Unless Sterling is playing off the shoulder of the last defender. He isn't very good. He isn't reliable enough on the ball to beat a man or look after the ball.
Boehly is going to ruin Chelsea (hopefully)
- Thread starter UnitedSofa
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Kepa is decent in my opinion. One of those players that is never, ever going to live down a perception around him. Once you get put comfortably within a box within football it is pretty hard to change that. Any time he makes a mistake it will be "same old Kepa" and if he has many decent games, or even match winning saves then it just flies under the radar. I wouldn't even say ignored, people just don't become interested until he stuffs up.
If you're a keeper that happens to have been fortunate enough to build a decent reputation initially it works the other way. You get the benefit of the doubt for feck ups.
I think the same thing is going to happen with our very own Harry Maguire. He deserves criticism at the moment because he's crap. But I think if he goes elsewhere where he is more suited and plays well, it won't really change anything about the coverage.
If you're a keeper that happens to have been fortunate enough to build a decent reputation initially it works the other way. You get the benefit of the doubt for feck ups.
I think the same thing is going to happen with our very own Harry Maguire. He deserves criticism at the moment because he's crap. But I think if he goes elsewhere where he is more suited and plays well, it won't really change anything about the coverage.
Pretty much this.
Sterling's best quality is his off the ball movement and that's why he was so efficient for City. They had other players to take the ball into dangerous areas and Sterling just made well timed runs into the box for some easy tap-ins. The way he's been used at Chelsea so far is wasting him and he's being asked to do something he's not that well suited for so I'm not sure how much of the blame is on him.
Next season if we get the team to play overall better football under the next manager I could still see Sterling flourishing if he gets to play to his strengths but at his age he's not going to all of a sudden learn new tricks that were never part of his game before.
Sterling was Tuchel's top target and maybe he had a plan on how to utilize him to his best abilities but he only got to play a handful of games under Tuchel. Under Potter he was definitely mismanaged.
It's a bit weird to me so much has been made of Boehly going into the dressing room.
I don't know why footballers and the media surrounding football seem to think they operate in a completely different plane to the rest of the world. Well, I suppose I've a good idea, they're overpaid and pandered to.
Any other business if the ship is sinking you expect or probably hope to see your owner, CEO, whatever it is coming out front and centre. Why does the dressing room have a forcefield around it? It's just a place of business for Chelsea FC, and Todd Boehly owns that business. Whether his speech was any good, who knows, but I don't see anything strange about an owner talking to employees on the face of it.
I don't know why footballers and the media surrounding football seem to think they operate in a completely different plane to the rest of the world. Well, I suppose I've a good idea, they're overpaid and pandered to.
Any other business if the ship is sinking you expect or probably hope to see your owner, CEO, whatever it is coming out front and centre. Why does the dressing room have a forcefield around it? It's just a place of business for Chelsea FC, and Todd Boehly owns that business. Whether his speech was any good, who knows, but I don't see anything strange about an owner talking to employees on the face of it.
The CEO would be expected to know how the business works and be an expert. The manager is the CEO of the team not the owner. What is he adding by going into a dressing room full of people who are failing but all of whom know more about the task at hand than he does?
It's his plan that is failing just as much as the players are and in some ways he has already made matters way harder to turn around.
The manager is the CEO, not the actual CEO? What's the CEO then?
The manager is a manager I'd say. I think the clue is there in the title. He manages an aspect of the business which is what managers do in every other business. It's just in football they seem to think they should not be as beholden to owners and executives as managers are in the real world.
I dare say when an exec or owner gives a talk to his employees he probably doesn't always know about the intricacies of life on the shop floor. Does the owner in a haulage firm always know how to reverse a HGV into a tight space, or the owner of an engineering company know how to operate the machinery that fabricates steel in the factory? It's not about that IMO, you can lead without getting up at the tactics board.
Whether what he's doing is good leadership, I don't know because I'm not there and I don't know what he said or how he said it, but the theory of him talking to employees is nothing special.
He's ruined Chelsea
Now we just need someone to buy ManCity
Once Newcastle got taken over by the Saudis I was slightly concerned it would make CL qualification more difficult as the Big 6 would seemingly become the Big 7. Thankfully, Todd Boehly has been graceful enough to turn Chelsea into a midtable club. I genuinely can't see them turning this around in the near future. For people who think they can just spend their way out of it and eventually they'll get it right: see Everton.
Considering we've spent our way into it I don't think you'll find too many people keen on continuing to pursue that strategy
What do you mean by near future?
It's bloody awful right now but it comes down to the right manager. It's not like there's no talent there to work with. It's an unbalanced squad and lacks in areas but they're not all hopeless individuals.
They're probably only a good appointment away from being where we currently sit within a couple of seasons, i.e. no way near challenging for major honours but a decent side. Things can change very quickly IMO.
Agreed, I think we have a very strong basis in defense and midfield (even this season we've had one of the best defensive records and that's with our best ones being barely avaliable or out on loan), just the big question marks are keeper and the front line. I think we need a new keeper but i I the front line are coach able with the right manager.
They've signed a bunch of players on 8 year contracts, most of whom haven't shown any glimpses of being the players who you can build your team around for the next 8 years. They've forced themselves into a position where they're going to have to gut the squad and spend extremely sensibly in other positions which still need improvements (GK, CF). Add to that the fact that the next manager is going to want to bring in his own players and might not fancy some of the latest players who they've invested heavily in.
Their situation isn't comparable to ours last season. We weren't stuck with several expensive, unproven players on long-term contracts.
