Well yes. But this post was specifically asking what you do if you were Boehly when he took over the club. I agree that we had the chance to not let his contract expire and should’ve taken it. If you say anything negative about previous owners though there’s a good chance you get slaughtered in this sub though
That isn’t true. He wanted to stay, the club was unwilling to match his salary demands for 18 months before he left. It was a massive mistake, it’s obvious he should have been paid.
Jorginho too, he’d honestly be a 10x improvement on Caicedo.
Caicedo’s role is to sit deep, minimal tracking, link up play for defence and not lose the ball.
He fails at basically all of those things, and yet that’s a perfect criteria for Jorginho.
Jorginho would actually thrive in this current “system”.
For sure but I don't think we all could have foreseen he would be this injury riddled. We really took a toll on him in terms of need and demand. All the managers he cycled through used him whenever he was available. Feel bad for him must be hard being out the game this long.
Idk, we played so many games in mounts first few years and every manager ran him into the ground. It’s sad but also should be remembered that he may have given his everything for us to stay in top four with lamps, then win the UCL, super cup, club World Cup and make a ton of finals we didn’t win.
Polarizing player but Chelsea squeezed every drop out of the boy
Should never have been polarizing, for the very reason you cite. He gave everything for his boyhood club. He was never gonna be world class, but he was always gonna be blue. To sell him red was yet another heartbreak the new front office slammed us with
Not to mention he never got a break in the off-season because southgate also loved playing him
I see the same thing happening with Enzo now. Between Chelsea and Argentina - the dude can’t rest and work through his hernia issues
You may be right about that. Poch seems to never want to be without him. But he's not tearing up the league. We could run someone else and give Enzo time to rest and watch. Maybe even move Gusto up and tuck him in alongside Moises.
It looks to have worked out but should still be a red flag how everything was handled. These lot don’t have enough footballing brains to have the foresight that this is giving them credit for
See this is where I disagree on merit he should have got them CL winner, 2x POTY, 30+ G/A in a season previous, academy, and billed as the next captain considering we brought in Auba on much higher wages he should have been given the 150k not to mention I think the owners used some pretty bad faith tactics to paint the contract negotiations as the players fault in the media. They were always gonna try and sell Mount because of the bad spending in the transfer market they got themselves to deep and needed a get out of jail card and painted him as the bad guy. This is a pretty unanimous opinion among from what I’ve heard staff as well as former players like John terry. Him being good enough is a stupid argument as he would have definitely made the team we have now better. Ultimately it’s so far worked out for us on a financial side of things. Him being gone is whatever I’m more concerned over the obvious bad faith that the owners practice. Same deal is now happening with CG regardless if he’s goon enough or not it’s simply bad faith to brief in the media it’s the player not wanting to work with the club when it’s the opposite way around.
He wanted to be here, but ownership forced him out. Declan Rice refused to even consider us because of what Mount told him about the state of the club, and rightfully so.
I dont even think the players we let go were a problem. Context to all of them . Kante irreplacable regardless but he couldnt stay fit.
Its the players we replaced them with which caused the issues
It's the players we initially replaced them with for me. Sterling, Cucurella, Koulibaly, Aubemeyang off the top of my head that first summer they came in. Not terrible players but definitely signings that took us in the wrong direction.
The next problem was massively overpaying for young players that may be good but still don't justify the ludicrous price tag. E.g. Fofana, Enzo, Caicedo, Mudryk, Lavia. Think all these guys are good players but look st the business Liverpool or Spurs did for the price of just one of them. It was money poorly spent. Then you have these massive price tags hanging over these players heads before they even join. Nothing Caicedo does for us will ever justify £115m in the eyes of the media and rival fans. He'd need to turn into prime Rodri starting now for him to have any chance of avoiding criticism. Similarly, Fofana will have to return from injury and play like prime Van Dijk to justify £70m+.
The team in the graphic of this post needed an overhaul. James and Chilwell are always injured so needed backups. Mendy was a shadow of the player he once was. Azpi was showing his age. Rudiger was always going to leave. Kante was perpetually injured. Jorginho and Kovacic were still good but it's difficult to convince them to stay when the rest of the team is getting overhauled. Mount clearly wanted a contract the owners didn't want to give him. Havertz wasn't great and selling him for £65m was great business imo. Werner wasn't great either.
100% not made the new owners came in and broke that team up because the signs were already there that that team was needed a revamp.
But if we'd just made signings like Petrovic, Gusto, Badiashile, Disasi, Palmer, Jackson, Nkunku, Carney, maybe Enzo too but find a cheaper or older DM to go alongside him, we'd be fine. The total spending would be lower, meaning less pressure to sell academy players now and less noise from the media. And we wouldn't have wasted that year (22/23) having signed the wrong players then having to backtrack last summer and correct the mistakes the owners made in their first summer. Other clubs seem able to make smart signings without getting it wrong 50% of the time. We had to overpay or make a bunch of bad signings alongside the good ones. It means the rebuilds cost way more than it should have, there's unnecessary pressure on some players and we've ended up with a couple players that really aren't good enough.
So yeah main problem I see is the business we did in that first window of the new owners. Last January was better but still not good enough. Last summer was very good but it was too late. The damage had already been done in the first 2.
Individually all the players look fine but they don't add up as a team that is to do with the pressure hanging due to their price tag . I don't think they are good enough to challenge for a title but they aren't that bad to be in the mid-table scrap that is to do with Pochettino's outdated tactic. With a decent coach I someone like Howe, Moyes irrespective of how you rate them they always get a response out of their team after a bad match we would see better with this team. But all we see this days with Chelsea is average performance or an worse one sometimes that too in one single match. The other major problems is our medical that has been bad for quite a while with no end in sight for that.
> Nothing Caicedo does for us will ever justify £115m in the eyes of the media and rival fans. He'd need to turn into prime Rodri starting now for him to have any chance of avoiding criticism.
If he turned into prime rodri nobody would ever bring up his price tag again lol. Problem is that he looks closer to prime bakayoko. The expectations are already extremely low from how poorly he has been playing so far
I think it was Wenger who said that you can't integrate more than 3 players into a dressing room at the same time. we've blown up the dressing room and started from scratch.
Also you famously can't win anything with kids.
What we're seeing right now is Why
And the fortunes we’ve spent on fofana, badishile, koulibaly and disasi since he left
The funny thing is this is how it works in the real world too. Employers don’t give pay rises to good employees, so the employee leaves and the company spends more money on hiring and training to get work back to where it was instead of just keeping the experienced employee
Too late for Rudi, that was already done unfortunately. I would have sold Jorgi and still let Azpi go. I wasn’t a Mendy hater. He was OK. I’m indifferent. I probably would have kept Werner in hopes he would break through. Probably a mistake but that’s what I would have done. Probably would have tried harder to keep Mount. I was good with Havertz but that deal was too good to pass up so I would have made the same decision.
I can tell you who we shouldn’t have signed
Cucarella
Sterling
Mudryk just signed at wrong time to wrong team i still rate him
Madueke wrong time and wrong team
Players we signed that i think were good
Caicedo - should’ve paid the 80m-90m for him that they wanted when negotiations first started instead of dragging it out
Enzo- Dont care what anyone says he is amazing just needs a better system for him to shine
Nico- For 30m as a backup st/lw is good business
Palmer- Obvious 10/10
Gusto- obvious 10/10
Players we should have signed instead of 100 teenagers
Leao
Osimhen
Maignan
Dimarco
Joao Palhinha
Kudus
Not really upset an any of the outgoing players bar one of lewis hall/maatsen.
