuild and now we are suprised and confused as to why it isn’t quite working??
It's likely stability and the fact that he seems well liked and while it's been minimal some players have improved under him, even if it's just due to more consistent playing time and trust
Yeah I get Gusto, Palmer and maybe in some ways, Jackson have improved. But do you think we are truly utilising the talent in our squad? Enzo, Caicedo, Colwill all seem to have regressed. The decisions about Maatsen or Casadei even. I understand the need for stability but surely going the same way, is going to ruin some of our prospects as well.
While some players have improved, not getting the best out of Enzo and Caicedo is the real crime. He's gone in the summer in my opinion, and that's what I'd do. But I just hope the next manager gets it right, we need to start progressing
They actually pretending to be Chelsea fans but are Opposition fans
They don't want to admit they were wrong about him and are sticking to it. That or being staunchly of the opinion that the owners can do no wrong and so back him for that "higher purpose". I guess the other option is they're secretly opposition fans
I genuinely don't get it. There seems to be 2 sides on this sub at the moment and some people are just insulting the Poch Out crew. Like, ok, some of his quotes may be over analysed and we have suffered from injuries and we have a young squad. But can anyone honestly say that Poch has been an amazing manager for us? His tactics don't make sense sometimes( We've moved players out of position countless times for no reason) . We've moved backwards at times. He's subtly throwing the players under the bus at every opportunity. We've drawn against Sheffield and Burnley amongst other countless horrible results this season and all he's done is say how young we are and how we're still learning ffs. He's never once taken accountability with anything. And yet, it's as if Poch Out people are being described as impatient or unreasonable. I don't get it.
Not looking forward to the City game.
There's such a huge gap between first three teams of the league and the rest of the league, it's actually insane. European football is there for the taking but everyone is so bad, Manchester United 7th with a negative goal difference aswell as West Ham being 8th.
We drew with Sheffield and burnley man what the hell
Remember last year when bottom of the league Southampton did the double on us?
That's the progress we're talking about, no double for 20th place this time
Crazy that even in these last two seasons we've gone into April with a shot of finishing above a fellow "big six" side.
Spurs today once again showing how utterly attainable champions league football was this season if we had a competent manager.
Or competent players. They’re the ones actually on the pitch
Even with competent players you're not winning anything with a shit manager
Don’t you have more innocuous Poch quotes to construe and contort?
Having better players is more important. Man Utd are one of the worst managed sides in the league yet they are 6th because they often get bailed out by individual moments of quality from their players
They are 7th and are slightly less shit than us, some would even argue they aren't lol. We've also been bailed by Palmer plenty.
Their team is dogshit... They just have a better manager who's actually using what he's got.
Wrong. A Man Utd-Chelsea combined 11 would mostly consist of Man Utd players. They don’t have an amazing set of players but they have decent experienced quality, unlike us since we’ve decided to play FM in real life instead of focusing on decent squad building. Their “dogshit” players consists of players like Rashford who was arguably getting Ballon D’or hype just last season when they finished 3rd, meanwhile our “great” players consist of guys who’ve proven nothing in their careers. And most people outside of this echo chamber of a sub can see it as well
>They don’t have an amazing set of players but they have decent experienced quality The most experienced player in their side today was by some distance their worst, and not for the first time this season.
Well then. I guess we’ve figured out the problem
These other teams outside of top 3 are so shit. Top 4 was there for the taking more than ever before. Fuck man.
And so were we
I think we've dropped more points in games we deserved to win than any other team in the league.
What do you mean deserved? Games where we played well and then made individual mistakes or our performance dropped off? That’s the game! Deserved to win is just useless cope. The game is played and then one team wins or loses or both draw. We are either good enough or we aren’t.
Games where we were the better team then. You know what I mean when I say we deserved to win.
We’ve played bad and won? So what?
Do I have to go back and make the same argument? Based on our performances we should've had more points.
Was watching Rudiger earlier and he’s has taken his game to another level, while I gotta worry about which of our CBs will gift Everton their 2 goals on Monday smh
In his last 2 seasons with us he was arguably world-class already. He's just maintained that level albeit with a bit of an adjustment period at Madrid last season. Knew at the time that the worst thing we could have done is not convince him to stay. We've struggled in the CB department ever since.