Fair comment. Could you forsee a strategy where you focus more on promoting academy prospects? From the outside looking in, the 19/20 season where you were under a transfer embargo, sold Hazard and finished 4th with Lampard seemed to go down well with Chelsea fans as you put a lot of faith in the younger players.
He should bring in Conte, Grant, Hiddink, Villas-Boas, and Di Matteo for one week each, whoever can get a win has a shot at a contract.
We're going to have to compete against this person for a striker and possibly goalkeeper in the summer. That's the unfortunate bit.
After the shit show they’ve put this year I don’t think top strikers will want to go there…
Wonder if he'll learn anything from his mistakes, or whether he'll be more like Woodward and continue to repeat the mistakes and be completely shit at everything
I know the word absurd gets thrown around a lot, but the way hes run Chelsea is truly absurd. Even if they get in a really good manager, its going to take several windows to sort out that fecking mess of a squad, and Bohely it seems does not have that kind of patience
True. Assuming their starting 11 yesterday was their best 11, it only had 3 players signed during Boehly's reign - Fernandez, Cucurella, Fofana & Cucurella probably only started since Chilwell was out (quite sure Jorginho and Rudiger would have started had they stayed on in place of the other two). That's after spending 600m. Is Frank of the opinion the new signings don't make the grade? Or does he not just know enough of them to trust them?
I'd certainly prefer that. As much as it's been a welcome strategy to sign young talent from elsewhere, if we do so at the expense of our academy it's idiotic. If we lose Colwill because there's no path to the first team for him I'm going to turn into the joker
Chelsea have annoying knack of not fecking off. I'm sure they will do well again next season no matter how fun this season has been.
They do although it’s never been this bad. Even so, being the richest club in London means they’re all but guaranteed Nagelsmann and Osimhen to lead the recovery despite not being in the Champions League. I don’t think there’s another club in the country with this ability.
The attraction of living in London will always take precedence for players.
Owner of a haulage firm is not going to shout at drivers. He is going to shout at the supervisor who in turn goes on to shout at the drivers. That’s how it works in all walks of life. Boehly had no right to call the performance embarrassing as he knows nothing about playing football. He should have vented at Lampard who could have passed on the review in a meaningful way the players can understand.
So we need to worry about Crystal Palace’s hunt for a new striker too?
Exactly. They always seem to turn one or two into genuine world class players from a bunch of crap signings.
Still remember when they managed to sign Hazard by freakishly winning the CL and qualifying for the next seasons CL.
When?
Don’t be silly. Obviously money takes precedence. But if the choice is almost equal pay, equal opportunities to win titles and a choice of London, Manchester, you know which clubs the players are going to pick.
I think it's just the media and fans focusing on something because of the club's failures. The guys who own Wrexham have been praised for going into the dressing room and creating relationships with their players, and they are top of the league and about to win the title. I'm sure if Chelsea were flying high, Boehly would be getting a pat on the back for creating that bond from the top down too. But they're doing badly, so this fairly normal thing must be the problem.
You said living in London takes precedence. Now you add the subtext of equal opportunities to win titles.
Who would look at Chelsea at the moment and think they offer the same opportunity to win titles as the Manchester clubs? In particular City, but also United. They have no permanent manager, a monstrously large and imbalanced squad, a meddling ownership and are currently languishing on the bottom half of the table. Things can change quickly in football, but currently Chelsea don't offer any chance of titles.
Has anyone shared the post match interview with Silva?
You can see they have a deeply unhappy dressing room. They’re in deep shit.
You can see they have a deeply unhappy dressing room. They’re in deep shit.
Although its hilarious this belief that they are fkd for years is wishful thinking. Look at what a laughing stock we were last year. All they need is a good manager and a couple of clever signings i.e a striker. Villa are another example of how a manager can change everything. I think they will be fighting for top 4 next season.
I mean, football isn’t any other business. It’s a business that relies on extremely careful management of the mindset of its most important assets. The footballers. If the accounts are true of Boehly calling the team an embarrassment and singling out one individual player for harsh criticism then he’s made a bad situation much worse. Fecking idiot.
You think so? This season is a write-off and they might not win another PL game for all we know, but once they get a new manager and sort their squad out a bit in the summer, I feel like they could quickly return to the top four. There is still quality in the squad, and they have previously bounced back from a 10th place finish to win the league the following season (not saying that will happen, of course).
A bloated squad full of highly paid players is a difficult thing to fix. It only takes a few bad apples to ruin squad morale, which can cause a team to completely fall apart.
This would be very worrying reading if I was a Chelsea fan. Thiago Silva knows better than most what a culture of footballing success looks like. And he obviously isn’t seeing it at Chelsea.
True. There will have to be wholesale changes in the summer, that's for sure. If Boehly insists on continuing to be involved in footballing decisions, then I think you are right, but I could still see them having a decent season next year.
They can't possibly be as bad as what they are showing right now. A quality striker, a new manager and something to play for would have them look a lot stronger, I imagine.
Yeah it makes total sense that United get more coverage with the size of the fan base, and they lean into the drama a bit more to reel in a good number of other supporters who get a kick out of United losing. No issues there.
Still, it seems a bit weird how the media have covered the Chelsea story. Not in contrast to United, just in contrast to the average football club. This is one of the most bizarre seasons I can remember, filled with loads of story points wrapped up in a farce, and they barely want to touch it. Sounds like shenanigans to me.
It’s obvious that players we or other top 4 clubs try to sign aren’t going to choose Watford, QPR and Crystal Palace just because they are near or in London. You don’t have to be so pedantic.