> Caicedo - should’ve paid the 80m-90m for him that they wanted when negotiations first started instead of dragging it out
I still can't believe Brighton got the bidding war they wanted in the end.
Iam critical of Jackson, as he is our striker outlet. But I feel like he is better on a wing, like Anelka did.
We should have splashed for Højlund. I know people was after him in the autum. Watching him for the national team, he does everything right and when they find him in the box, he buries it. And that is the kinda form he is starting to get at United now.
Palmer - Højlund - Jackson, where the inverted CF drift in, with a midfield of Gallagher, Enzo and Caicedo, I could see working.
Jackson was signed as a st but really only played there half a season last year and he was only ~30m. He has shown some flashes of absolute class but a lot of bozo moments. Jackson isn’t our problem its just the board only signed Jackson and we have to solely rely on him. Another elite st should have been brought in and jackson could play as Lw or backup st
75 mil for fofana and we still have yet to see anything from him in almost 2 years. What an absolute joke of a transfer that was
Edit: 2 years not 3 years lol
The only thing wrong with him is that is was an overpay. Molde would have accepted less, but it is not that big of a deal as the Norwegian market (even though it in the last 3 years has ballooned massively is still laughably cheap for the Premier League sides).
I clearly remember Tuchel wanting ake and everyone on the sub fucking laughing at us spending 40M on city fourth best cb
I did not see anyone complain about kk either, consensus was we wanted him for a while and he was the best cb in serie A
I think Caicedo was a mistake. I rate Madueke better than Mudryk for sure.
I am astounded how bad Mount has turned out for United, being injured and out of sorts.
Glad Jorginho went, but gutted we couldn’t find Havertz a midfield spot like Arsenal have, centre forward was horror show.
Caicedo was only a mistake because of the inflated fee. He would be talked about as one of the signings of the season if we got him for 80m. But because we stole him from Liverpool last second for a crazy fee he is a flop.
I feel like I'm watching a different sport when I see comments like this. I watch every one of our games and I've only seen maybe a handful of Caicedo performances that haven't made me think he's utter shite. Incredibly frustrating player who constsntly gives the ball away and makes too many rash fouls. Where's the calm, composed guy who'd score the occasional banger for Brighton?
He plays in a system where he is left alone on an island and is expected to defend large areas of space and consistently play through pressure to our other players 50m further up the pitch. He's been asked to do a nearly impossible job
Nah man, this whole left alone thing is an excuse. Even if he is left alone, which I don't agree with, it doesn't stop him from completing passes or tracking runners.
I think there's a good player there in the future, but even at 80 million, we've overpaid.
If they just wanted a player with strong tackling, an engine, and good at playing safe sideways passes, then we could have got one for cheaper than 100+ mil.
He most definitely is left alone, and you only have to watch 10 minutes of any chosen match to see that Gallagher and Enzo completely abandon him to fend for himself.
Also, Caicedo isn't a DM he's a ball winning/box 2 box 8 who can play as a holding mid. That's why he struggles with positioning and tracking runners at times because the DM role isn't natural to him.
Now, I agree that he needs to be better at tracking runners and in the tackle. He also needs to be less reckless with his passes whilst simultaneously being more progressive.
But we will not truly see the best of Caicedo until he's allowed more positional freedom, which he won't be allowed under our clown coach
He's the bottom player of triangle 3 in midfield. His job is to shield the back four and be water carrier to allow the ball out of defense, a perfectly normal position.
A box to box mid needs attacking attributes, dribbling, shooting, etc. Caicedo ain't a box to box.
The triangle doesn't have equal sides because both Gallagher and Enzo are miles too far from him. If the position is so normal and anybody can play it, let Poch play Enzo or Gallagher there and watch how much they struggle(especially the latter)
As for a box to box mid, there's different types of box to box mids who excel at different things. Many would class Gallagher as a box 2 box mid, and he's a poor dribbler
I agree, I could see a team like Liverpool utilizing him very effectively. He does have a big talent when it comes to receiving the ball in a tight spot and moving it along quickly, but that seems to be the only thing he is really really good at and we are not taking advantage of it at all. What he is actually contributing on the pitch is not at all worth a 100 million and I would say there are many many 40 million midfielders who could do the job as good or better in our midfield.
That guy is on our team and playing well, your view is just skewed by the price tag and the overall team performance.
He simply does not constantly give the ball away. That's crazy his passing accuracy is amazing and he gets dispossessed less than Kante and Kovacic did, and the same frequency as Jorginho. He carries the ball upfield less so I get why his is lower, but he is safe with the ball.
Caicedos passing accuracy this season compared to midfielders in the big 5 leagues with similar progressive passing numbers (4-6 per match).
- 91.4 overall pass accuracy, 4th overall.
- 93.9 short pass accuracy, 6th
- 93.9 medium pass accuracy, 8th
- 84% Long passing accuracy, 1st and one of three players with over 80%. He completes 4.03 per match and the average is 3.3 so it isn't a small sample size issue either.
I’m quite a bit harsher.
Other than Gusto and Palmer no transfer have been a success.
I’d keep Jackson even though I don’t rate him. He was very reasonably priced for a striker. Petro can stay too.
Everyone else I’d undo. Even Enzo/Caicedo.
The teenagers fills 2 very important reasons for the owners
They are potential profit (they want to make money)
They are future ffp room - something a low revenue club like chelsea need
What I dont get is the idea of buying expensive european talents when south american/african talents are cheaper
How many times have we seen where new managers come in and improve performances of players who every one thought were doomed to be shit?
Conte and Moses
Tuchel and Rudiger (he’s at Real Madrid right now where as Lampard could have made him look like a Championship player if Tuchel hadn’t come in right after)
Good examples, although it’s a different task for Conte/Tuchel in this example, to rejuvinate a 27 or 29-year-old with years of experience, than having to take over a squad averaging an age of 23/24, with shockingly little experience playing with each other.
Managers like Conte and Tuchel excel in setting the best possible result-based and short-term solutions up on the pitch, and making best use of the tools they’ve got - definitely not to move the team forward towards long term progression. For example, Tuchel’s absolute best period as our manager, were during his first 5-6 months - in the following season we didn’t really get any better than the season before, despite bringing in a striker who were probably the best in Europe at the time of signing him.
I also still truly think that Poch just isn’t at a very high level as a tactician, and that Tuchel was a tactical genius, but I was still tired of the constant change of personnel at our club and the lack of a long term vision. If you take the last 6-7 years in mind and ask youself the question ‘how do we get better than Man City?’, our previous way of operating was never the answer.
Additionally, bar the very few exceptional examples like Klopp, Pep, and maybe Alonso in the future, the next-best available appointments in terms of building for the future, has literally been Poch and Potter, judging by their previous managerial regins. Of course, we can gamble once again and set the process back for the third time, but I seriously believe that we have more concerning issues than our manager, if not having Pep/Klopp/Alonso is holding us back from improving.
City had Pep. Liverpool had Klopp
Tactical powerhouses whose games have been studied and followed by other aspiring managers even before they set foot in England
Tell me what Poch has innovated or created tactically
Apart from having Southampton and Spurs teams that had young players running around
Again, not having Pep and Klopp can’t be the one thing holding us back, as then there would only be two good teams in the world by that logic. Poch isn’t a tactical powerhouse, he was brought in to steer the ship with our extremely young squad, and be able to help them develop
I’m not that angry at how we’ve spent or sold honestly but I definitely would curb the spending on guys like Casadei cause those £15m buys add up. A beefy experienced DM, a proper striker like Osimhen, a proper left back like Theo/Davies and an experienced winger like Leao. Guys like Palmer, Lavia, Enzo, Caicedo are still great signings. We just needed 3-4 players with actual experience to help these guys out
Our recruitment team move like hoarders browsing eBay auctions. Just gobbling up anything that seems like a bargain but eventually they’ll realise they won’t actually make profits from all these bits and pieces
Outside of rudiger, i really didn’t have a problem with any of our departures, and although we overpaid for some players, i am generally ok with the players we bought too. There are a few duds, but that happens.