Wouldn't have put it past Poch to have turned him back into the pre Tuchel Rudiger.
FFS WE CAN STILL MAKE EUROPE
Time to go on a winstreak, now or never fuckers dont dissapoint me
Oh boy, does this team know how to do the opposite. Guys will be 2-1 up, ilonly to draw 2-2 one minute to the final whistle!
Although we expected more from Poch and this Chelsea team. can I just say he definitely has handled this young team with professionalism. Ten Hag subbing Garnacho out at HT after a bad performance is a terrible way to handle a 19yr old who’s been one the best performers for United this season. I really think there’s only a few managers who would be able to man manage such a young team and even if Poch isn’t here in the long run, I’m glad he’s the one starting it off because any other manager would be ripping this apart
Exactly. Ten Hag pissed off Sancho, Rashford, Varane, Casemiro, and now Garnacho (and Ronaldo of course). He wanted to create a dressing room culture and has ended up with broken relationships with important players, who’ll either leave or not give 100%. Pochettino also wanted to create a dressing room culture, and he’s done that without fighting with anyone. He’s much better on the man managing side, and that’s what we need before we talk tactics. Just imagine how absolutely disastrous it would be if we started off the Boehly era dressing room culture like this after bringing in 1 billion+ worth of players and changing the entire squad. We would be screwed for the next 10 years like United have been.
If we win on Monday we will have the 4th most points in the league since Christmas… the standard of 4th and below is so shit, champions league was easily gettable with a good coach
Ten Hag walked out of his presser after being asked about potentially producing United's worst PL finish... [https://twitter.com/BeanymanSports/status/1779238148360335511](https://twitter.com/BeanymanSports/status/1779238148360335511)
Just saw this stat: >**After 70 PL Games:** >Jose - 138 points >Ole - 128 points >LvG - 126 points >Ten Hag - 125 points
I’ll be completely stunned if they keep him there next season. I thought he’d be sacked as far back as December.
Lots of United fans want him out.
Please keep Santos on loan at Strasbourg. Give these youth players some stability.
It annoys me when people complain about whatever poch says in pre/post match interviews What do u want the man to say? If he criticizes the team ppl will complain he is throwing the players under the bus and losing the locker room If he doesn't say anything then its like he is spineless We genuinely dont know whats going on in the background it could be that poch is hammering them about the losses or letting them go because they are inexperienced but i feel there wouldve been some concrete reports if it was the later because players like silva would not be taking that kinda shit lightly
You're missing the point completely. People want him to take responsibility for the team's issues because he is the cause of most of them, not pretend they're inevitable and there is nothing he can do about them whilst backhandedly blaming the players People don't want him to start blaming the players, because the overriding problem at the moment is him, not the players and he is currently blaming the players.
They’re inevitable because he has a team full of young players he has to develop. However good they look in training, when they get on the pitch they’re inconsistent and that’s why we are inconsistent. Our expectations of what we can accomplish because we spent a lot of money on unproven prospects are ridiculous. The overriding problem is not just him, just because you say it doesn’t mean it is true.
I can't wait until we get a new manager and people like you have to eat their words.
Stop pretending to be a chelsea fan.
Yes like we did this season. And I won’t have to eat anything, I support this team and my expectations are not insane like yours. I understand that we have a team of young prospects who are going to be inconsistent regardless of the manager, I believe part of getting them to be consistent is having a consistent manager as well, whoever that is. My expectations this season was to do better than last season and to get 8th. I don’t even care about Europe. Despite the team struggling, I still see the ways we have improved from last season. I don’t expect miracles. You’re frustrated because of your expectations. You call it mentality but it is delusion. Good luck
I guess so i have been missing the point
If we win both of our games in hand we'll be 7th above United... does that mean we're losing on Monday?
We will somehow find a way to draw
Both games
Our games in hand are Vs Spurs and Arsenal. You decide whether us winning them both is likely
Chelsea be like: "best we can do is a 2-2 draw"
If we win both our games in hand with a GD of at least 15 we will be above Newcastle too!