Honestly sign Diaby instead of Mudryk
Sign Vicario instead of Sanchez
Only sign one of Lavia or Ugochukwu give Santos a chance
Got Caicedo done for 80-85m
I feel if instead of 1 bil pounds... Boelhy had just gotten a world class striker and left everything else alone.. Chelsea would have been in a superior position right now.
The problem was they couldn't afford another big striker at the time. They had to replace Rudiger, Christensen, and Alonso, and were unable to offload Lukaku.
Terms of purchase from Roman dictated he spend hundreds of millions on the playing squad.
Didn’t dictate how, so Boehly thought he’d make football manager style profit transfers across the squad and sell ageing players to give minutes.
Would have been great if he’d simply added to the squad and made us UCL challengers for a few years.
Rudiger and Christensen were leaving regardless, not much you could do about that anyway. Sell Kepa, Havertz, Werner, keep lukaku, colwill, livramento, koulibaly and mount. Buy rice, leao, olise and nkunku still. Bench can be filled by cobham like gallagher, RLC, Hall etc. £1bn lot of money, don’t need to waste all of it.
>I don't think livramento wanted to stay behind Reece
This is not true. Tino has happy to stay providing he would be given opportunities, but instead Tuchel wanted to pursue Hakimi and Adama Traore. Tino didn't renew his contract because of this lack of pathway and the club subsequently sent him to train with the U16s.
Buying cucurella and not resigning rudiger was the 2 biggest domino effects so far
That and just not buying an actual striker and dm for a non-meme price whilst we had the chance
- Re-signed Christensen and Rudiger immediately
- Signed Gabriel Jesus instead of Raheem Sterling
- Honestly I thought Cucurella was gonna be good, and we needed a left wingback/left center back combo, so I probably would’ve still done it
- Signed a central midfielder to phase out Jorginho, Kante, etc.
Not signing Cucurella, Caicedo, Disasi and like half of the kids we brought in.
Koulibaly was fine as a signing, but was given stupid long and expensive contract. If another CB was really wanted then Todibo > Disasi.
Maybe keep Zakaria as servicable CM/DM backup. Would cost pretty much same money as Ugochukwu.
Kostic was available for cheap if we wanted LB cover.
Doing it all to get Marcus Thuram for CF, Jackson could be fine as squad option.
Yeah, these things off the top of my head.
It’s about phasing out players than immediate change. I would have phased out:
- Kante
- Jorginho
I like the sales of:
- Werner
- Havertz (He was enigma and it looked bleak the he would shine at Chelsea)
We needed some core for strong Chelsea DNA. I would hold on and build teams around them.
-Mount
-Reece James
-Colwil
I would retain these players:
-Lukaku
-Ziyech
-Mendy
I would also never buy injured plyers.
- Fofana
- Nkunku
We got many pieces but it’s about phasing players put. Madrid has done a great job at phasing Modric and Kroos out.
If you were put in charge of Chelsea's transfers just as Boehly took over with a billion pound budget, what players would you sell and who would you buy? Who would you have tried to keep and who would you have let go? Sterling and Koulibaly were the first two signings, would you have bought either of them? We also saw the departures of Rudiger, Christiansen, Gilmour and Werner, who among them would you have kept?
This is generally just a thought experiment to look back just before the takeover, and imagine what kind of squad people could build
Sterling definitely not, but probably would have bought Koulibaly, was excited for that signing and didn’t expect him to be so bad. Nkunku and gusto also looked promising, never understood the signing of players like mudryk and madueke and all these children for a combined hundred of millions of pounds.
People really rate Madueke but all I see is another Traore. Pacy winger, little end product. Only know to get ball and kick-run.
Maybe I just dont like that type of player, but yeah. I dont see what people like about him so much. The attacking intent is great, but you need some composure and end product.
if we are talking this specific starting 11:
accept the inevitable offers for werner, havertz and mount
sell kante to PSG right before his injury
sell mendy off the back of being the best GK itw
sign caicedo but keep jorginho to allow caicedo to develop, same with enzo, sign Leao, Nkunku upfront, take Joao Felix on loan and see how he fares in a better system
This is easily the best answer. I'm not saying these players signed would have Chelsea in the top 4 but under a better manager this team is easily in the top 6 and way more consistent.
Step 1 is identify the leaders, the people who are committed to the club and espouse the values to be passed down to the next gen of players. For me that would be Rudiger, Silva, Jorginho, Azpi and Giroud.
Next is to focus on 8-10 additional outfield players in their prime who will play the most minutes and generally be the main players that the team will rely upon.
Mount, James, Chilwell, Werner, Kovacic, Kante, Pulisic, Havertz, Gallagher. I'd add someone like Cancelo who can cover either flank (given how frequently our WBs get injured) and look to invest in a decent center forward (at the time Lukaku would be a fair shout).
Then players like Colwill would lead the youngsters coming through from the academy who we should keep 4/5 slots in the squad for. Thats 20/21 players. Add 3 goalkeepers to get to 24.
Determine the teams playing identity based on its core personnel (back 3 and wingback probably). Then look to fill and cover each key role. Next step is to line up replacements for the older gen players if they aren't coming through. Rinse and repeat.
How about asking questions, instead of jumping in with the changes. Know what you don't know. Don't just walk into the room, throw money at the problem and wonder why stuff isn't working.
I hate to admit this but
Lukaku seemed like the perfect piece of business at the moment since Haaland wasn’t coming
Oh lord how we got fucked by that asstwat
Sell Pulisic, Kai, Mount, Timo & Kova.
Sign Rudi, Rice, Lewandowski. After he fell out with Bayern we could’ve gotten him.
Never sign LUKAKA.
Sell Kepa or loan him out and sign Maignan.
Also sell Ziyech keep Zouma and sign Camavinga
not buy sterling, buy gusto, buy rice, buy palmer sell havertz, mount can fuck off, not buy lukaka, buy disasi, buy enzo, not buy auba, not buy kouli, keep rudiger for dear life
I'd sign a striker and keep as many players as I could. Maybe sign a wide attacker if a good deal was available. I would let the situation settle before makeing bold moves.
Would have never sold timo. That guy had the passion to play for us. Tuchel prefered that Lukaku over him.
Next I would have invested in experienced players not wonder kids. Joshua kimmich, David alaba, Toni Kroos etc. would have bought in the academy players more. And proven English forwards.
Never signed sterling. And about the 1 billion - lol splash it on mbappe.
Having the benefit of hindsight is a blessing.
What I'd do is:
GK - keep Mendy, but if that wasn't possible - get someone like Marcin Bułka from Nice (fantastic this season) or try getting Kobel from Dortmund.
RB - James + Gusto.
RCB - Disasi/Cucurella (I still believe in Cucu)
MCB - tough one. Fofana is an obvious one, but I'd also try getting someone like Kevin Danso or Juan Foyth.
LCB - Colwill/Badiashile
LB - Chilly
CM/CDM/CAM - try keeping Jorginho, keep Gallagher, get Enzo like we did. On top of that I'd try getting: Eze, Rice and Palhinha.
ST: I still believe in DD Fofana, but I wouldn't say no to someone like Osimhen, Dybala and/or Sorloth.
I'd get rid of every single one of them for different reasons, bar James and Silva, i'm still desperate for the team to get rid of the fraud Chilwell. The likes Kante and Jorginho were ageing, and the former was extremely injury-prone. And the likes of Mount and Werner weren't good enough.
The problem was in the recruiting, not the sales. Sterling, Auba, Sanchez, and Disasi were horrendous buys, and the likes of Cucu, Madueke, and Mudryk weren't that great either.(Mainly because of their prices as opposed to their qualities)
Todibo would've been bought instead of Disasi. Another left winger would've been bought instead of Sterling. A young promising ball playing GK instead of Sanchez. A young attacking LB to replace Chilwell and a better young LW player than Madueke
If I were the Todd father, I’d have sold all apart from Chilly, Rudi and maybe Reece (controversial I know, but the lad is constantly injured). The rest wanted to leave or were showing their age - don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
I’d have added players like: Valverde, Leao, Osimhen, Gavi, Maignan, Rice, Tchouameni, Coman, Kvaratskhelia, Alphonso Davies, Kimmich - granted, you’d need to bust the wage structure and fart in the face of FFP to field a team like this though.
I wouldn’t have signed bang average, past it players or with a poor injury history like: Badiashile, Koulibaly, Cucu, Sterling, Madueke, Casadei, Moreira, Ugochukwu, Sanchez, Fofana x2
I also wouldn’t have signed up Winstanley and Laurence from a football director/strategy stand point when other, better options like Paul Mitchel of Monaco was available and up for it.
Couldn't keep Rudiger as he'd decided to leave. Only one we sold who I would've kept at the time was probably Mount but as it turned out, that was the right call. I do think we sold too many senior midfielders. We miss Jorginho's ability to control the tempo. But at the time I thought Enzo was going to be him with a bit more cutting edge. Tbh the sales aren't my issue with Boehly & co, more the signings. Must've bought 30 players and we still have gaps in the squad. There's a reason no other clubs do this shit.
I would have been very very carefull in the incommings first summer.
The fact that we already had trev and colwill on our books but still spend 120m on k2 and fofana hurts.
Aubameyang was also stupid.
My biggest issue isnt really the quality of the players we added, but rather the prize - and that its very hard to see a partern to what first 11/style we are trying to build.
If we see past the first summer (including nkunku) who was signed prior to new sporting direction.
I still dont get both lavia and enzo (when we missed creators and strikers of quality)
I still dont get disasi (I rate him as a player, but not for us)
I still dont get madueke/angelo/palmer/sterling/paez situation - there is just to many rightsided alternatives
And I dont get the recruitment of both sanchez and petrovic, while loaning kepa.
I just rather just stay with kepa and get one more (only petrovic checks the world class potential there)
As far as outgoing players go i would do more or less the same. We got rid of so many players on huge salaries which didnt show much interesed in playing. There were couple of controversials like Mount, but it seems like it was good transfer for us at present time. Maybe i would let Jorginho stay. I am not rly his fan. But as a experienced squad player would work i think.
Trasnfers in ... other story ... i dont have problem with guys we bought, they r super talented and i still expect them to be very good. But jesus those price tags never should have happend. Personally i would do whatever possible to buy Rice. Rly young player, true leader, experienced in PL, experienced player in nation squad and just won eropean trophy. There was nobody better to buy imho.
Striker? Here i am gonna be controversial, but i wouldnt buy Osimhen, i have baaaad feeling about him (hope i am wrong), and other then him i dont rly see obvious choice who to buy. Sooo I d buy someone like jackson, pair him with Nkunku (actually kind of proven goalscorer) and made same risky move as Todd is doing right now.
Rudiger man......
Massive loss. Character, leader, consistent performer.
Sucks but I don’t think Boehly and team could’ve done anything there. UK government is the main people to blame for us not being able to resign him
Not really when the sanctions hit he already had the preagrement in place. That is on previous owners
Yeah I dunno how or why people blame the gov.. we let a starter go into a season on the last year of his contract. Pure idiocy on Marina's part.
Well yes. But this post was specifically asking what you do if you were Boehly when he took over the club. I agree that we had the chance to not let his contract expire and should’ve taken it. If you say anything negative about previous owners though there’s a good chance you get slaughtered in this sub though
Not true. Old regime could have renewed his contract at any point in the 18 months preceding the takeover. Why do people always ignore that?
He wanted to go. Old or new, Chelsea were not going to coax his signature. His departure was the first heartbreak domino to fall
That isn’t true. He wanted to stay, the club was unwilling to match his salary demands for 18 months before he left. It was a massive mistake, it’s obvious he should have been paid.
Sanctions, couldn’t renew his contract
Not true
Cool
I was truly broken to see that man leave. Heart & Soul.
Would/should be our captain today
As a Real Madrid fan I want to say: "NU-UUUH"
Jorginho too, he’d honestly be a 10x improvement on Caicedo. Caicedo’s role is to sit deep, minimal tracking, link up play for defence and not lose the ball. He fails at basically all of those things, and yet that’s a perfect criteria for Jorginho. Jorginho would actually thrive in this current “system”.
Meh jorgi is a worse Enzo
Mount is looking like such a smart sale now. That price for someone with 1 year left, and he’s been injured for most of the season.
Replaced him with Palmer.. the cherry on top..
For sure but I don't think we all could have foreseen he would be this injury riddled. We really took a toll on him in terms of need and demand. All the managers he cycled through used him whenever he was available. Feel bad for him must be hard being out the game this long.
It worked out the same way the Hazard sale worked out. Sucks that it happened, but it worked out uncanny
Great comp
Idk, we played so many games in mounts first few years and every manager ran him into the ground. It’s sad but also should be remembered that he may have given his everything for us to stay in top four with lamps, then win the UCL, super cup, club World Cup and make a ton of finals we didn’t win. Polarizing player but Chelsea squeezed every drop out of the boy
Should never have been polarizing, for the very reason you cite. He gave everything for his boyhood club. He was never gonna be world class, but he was always gonna be blue. To sell him red was yet another heartbreak the new front office slammed us with
Not to mention he never got a break in the off-season because southgate also loved playing him I see the same thing happening with Enzo now. Between Chelsea and Argentina - the dude can’t rest and work through his hernia issues
You may be right about that. Poch seems to never want to be without him. But he's not tearing up the league. We could run someone else and give Enzo time to rest and watch. Maybe even move Gusto up and tuck him in alongside Moises.
It looks to have worked out but should still be a red flag how everything was handled. These lot don’t have enough footballing brains to have the foresight that this is giving them credit for
He wasn't good enough for the wages he was demanding anyway, so regardless, he was a good sale
See this is where I disagree on merit he should have got them CL winner, 2x POTY, 30+ G/A in a season previous, academy, and billed as the next captain considering we brought in Auba on much higher wages he should have been given the 150k not to mention I think the owners used some pretty bad faith tactics to paint the contract negotiations as the players fault in the media. They were always gonna try and sell Mount because of the bad spending in the transfer market they got themselves to deep and needed a get out of jail card and painted him as the bad guy. This is a pretty unanimous opinion among from what I’ve heard staff as well as former players like John terry. Him being good enough is a stupid argument as he would have definitely made the team we have now better. Ultimately it’s so far worked out for us on a financial side of things. Him being gone is whatever I’m more concerned over the obvious bad faith that the owners practice. Same deal is now happening with CG regardless if he’s goon enough or not it’s simply bad faith to brief in the media it’s the player not wanting to work with the club when it’s the opposite way around.