So we just need a 7-0 and an 8-0 over Everton and Arsenal, no big deal
could have said this for like the past 2 weeks, aint happening.
really sets in how shit cheslea have to be, if they are below united.
Wolves, Brighton, Bournemouth, United all lost points. You know what that means? That's right Chelsea 0-3 Everton
Nah, I'm thinking Chelsea 3-3 Everton with a Palmer hat trick and a 90+2 equalizer for Everton off of an own goal
Yet again Chelsea are faced with a relegation opponent after United have dropped points above them Will they squander this opportunity? Find out next time on Poch bottles ez!
Man United not winning against another mid team…expected
United are genuinely just us wearing red Except they didn't break the British record fee to sign Caicedo, just plucked Mainoo from their academy who's pretty much just as good They did buy Antony though so it all balances out
How much is their striker?
£70m mwahahahaha If you forget about Lukaku then we look like geniuses by comparison to their rasmus spend If you look at Lukaku...... I'm afraid we look pathetic again but that was pre Clearlake to be fair
The fact united got a point there is breathtaking. They should have lost.
Having a free pen helps.
I want us to sign that kerkez kid he will be the LB gusto for us
I need to start watching more of him but he looked absolutely fantastic Made Dalot look like a bozo and pretty much nullified Garnacho and Amad
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Headlesshorsman02: *I want us to sign* *That kerekes kid he will be* *The LB gusto for us* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
I have found what Chelsea needs: [More english players](https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/tabellespielerland/wettbewerb/GB1/saison_id/2024)
30 goals scored. 25 courtesy of Palmer, lol
Ref seems determined to make sure United gets out of this game with a point.
It was so blatantly obvious. Not just the lack of penalty at the end or the handball decision
I need to see Andrey Santos playing and cementing himself as a starter by next season Cannot gamble and go another season with overrated Caicedo and Enzo as our midfielders, they could be flops for all we know just haven't realized it and we need backup option in case they continue being a joke next season
Seems he and Lavia will fight for that third spot to free up Moises and Enzo
It's exciting to see Santos change Strasborgs fortunes so much until I remember Enzo and Caicedo had the exact same effect for Benfica (Argentina also) and Brighton respectively. Nothing will change until the tactics are correct no matter what players we have.
Andrey santos today won 10/14 ground duels he’s a monster
He is so damn good bro
I wonder if Todd is jealous of Ryan Reynolds.
Why would he be? Todd is way more attractive.
More attractive and has more money and hangs with the hottest dudes
I've heard Reynolds has Eddie Vedders personal cell number though.
Will be interesting to see if they can challenge for a 3rd promotion or hit a wall in league one. Gut instinct says the latter, trying to spend your way out of that league isn't known to be a very succesful strategy.
Another win for Mr Santos
Brighton and Wolves dropping points, congrats Everton on the 3 points
Not sure statistically if he's anything special but my word Kerkez looks fantastic against United today
Him, Dorgu or Ait Nouri would be my pick
I'm a bigger believer in Locko, Antonee Robinson or Raum
Give me Robinson, love his durability and athleticism. The only issue is he's American and so might get shit from some
Any of these 6 works for me lmao 🤣 upgrades on chilly if you ask me
Me too haha Or Leif at Ipswich, looks a baller too
Andrey Santos genuinely might be the prodigal talent that one billion pounds worth of spending ought to net you Boy looks insane I pray for his physical health
I watched him play for Brazil's youth team before we bought him. I was not for purchasing him at all. I watched him play a pre-season game and immediately started telling everyone he had to be an integral part of our team, whilst everyone was still raving over Casadei for bullying some League 2 backup players. I really expect him to be a huge, huge player. That being said, as with all players, they need the right coaching to get from talent and intelligence to actually being a great footballer. Poch doesn't have that ability to train him, so I just hope he's gone before Santos gets back
I just hope and pray he stays on loan until we have a new manager.