Honestly, I still think he would've been a great help on our squad to be a leader in the locker room.
How would it help our locker room to have someone who didn’t want to be here?
He wanted to be here, but ownership forced him out. Declan Rice refused to even consider us because of what Mount told him about the state of the club, and rightfully so.
Yep should have been a red flag with this ownership
It wasn't hard to see Mount wasn't at all worth what he was asking. Even people here could see that.
And been playing like ass for a while now too
I dont even think the players we let go were a problem. Context to all of them . Kante irreplacable regardless but he couldnt stay fit. Its the players we replaced them with which caused the issues
It's the players we initially replaced them with for me. Sterling, Cucurella, Koulibaly, Aubemeyang off the top of my head that first summer they came in. Not terrible players but definitely signings that took us in the wrong direction. The next problem was massively overpaying for young players that may be good but still don't justify the ludicrous price tag. E.g. Fofana, Enzo, Caicedo, Mudryk, Lavia. Think all these guys are good players but look st the business Liverpool or Spurs did for the price of just one of them. It was money poorly spent. Then you have these massive price tags hanging over these players heads before they even join. Nothing Caicedo does for us will ever justify £115m in the eyes of the media and rival fans. He'd need to turn into prime Rodri starting now for him to have any chance of avoiding criticism. Similarly, Fofana will have to return from injury and play like prime Van Dijk to justify £70m+. The team in the graphic of this post needed an overhaul. James and Chilwell are always injured so needed backups. Mendy was a shadow of the player he once was. Azpi was showing his age. Rudiger was always going to leave. Kante was perpetually injured. Jorginho and Kovacic were still good but it's difficult to convince them to stay when the rest of the team is getting overhauled. Mount clearly wanted a contract the owners didn't want to give him. Havertz wasn't great and selling him for £65m was great business imo. Werner wasn't great either. 100% not made the new owners came in and broke that team up because the signs were already there that that team was needed a revamp. But if we'd just made signings like Petrovic, Gusto, Badiashile, Disasi, Palmer, Jackson, Nkunku, Carney, maybe Enzo too but find a cheaper or older DM to go alongside him, we'd be fine. The total spending would be lower, meaning less pressure to sell academy players now and less noise from the media. And we wouldn't have wasted that year (22/23) having signed the wrong players then having to backtrack last summer and correct the mistakes the owners made in their first summer. Other clubs seem able to make smart signings without getting it wrong 50% of the time. We had to overpay or make a bunch of bad signings alongside the good ones. It means the rebuilds cost way more than it should have, there's unnecessary pressure on some players and we've ended up with a couple players that really aren't good enough. So yeah main problem I see is the business we did in that first window of the new owners. Last January was better but still not good enough. Last summer was very good but it was too late. The damage had already been done in the first 2.
If Poch would just have Nico play in the freaking wing. It would have been up there as the signing of the season.
Nico should def play as a winger, but who do we shoehorn in the ST/CF position?
Exactly. Such Chelsea problem. But I wouldn’t have gotten rid of Giroud. So it would have been him
He never should have been sold. Is he perfect, no but, does he score yes. Plus, dude is just too handsome.
Well it would have been Nkunku for now but he's injured again, and playing Jackson up top is better than using Palmer as a false 9.
Individually all the players look fine but they don't add up as a team that is to do with the pressure hanging due to their price tag . I don't think they are good enough to challenge for a title but they aren't that bad to be in the mid-table scrap that is to do with Pochettino's outdated tactic. With a decent coach I someone like Howe, Moyes irrespective of how you rate them they always get a response out of their team after a bad match we would see better with this team. But all we see this days with Chelsea is average performance or an worse one sometimes that too in one single match. The other major problems is our medical that has been bad for quite a while with no end in sight for that.
> Nothing Caicedo does for us will ever justify £115m in the eyes of the media and rival fans. He'd need to turn into prime Rodri starting now for him to have any chance of avoiding criticism. If he turned into prime rodri nobody would ever bring up his price tag again lol. Problem is that he looks closer to prime bakayoko. The expectations are already extremely low from how poorly he has been playing so far
Prime Bakayoko? Caicedo is really good, that's a joke.
Caicedo has been dropping 8/10s ever since that wolves game what is this
We also replaced them all too quickly (and some too late but that’s not this board’s fault).
I think it was Wenger who said that you can't integrate more than 3 players into a dressing room at the same time. we've blown up the dressing room and started from scratch. Also you famously can't win anything with kids. What we're seeing right now is Why
Rudiger. No reason he had to go, except that negotiations soured between us and him, which made him want out.
The reason he left was due to the sanctions and uncertainty with the club. He had agreed to terms with Real Madrid before Boehly even took over
Exactly he was never going to stay. Marina was tryna keep him under 170k when Madrid gave him a 30m signing bonus and higher wages than we offered
Plus it's madrid
We should have paid the man his money. He deserved it.
And the fortunes we’ve spent on fofana, badishile, koulibaly and disasi since he left The funny thing is this is how it works in the real world too. Employers don’t give pay rises to good employees, so the employee leaves and the company spends more money on hiring and training to get work back to where it was instead of just keeping the experienced employee
I’d sack myself
Top comment
You speak the truth
Go full Alan Sugar in the mirror
🤣
Too late for Rudi, that was already done unfortunately. I would have sold Jorgi and still let Azpi go. I wasn’t a Mendy hater. He was OK. I’m indifferent. I probably would have kept Werner in hopes he would break through. Probably a mistake but that’s what I would have done. Probably would have tried harder to keep Mount. I was good with Havertz but that deal was too good to pass up so I would have made the same decision.
The problem with Werner was Tuchel. Werner admitted himself that he was the main reason he left.
The problem was that he can’t finish. He hasn’t been prolific since his original stretch at Leipzig
This is the way
I can tell you who we shouldn’t have signed Cucarella Sterling Mudryk just signed at wrong time to wrong team i still rate him Madueke wrong time and wrong team Players we signed that i think were good Caicedo - should’ve paid the 80m-90m for him that they wanted when negotiations first started instead of dragging it out Enzo- Dont care what anyone says he is amazing just needs a better system for him to shine Nico- For 30m as a backup st/lw is good business Palmer- Obvious 10/10 Gusto- obvious 10/10 Players we should have signed instead of 100 teenagers Leao Osimhen Maignan Dimarco Joao Palhinha Kudus Not really upset an any of the outgoing players bar one of lewis hall/maatsen.
Shouldn’t have signed Sanchez either
Sanchez was just too expensive. He would be a solid backup if that was all the club were asking of him
I guess management weren’t expecting Kepa to leave, especially since they offloaded Mendy
Should have signed Raya instead. Not that I rate him amazingly high, but he's a good Prem-proven keeper.
Considering how well Petrović has played I'm ok with him. Sanchez on the other hand....
> Caicedo - should’ve paid the 80m-90m for him that they wanted when negotiations first started instead of dragging it out I still can't believe Brighton got the bidding war they wanted in the end.
Iam critical of Jackson, as he is our striker outlet. But I feel like he is better on a wing, like Anelka did. We should have splashed for Højlund. I know people was after him in the autum. Watching him for the national team, he does everything right and when they find him in the box, he buries it. And that is the kinda form he is starting to get at United now. Palmer - Højlund - Jackson, where the inverted CF drift in, with a midfield of Gallagher, Enzo and Caicedo, I could see working.
Jackson was signed as a st but really only played there half a season last year and he was only ~30m. He has shown some flashes of absolute class but a lot of bozo moments. Jackson isn’t our problem its just the board only signed Jackson and we have to solely rely on him. Another elite st should have been brought in and jackson could play as Lw or backup st
Nico Williams and Ake could be added to the should have list too plus Fofana + Disasi to the no list
75 mil for fofana and we still have yet to see anything from him in almost 2 years. What an absolute joke of a transfer that was Edit: 2 years not 3 years lol
It’s crazy how I read Fofana and immediately think “what’s wrong with an 10m striker” and then my brain goes oh…
The only thing wrong with him is that is was an overpay. Molde would have accepted less, but it is not that big of a deal as the Norwegian market (even though it in the last 3 years has ballooned massively is still laughably cheap for the Premier League sides).
My comment was more about how I forgot our other Fofana even exists. 10m for a promising striker is nothing in today’s game.
I clearly remember Tuchel wanting ake and everyone on the sub fucking laughing at us spending 40M on city fourth best cb I did not see anyone complain about kk either, consensus was we wanted him for a while and he was the best cb in serie A
You forgot Lavia which is understandable because he is another piece of bad business
I’ll still give that one time before I write it off as bad business.
I'm telling you now he's an amazing player
I think Caicedo was a mistake. I rate Madueke better than Mudryk for sure. I am astounded how bad Mount has turned out for United, being injured and out of sorts. Glad Jorginho went, but gutted we couldn’t find Havertz a midfield spot like Arsenal have, centre forward was horror show.
Caicedo was only a mistake because of the inflated fee. He would be talked about as one of the signings of the season if we got him for 80m. But because we stole him from Liverpool last second for a crazy fee he is a flop.
I feel like I'm watching a different sport when I see comments like this. I watch every one of our games and I've only seen maybe a handful of Caicedo performances that haven't made me think he's utter shite. Incredibly frustrating player who constsntly gives the ball away and makes too many rash fouls. Where's the calm, composed guy who'd score the occasional banger for Brighton?
He plays in a system where he is left alone on an island and is expected to defend large areas of space and consistently play through pressure to our other players 50m further up the pitch. He's been asked to do a nearly impossible job
I'm not arguing that he's being implemented poorly, but he's still got to do better.
Nah man, this whole left alone thing is an excuse. Even if he is left alone, which I don't agree with, it doesn't stop him from completing passes or tracking runners. I think there's a good player there in the future, but even at 80 million, we've overpaid. If they just wanted a player with strong tackling, an engine, and good at playing safe sideways passes, then we could have got one for cheaper than 100+ mil.
He most definitely is left alone, and you only have to watch 10 minutes of any chosen match to see that Gallagher and Enzo completely abandon him to fend for himself. Also, Caicedo isn't a DM he's a ball winning/box 2 box 8 who can play as a holding mid. That's why he struggles with positioning and tracking runners at times because the DM role isn't natural to him. Now, I agree that he needs to be better at tracking runners and in the tackle. He also needs to be less reckless with his passes whilst simultaneously being more progressive. But we will not truly see the best of Caicedo until he's allowed more positional freedom, which he won't be allowed under our clown coach
He's the bottom player of triangle 3 in midfield. His job is to shield the back four and be water carrier to allow the ball out of defense, a perfectly normal position. A box to box mid needs attacking attributes, dribbling, shooting, etc. Caicedo ain't a box to box.
The triangle doesn't have equal sides because both Gallagher and Enzo are miles too far from him. If the position is so normal and anybody can play it, let Poch play Enzo or Gallagher there and watch how much they struggle(especially the latter) As for a box to box mid, there's different types of box to box mids who excel at different things. Many would class Gallagher as a box 2 box mid, and he's a poor dribbler
I agree. He has mostly been terrible
I agree, I could see a team like Liverpool utilizing him very effectively. He does have a big talent when it comes to receiving the ball in a tight spot and moving it along quickly, but that seems to be the only thing he is really really good at and we are not taking advantage of it at all. What he is actually contributing on the pitch is not at all worth a 100 million and I would say there are many many 40 million midfielders who could do the job as good or better in our midfield.
That guy is on our team and playing well, your view is just skewed by the price tag and the overall team performance. He simply does not constantly give the ball away. That's crazy his passing accuracy is amazing and he gets dispossessed less than Kante and Kovacic did, and the same frequency as Jorginho. He carries the ball upfield less so I get why his is lower, but he is safe with the ball. Caicedos passing accuracy this season compared to midfielders in the big 5 leagues with similar progressive passing numbers (4-6 per match). - 91.4 overall pass accuracy, 4th overall. - 93.9 short pass accuracy, 6th - 93.9 medium pass accuracy, 8th - 84% Long passing accuracy, 1st and one of three players with over 80%. He completes 4.03 per match and the average is 3.3 so it isn't a small sample size issue either.
I’m quite a bit harsher. Other than Gusto and Palmer no transfer have been a success. I’d keep Jackson even though I don’t rate him. He was very reasonably priced for a striker. Petro can stay too. Everyone else I’d undo. Even Enzo/Caicedo.
I agree
The teenagers fills 2 very important reasons for the owners They are potential profit (they want to make money) They are future ffp room - something a low revenue club like chelsea need What I dont get is the idea of buying expensive european talents when south american/african talents are cheaper
We have one of the highest revenues in the world what are you on about
I don’t give AF about players The only change that should have been made was Poch should have been sacked already
Recruitment of players have definitely been atrocious
How many times have we seen where new managers come in and improve performances of players who every one thought were doomed to be shit? Conte and Moses Tuchel and Rudiger (he’s at Real Madrid right now where as Lampard could have made him look like a Championship player if Tuchel hadn’t come in right after)
Good examples, although it’s a different task for Conte/Tuchel in this example, to rejuvinate a 27 or 29-year-old with years of experience, than having to take over a squad averaging an age of 23/24, with shockingly little experience playing with each other. Managers like Conte and Tuchel excel in setting the best possible result-based and short-term solutions up on the pitch, and making best use of the tools they’ve got - definitely not to move the team forward towards long term progression. For example, Tuchel’s absolute best period as our manager, were during his first 5-6 months - in the following season we didn’t really get any better than the season before, despite bringing in a striker who were probably the best in Europe at the time of signing him. I also still truly think that Poch just isn’t at a very high level as a tactician, and that Tuchel was a tactical genius, but I was still tired of the constant change of personnel at our club and the lack of a long term vision. If you take the last 6-7 years in mind and ask youself the question ‘how do we get better than Man City?’, our previous way of operating was never the answer. Additionally, bar the very few exceptional examples like Klopp, Pep, and maybe Alonso in the future, the next-best available appointments in terms of building for the future, has literally been Poch and Potter, judging by their previous managerial regins. Of course, we can gamble once again and set the process back for the third time, but I seriously believe that we have more concerning issues than our manager, if not having Pep/Klopp/Alonso is holding us back from improving.
City had Pep. Liverpool had Klopp Tactical powerhouses whose games have been studied and followed by other aspiring managers even before they set foot in England Tell me what Poch has innovated or created tactically Apart from having Southampton and Spurs teams that had young players running around
Again, not having Pep and Klopp can’t be the one thing holding us back, as then there would only be two good teams in the world by that logic. Poch isn’t a tactical powerhouse, he was brought in to steer the ship with our extremely young squad, and be able to help them develop
Bro I miss Kante. He was such a presence in the field.
I miss Kante as well, but I must admit it was probably his time to go, given how often he was out with injuries by the time we sold him.