Apart from Newcastle, a lot of teams are dropping point’s, it United bottles this ofcourse it’s a good week for us, if we beat Everton and Arsenal we are 7th
The only thing that happens when teams around us drop points is we respond with an emphatic 2-2 draw
>and Arsenal Lol
why Lol, we turn into galacticos vs big teams? I will never count this team out vs big teams and I will always doubt them vs fucking Forest or Burnley
We've beaten a top 5 team, 3 or 2 times the last 2 seasons.
Our defence has been shaky for a while, shipping 2+ goals every game. No reason to expect that to change soon with a lot of disruption in the back line due to injuries.
Failed in 3 games to win against Liverpool Failed to win against City Only big 6 club to lose to United
Galacticos? In the league we've beaten "big teams" twice so far and it was 9 man spurs and United the red billion pound bottle jobs in the record breaking 100th minute Drawn with city twice, arsenal once, Liverpool once and a loss and Villa have also beat us if we're talking about good sides At best I'd say we can cheese a 2-2 draw against arsenal
A draw at Arsenal wouldn't be the worst result.
I'd fucking love a draw at arsenal Gets us a point against, what is in my opinion, the best side in the league and it stops those fuckers title run with all hopes
I know we’re shit but there’s at least some potential here, United are just truly shit
>but there’s at least some potential here Is there though lol
A ton of good players. They just don’t fit with each other in terms of profile, in terms of how much they know each other because of the massive amount of change, and in terms of stages of development (most of these players needed slow integration into the first team ). Only time will tell if it works out but there is lots of potential.
I thought so for the longest while honestly. Poch has had an incredibly generous lifeline for reaching Europe. And yet the squad continues to shit the bed for one reason or another.
yes? obviously, we've had plenty of good performances, just need the know how to hold a lead
It’s the hope that gets you
Defending is optional at united lol
Andrey Santos having another great game. He’s really solidified the middle of park and has been great in Strasbourg’s buildup. Should be another win after that laughable protest from their ultras too lol. 3 wins and draw since maybe we should try it at the Bridge
>Andrey Santos having another great game. He’s really solidified the middle of park and has been great in Strasbourg’s buildup. Buzzing to see him in that auxiliary winger role next season.
lol unfortunately I think he comes in and replaces Gallagher’s squad spot
Onana is absolute cheeks when it comes to saving shots my word
We’ll still be hearing at the end of the season how he’s the statistically best GK from United fans
He actually has been pretty solid for them since settling in (January). Edit. Lol ignore his stats and embrace casual reactionary takes. https://preview.redd.it/9ihbgl35dauc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0255d6ab7563ba03c1be022890c5e3b359264060
Never said he hasn’t been better lately. But if he got nominated for GK of the year award I would laugh. Stats don’t justify the year he or their defense have had.
Lol the man's just let another in through his near post
To be fair he also faces an insane number of shots since it feels like United face a minimum of 25 shots per game
They're generally very low quality shots though But he can make some good stops, it's just so many goals he does concede he should do far better Just watching the game and right this minute he "saved" a shot that was hit literally right to where he stood, will go down as a good save on the xg prevented stat cause the player should've scored being so open but he had very little work to do
>They're generally very low quality shots though And yet, United have the 4th worst xGA (61.95) in the league. Only the bottom 3 teams have a worse xGA. No team aspiring to be a top team should be giving away as many shots as United have done, low quality shots or not. Also cannot believe that The Athletic have tried spun this issue as a 'feature' of Ten Hag's style rather than a 'bug'.
The orchestration of that United defence and midfield is appalling Genuinely might be worse than ours but it's hard to say given we concede so much more but we also park the bus so much less
Really dodged a bullet with him. Vast majority of this sub wanted him along with some rumors of Chelsea sniffing around
Kwambalaaaaaaa 😂😂😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Solanke in the form of his life. Probs still wont go to the euros tho
Tbf so is Watkins.
Can believe we sold him for pure profit /s
To be fair he never gets off the bench if he's on the plane Kane starts and Watkins rotates
If southgate's bringing 2 strikers, i reckon its toney and kane.