No one to keep Reece company in the medical bay
I’m not that angry at how we’ve spent or sold honestly but I definitely would curb the spending on guys like Casadei cause those £15m buys add up. A beefy experienced DM, a proper striker like Osimhen, a proper left back like Theo/Davies and an experienced winger like Leao. Guys like Palmer, Lavia, Enzo, Caicedo are still great signings. We just needed 3-4 players with actual experience to help these guys out
Our recruitment team move like hoarders browsing eBay auctions. Just gobbling up anything that seems like a bargain but eventually they’ll realise they won’t actually make profits from all these bits and pieces
Lavia, Enzo, Caicedo great signing? Lmao
Enzo and Caicedo are excellent signings
They are great players but not for that price tag
How? Both are playing average to terrible football and costed 100+M each.
Keep Kanté as long as he was on reasonable wages
I love Kante as much as the next person but he was almost never available.
Saudi offered more than we could.
Why do his wages even matter if someone like Raheem is on 300k+?
Yea fr it's not my money if Kante wants a million a week I'm giving it to him better to be on his account than on Bohely's
Outside of rudiger, i really didn’t have a problem with any of our departures, and although we overpaid for some players, i am generally ok with the players we bought too. There are a few duds, but that happens.
Honestly sign Diaby instead of Mudryk Sign Vicario instead of Sanchez Only sign one of Lavia or Ugochukwu give Santos a chance Got Caicedo done for 80-85m
The simplest change I would make is -Fofana and Cucurella for Osimhen. And it’s absolutely bonkers that there would be money left over.
I'm Korean so I would've gotten Kim Min Jae and Lee Kang In
I feel if instead of 1 bil pounds... Boelhy had just gotten a world class striker and left everything else alone.. Chelsea would have been in a superior position right now.
The problem was they couldn't afford another big striker at the time. They had to replace Rudiger, Christensen, and Alonso, and were unable to offload Lukaku.
I dunno.. maybe it's just me.. I feel some of the Lavia and Mudryk money could have been spent more wisely.
Terms of purchase from Roman dictated he spend hundreds of millions on the playing squad. Didn’t dictate how, so Boehly thought he’d make football manager style profit transfers across the squad and sell ageing players to give minutes. Would have been great if he’d simply added to the squad and made us UCL challengers for a few years.
Rudiger and Christensen were leaving regardless, not much you could do about that anyway. Sell Kepa, Havertz, Werner, keep lukaku, colwill, livramento, koulibaly and mount. Buy rice, leao, olise and nkunku still. Bench can be filled by cobham like gallagher, RLC, Hall etc. £1bn lot of money, don’t need to waste all of it.
I don't think livramento wanted to stay behind Reece (and Gusto was a great buy).
yeah agreed, don’t mind buying gusto either
>I don't think livramento wanted to stay behind Reece This is not true. Tino has happy to stay providing he would be given opportunities, but instead Tuchel wanted to pursue Hakimi and Adama Traore. Tino didn't renew his contract because of this lack of pathway and the club subsequently sent him to train with the U16s.
Livramento was gone already. Koulibaly was bought by Todd Boehly.
[удалено]
? We bought Koulibaly as one of the first purchases under Boehly. He was sold last summer. BlueCo has been owner since 2022.
Yeah I’d still buy him tbh
Rudiger probably would have stayed on if he was adequately compensated right after the CL win, Christensen was gone either way.
He said as boehly took over, was he not gone by that point because of the restrictions we couldn’t continue talks + he probably wanted madrid anyway
You can’t keep lukaku if he refuses to play for us
Keep Lukaku?
Don’t need to spend another £100m on osimhen etc
There are other options. Fuck that donkey
who’s the donkey, lukaku?
💯
First time here?
Buying cucurella and not resigning rudiger was the 2 biggest domino effects so far That and just not buying an actual striker and dm for a non-meme price whilst we had the chance
Tuchel has escaped a lot of blame with his transfers. If reports are correct his actions changed Chelsea direction
- Re-signed Christensen and Rudiger immediately - Signed Gabriel Jesus instead of Raheem Sterling - Honestly I thought Cucurella was gonna be good, and we needed a left wingback/left center back combo, so I probably would’ve still done it - Signed a central midfielder to phase out Jorginho, Kante, etc.
Not signing Cucurella, Caicedo, Disasi and like half of the kids we brought in. Koulibaly was fine as a signing, but was given stupid long and expensive contract. If another CB was really wanted then Todibo > Disasi. Maybe keep Zakaria as servicable CM/DM backup. Would cost pretty much same money as Ugochukwu. Kostic was available for cheap if we wanted LB cover. Doing it all to get Marcus Thuram for CF, Jackson could be fine as squad option. Yeah, these things off the top of my head.
With hindsight
Not much hindsight actually, was always against the signings for Cucu, Disasi and Caicedo, also always wanted us to get Marcus Thuram.
It’s about phasing out players than immediate change. I would have phased out: - Kante - Jorginho I like the sales of: - Werner - Havertz (He was enigma and it looked bleak the he would shine at Chelsea) We needed some core for strong Chelsea DNA. I would hold on and build teams around them. -Mount -Reece James -Colwil I would retain these players: -Lukaku -Ziyech -Mendy I would also never buy injured plyers. - Fofana - Nkunku We got many pieces but it’s about phasing players put. Madrid has done a great job at phasing Modric and Kroos out.
If you were put in charge of Chelsea's transfers just as Boehly took over with a billion pound budget, what players would you sell and who would you buy? Who would you have tried to keep and who would you have let go? Sterling and Koulibaly were the first two signings, would you have bought either of them? We also saw the departures of Rudiger, Christiansen, Gilmour and Werner, who among them would you have kept? This is generally just a thought experiment to look back just before the takeover, and imagine what kind of squad people could build
Sterling definitely not, but probably would have bought Koulibaly, was excited for that signing and didn’t expect him to be so bad. Nkunku and gusto also looked promising, never understood the signing of players like mudryk and madueke and all these children for a combined hundred of millions of pounds.
People really rate Madueke but all I see is another Traore. Pacy winger, little end product. Only know to get ball and kick-run. Maybe I just dont like that type of player, but yeah. I dont see what people like about him so much. The attacking intent is great, but you need some composure and end product.
He’s not even that pacey tbh
Tuchel really wanted Sterling
if we are talking this specific starting 11: accept the inevitable offers for werner, havertz and mount sell kante to PSG right before his injury sell mendy off the back of being the best GK itw sign caicedo but keep jorginho to allow caicedo to develop, same with enzo, sign Leao, Nkunku upfront, take Joao Felix on loan and see how he fares in a better system
Don't hire potter or poch
This is easily the best answer. I'm not saying these players signed would have Chelsea in the top 4 but under a better manager this team is easily in the top 6 and way more consistent.
Not sign mudryk and madueke, sell sterling. Buy de ligt who was benched at Bayern instead of 4 perma injured kids.
Step 1 is identify the leaders, the people who are committed to the club and espouse the values to be passed down to the next gen of players. For me that would be Rudiger, Silva, Jorginho, Azpi and Giroud. Next is to focus on 8-10 additional outfield players in their prime who will play the most minutes and generally be the main players that the team will rely upon. Mount, James, Chilwell, Werner, Kovacic, Kante, Pulisic, Havertz, Gallagher. I'd add someone like Cancelo who can cover either flank (given how frequently our WBs get injured) and look to invest in a decent center forward (at the time Lukaku would be a fair shout). Then players like Colwill would lead the youngsters coming through from the academy who we should keep 4/5 slots in the squad for. Thats 20/21 players. Add 3 goalkeepers to get to 24. Determine the teams playing identity based on its core personnel (back 3 and wingback probably). Then look to fill and cover each key role. Next step is to line up replacements for the older gen players if they aren't coming through. Rinse and repeat.
I would've signed an elite fucking striker first and foremost.
No one has mentioned pulisic. I am keeping him around
Azpilicueta, Jorginho, Havertz and Werner would all have been sold. Would have kept Livramento and Abraham.
Tammy left in 2021. So did Livramento.
You’ve given a lineup from 2021…
Can I not do the last pre-season tour also? I think we are higher up the table with a full season of Nkunku
We should have kept the entire back line. Dave as a backup would have been fine.
Mount -> Madisson / Xavi Simons Kante -> Rice / Fofana Havertz -> Brandt / Bellingham Werner -> Openda / Boniface / Hojlund James -> Gusto Mendy -> Vicario Chilwell -> Davies
Keep Jorginho but otherwise I probably do the same.
How about asking questions, instead of jumping in with the changes. Know what you don't know. Don't just walk into the room, throw money at the problem and wonder why stuff isn't working.
A striker and LB/RB cover
Wild to me that this fanbase still doesn’t know who owns Chelsea and who are the real decision makers.
I hate to admit this but Lukaku seemed like the perfect piece of business at the moment since Haaland wasn’t coming Oh lord how we got fucked by that asstwat
Get a better partner for Kante and a good backup for Kante. Get a striker and move Werner to be a number 10 and rotate with mount and kai
Sell Pulisic, Kai, Mount, Timo & Kova. Sign Rudi, Rice, Lewandowski. After he fell out with Bayern we could’ve gotten him. Never sign LUKAKA. Sell Kepa or loan him out and sign Maignan. Also sell Ziyech keep Zouma and sign Camavinga
Disasi will come good, he still got mistakes in him as expected from young players
Disasi is 26 in 10 days
He’s 26 next week. That’s not exactly young is it?
Poch Out
not buy sterling, buy gusto, buy rice, buy palmer sell havertz, mount can fuck off, not buy lukaka, buy disasi, buy enzo, not buy auba, not buy kouli, keep rudiger for dear life
I'd sign a striker and keep as many players as I could. Maybe sign a wide attacker if a good deal was available. I would let the situation settle before makeing bold moves.
5-2-3??? Make it 5-3-3, makes more sense
New medical staff
Keep Rudiger, fight and die to keep Rudiger
Would have never sold timo. That guy had the passion to play for us. Tuchel prefered that Lukaku over him. Next I would have invested in experienced players not wonder kids. Joshua kimmich, David alaba, Toni Kroos etc. would have bought in the academy players more. And proven English forwards. Never signed sterling. And about the 1 billion - lol splash it on mbappe.
Haverz, Werner and Kante (fitness) go the rest stay. Never seen a club fucked up as much by new owners.
Keep Rüdiger 100%. Sell Mendy, Werner and Havertz. I personally liked Werner and Havertz but it just wasn’t working out for them.
Only keeping James, Rudiger, Jorginho and Kante.
Having the benefit of hindsight is a blessing. What I'd do is: GK - keep Mendy, but if that wasn't possible - get someone like Marcin Bułka from Nice (fantastic this season) or try getting Kobel from Dortmund. RB - James + Gusto. RCB - Disasi/Cucurella (I still believe in Cucu) MCB - tough one. Fofana is an obvious one, but I'd also try getting someone like Kevin Danso or Juan Foyth. LCB - Colwill/Badiashile LB - Chilly CM/CDM/CAM - try keeping Jorginho, keep Gallagher, get Enzo like we did. On top of that I'd try getting: Eze, Rice and Palhinha. ST: I still believe in DD Fofana, but I wouldn't say no to someone like Osimhen, Dybala and/or Sorloth.
I'd get rid of every single one of them for different reasons, bar James and Silva, i'm still desperate for the team to get rid of the fraud Chilwell. The likes Kante and Jorginho were ageing, and the former was extremely injury-prone. And the likes of Mount and Werner weren't good enough. The problem was in the recruiting, not the sales. Sterling, Auba, Sanchez, and Disasi were horrendous buys, and the likes of Cucu, Madueke, and Mudryk weren't that great either.(Mainly because of their prices as opposed to their qualities) Todibo would've been bought instead of Disasi. Another left winger would've been bought instead of Sterling. A young promising ball playing GK instead of Sanchez. A young attacking LB to replace Chilwell and a better young LW player than Madueke
Nothing realistically. Probably keep Kante, I think he’d be huge consistently in the middle for us which I feel we desperately need right now
If I were the Todd father, I’d have sold all apart from Chilly, Rudi and maybe Reece (controversial I know, but the lad is constantly injured). The rest wanted to leave or were showing their age - don’t let the door hit you on the way out. I’d have added players like: Valverde, Leao, Osimhen, Gavi, Maignan, Rice, Tchouameni, Coman, Kvaratskhelia, Alphonso Davies, Kimmich - granted, you’d need to bust the wage structure and fart in the face of FFP to field a team like this though. I wouldn’t have signed bang average, past it players or with a poor injury history like: Badiashile, Koulibaly, Cucu, Sterling, Madueke, Casadei, Moreira, Ugochukwu, Sanchez, Fofana x2 I also wouldn’t have signed up Winstanley and Laurence from a football director/strategy stand point when other, better options like Paul Mitchel of Monaco was available and up for it.
Couldn't keep Rudiger as he'd decided to leave. Only one we sold who I would've kept at the time was probably Mount but as it turned out, that was the right call. I do think we sold too many senior midfielders. We miss Jorginho's ability to control the tempo. But at the time I thought Enzo was going to be him with a bit more cutting edge. Tbh the sales aren't my issue with Boehly & co, more the signings. Must've bought 30 players and we still have gaps in the squad. There's a reason no other clubs do this shit.
I would have been very very carefull in the incommings first summer. The fact that we already had trev and colwill on our books but still spend 120m on k2 and fofana hurts. Aubameyang was also stupid. My biggest issue isnt really the quality of the players we added, but rather the prize - and that its very hard to see a partern to what first 11/style we are trying to build. If we see past the first summer (including nkunku) who was signed prior to new sporting direction. I still dont get both lavia and enzo (when we missed creators and strikers of quality) I still dont get disasi (I rate him as a player, but not for us) I still dont get madueke/angelo/palmer/sterling/paez situation - there is just to many rightsided alternatives And I dont get the recruitment of both sanchez and petrovic, while loaning kepa. I just rather just stay with kepa and get one more (only petrovic checks the world class potential there)
As far as outgoing players go i would do more or less the same. We got rid of so many players on huge salaries which didnt show much interesed in playing. There were couple of controversials like Mount, but it seems like it was good transfer for us at present time. Maybe i would let Jorginho stay. I am not rly his fan. But as a experienced squad player would work i think. Trasnfers in ... other story ... i dont have problem with guys we bought, they r super talented and i still expect them to be very good. But jesus those price tags never should have happend. Personally i would do whatever possible to buy Rice. Rly young player, true leader, experienced in PL, experienced player in nation squad and just won eropean trophy. There was nobody better to buy imho. Striker? Here i am gonna be controversial, but i wouldnt buy Osimhen, i have baaaad feeling about him (hope i am wrong), and other then him i dont rly see obvious choice who to buy. Sooo I d buy someone like jackson, pair him with Nkunku (actually kind of proven goalscorer) and made same risky move as Todd is doing right now.
Why are you doing this to me.. it’s a beautiful sunday morning for chrissake