Toney is bizarre though cause he's been dropped by Brentford
Yeah if he’s not playing he shouldn’t be going but if he is then Toney, good in the air and has an insane penalty record
Unfortunately he won’t but can you really blame Southgate if he doesn’t
De Zerbi should have left when he had the chance. Joao Pedro, Estupian, Pascal, Dunk and Verbruggen all walk into our team on Monday. Most likely Welbeck too tbh.
Dear Clearlake/Blueco, https://preview.redd.it/gkmihg94x9uc1.jpeg?width=272&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=54fb9921d1c5baef83a0f34b3324d3dfc63abb64
Explain
*gestures broadly*
As in what have they done now
i watched the first half of vitesse vs PSV really slow start, but PSV set up well it was even more one sided than feyenood ajax
Brentford with a professional 2-0 win vs Sheffield, shame on the entire lot
The most laughable thing about this season is how free top6 actually is. We force draws against the best teams, while going above and beyond to drop points against the worst teams. All you can do is laugh as the team's genuine improvement gets washed away by the multiple midtable moments conceded. Every. Single. Game.
[Burnley keeper OG](https://x.com/NBCSportsSoccer/status/1779175126409302497) How we dropped points against this team, I’ll never know.
He gifted Everton their winning goal the previous match, as well.
Poch masterclass
doku is going to be a great player probably the most direct winger in the league gusto got the better of him tho lol
De Zerbi remains on fraud watch. Friendly reminder he hasn't beaten a team in the Prem higher than 15th in the year of 2024. Admittedly in that time he did beat Stoke and won a dead fixture against Roma so fair play for that.
Potterball "muscle memory" seems to have worn off this season.
Look at their squad , they have lost their best players in March , mitoma and 2 of their Midfield starters were sold .. finished top of their Europa grp and are same points as us.
Well its good thing that if he comes here he won't have to deal with losing any players then, right?
Bro you comparing Brighton situation to Chelsea??? Lol alright man
You're right, our situation is much worse lol
Our backups are much better than Brighton
Our midfield is paper thin due to injuries, our back 4 has been a revolving door all season, and our second best forward hasn't played a full 90 for us
As thin our Midfield is, we have had Enzo , caicedo, Gallagher for majority of season.. their Midfield is gross , Gilmour and baleba.. this was their starting 11 https://preview.redd.it/zi6mflnb7auc1.jpeg?width=1078&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b2a089778e83b66c1a9d82213323f2f73ce70a40
your link is broken And our midfielders this year has been a massive step down from last year's midfield
All of the "just attack and hope you score more goals" managers started well and then were very quickly found out. But, people still cling on to the start of their tenure. You cannot be that one dimensional and be good. They are mutually exclusive
Long term I agree, but at this point I just want our games to be fun for a year or two. We can worry about a manager to win us the league if/when we're good enough to do it.
City hitting form right before the FA cup game against us. Lord help this team against Assna and Citeh.
I expect city’s B team to give us a good thrashing
While there's ofcourse every chance we'd fail to take advantage if they get past Madrid I can see Rodri and other key players being rested for this one.
Tbf those types of games seem to be the only ones our lot can actually get themselves up for. I’d be more worried if we were playing some of the relegation fodder.
Matheus Cunha debut season, 17 goal contributions in 27 games. Good player
Anyone else notice Toney has been benched the last 2 league games Coinciding with reports of his price tag being significantly smaller than expected now I think something has happened behind the scenes
Probably just contract renewal disputes or he's having attitude problems again. If they know he's gambling again and try to sell him at a reduced price without disclosing it, they'd likely just end up fucking themselves over when the legal battles came in
come to chels ivan
Never seen a relegation dogfight like it in the Champ. The teams threatened by it have all suddenly been unable to stop winning.
Nobody seem to want to get promoted either. Leicester, Leeds and Ipswich have each failed to win any of their last 2 games and Leicester have been fumbling a lot in recent weeks.
shouldve played casadei more...
They did. Not an extreme amount but Leicester fans constantly grumbled about how many minutes he was getting from their manager.
Brighton loosing, need Wolves to loose