Chelsea 2024/25
- Thread starter duffer
- Start date
I don't think we have weak defence except may be goal keeper position. We played bit open compared to you guys. We showed it with goals scored column from open play. Today apart from cucurella slips we are fine overall and in control. Still learning though to defend as a team. Mistakes from individual costing us few goals but we are overall okay in my opinion.
Against Liverpool we are very much in control. Of course we lost the match though. That game really made me think we are overall fine as a team structurally and making good progress.
The keeper is part of the defence, also not hugely convinced by Colwill as of yet and he is Chelsea’s best CB. Need another top class cb,
keeper and defence would start to look very good.
Yeah, Disasi is not going to develop to what we need. Tosin is still worth keeping for coverage. I do think both Colwill and Fofana are good starters, but we definitely need another quality CB and I am not going to defend Sanchez. If you want to compete for the highest honors, you must have a GK that is consistent every game.
I didn't say your defence was weak, I said it doesn't have the same quality as the attack. I'd say that was a fair comment , no?
Just like I wouldn't say Arsenal's attack was weak, but it could certainly be improved upon in terms of a top striker and top left wide man.
The absolute audacity of saying what every Chelsea supporter is thinking, shocking behaviour
You’re not even wrong. We are weak defensively. Individually some of the players in the back line are pretty good players, like Gusto, Colwill, Cucurella etc but as a unit, with a crap goalie behind them, it’s not a solid defence at all. It’s by far our biggest weakness and question mark.
Last edited:
So spending 1-2 billion on all the top talents and removing all your debt works, who could have known.
If money is all it takes United would be right near the top as well.
United have spent a lot but over a much long period of time and no doubt we have spent badly and Chelsea looks like has spent well.
Chelsea 1.0 under Roman, City, PSG and Chelsea 2.0 under your new ownership is a different level of spending and doesn't really have a comparison. May be Real Madrid can be included with their Ronaldo, Kaka, Benzema window. I have no idea about spending before the 2000s.
What? You have another billion promised by your owners. You do luck out with owners don't you. 1 billion on removing the debt and 2 billion on players while our owner is reducing staff.
Going to be very, very interesting to see what happens if our wide attacking players continue to look great for the whole season and then we have Estevão & Kendry Paez coming over from South America. All of our current lot are on very long contracts, are all performing well (yes, even Mudryk lately) and they’re all young. So where do these kids fit?
he certainly has the Trainspotting look
The kid that they bought from us, Anselmino, looks promising as hell.
Estevao looks promising, he is too lightweight, but his dribbling style it's my cup of tea.
This whole play had everything
Chelsea got ridden of Pochettino just in time
Chelsea got ridden of Pochettino just in time
I’m quite jealous of their improvement this season. They were supposed to be the club that we pointed to as being even worse run. And improvement hasn’t even been been obvious and in stages. The same moves we mocked and thought were senile are suddenly looked good now.
I’m wondering what we can learn from this. We’ve also been signing young talent but is the main difference the quantity? As in, sign 10 instead of 3 so that that 4 instead of 1 work out and you’re good to go? We probably don’t have that sort of silly money.
I’m wondering what we can learn from this. We’ve also been signing young talent but is the main difference the quantity? As in, sign 10 instead of 3 so that that 4 instead of 1 work out and you’re good to go? We probably don’t have that sort of silly money.
Absolutely fair. Colwill, Fofana, and Gusto are very much a work in progress. Fofana has injury concerns as well and the backup options aren't at the same level. In attack if we replace Neto with Madueke, Sancho with Felix, the level maintains.
I can see us raiding a CB from City or following through with Murillo in the near future.
Nice of them for having Sancho get back to form for us.
The first issue is that it was those who weren't closely following the rebuild who were the loudest. It was a rebuild on a level European football had never seen and all that mattered to untrained eyes were immediate results and repeating false narratives. People mocked risks that never panned-out immediately, a ridiculous thing to do in any circumstance. When you build best-in-class recruitment, cleanse the squad of stale assets, spend a ton while sticking to a clearly defined project, refine your search for the right manager - success is inevitable at some point.
If you sign 10 duds what does it matter? Your recruitment setup is better now but I'd guess that your ascension will be a longer process. You have the option of doing a doing a slow rebuild or smash the foundation a la Boehly. Either way can work but the one is more stable at the cost of slower progress, while the other is higher risk and quicker at the cost of short-term pain.
Numbers wise it just won't fit. So the young guys will come over and struggle for chances and have to be loaned out or even sold. Or they will get and take their chances and eventually a few of the more senior players won't be happy and they will be sold.
You guys have very recent experience of trying to run a bloated squad. It nearly always never ends well.
Kids will get minutes here and there. If we qualified for CL things will change for other senior players as well but still kids won't be thrown straight into deep end.
We had too many changes against Southampton yet played some free flowing football was evident entire squad knew their role. Of course sample size is just one game in league. Will have to wait and see.
Conference league really helped us in terms of building squad and fringe players, new players got minutes . Just have to wait and see what we got with better challenge.
Somebody tell him.
Yeah, about that...
From what I've seen of Chelsea so far they should be favourites for the title.
They seem to have far more goal scorers in the team than Liverpool who rely heavily on Salah.
The only thing that might be a problem is that I think they are facing a points deduction aren't they?
They seem to have far more goal scorers in the team than Liverpool who rely heavily on Salah.
The only thing that might be a problem is that I think they are facing a points deduction aren't they?
We definitely are still a defensive work in progress. I genuinely believe we could end up with the most points at the end of the season by some miracle, holding the trophy, and Maresca would still say we aren’t ready.
When they ask him that question I don’t think he considers points or table position at all. He is giving his evaluation of where the team is, compared to where it should/will be.
Regardless of what they say, we all know gk is still an issue unless we miraculously see more of Jorgensen and that works out.
I would look for someone to compete/backup LB, and try letting Vega be competition for LCB instead.
Desasi can’t play the system we run. But, to be fair, I think a lot of CBs would struggle with what Enzo asks them to to do at times. Badiashile trying to play left footed RB when Caicedo’s inverted came to mind. Tactic works beautifully with Fofana, but most CBs don’t have the ball skills of Fofana.
I have no idea what Anselmino will actually give us, so at least one CB.
Colwill a recovery pace is an issue. But it generally isn’t a deal breaking issue when he’s partnered with someone with pace like Fofana. Also helps if he doesn’t have to cover for someone else. Having Fofana healthy really does make us much better, but that’s always a big if.
When they ask him that question I don’t think he considers points or table position at all. He is giving his evaluation of where the team is, compared to where it should/will be.
Regardless of what they say, we all know gk is still an issue unless we miraculously see more of Jorgensen and that works out.
I would look for someone to compete/backup LB, and try letting Vega be competition for LCB instead.
Desasi can’t play the system we run. But, to be fair, I think a lot of CBs would struggle with what Enzo asks them to to do at times. Badiashile trying to play left footed RB when Caicedo’s inverted came to mind. Tactic works beautifully with Fofana, but most CBs don’t have the ball skills of Fofana.
I have no idea what Anselmino will actually give us, so at least one CB.
Colwill a recovery pace is an issue. But it generally isn’t a deal breaking issue when he’s partnered with someone with pace like Fofana. Also helps if he doesn’t have to cover for someone else. Having Fofana healthy really does make us much better, but that’s always a big if.
Estevão is a generational talent. He has buzz not seen from a Brazilian talent since Neymar when he was at Santos.
He will 100% be in our squad soon.
Got it in the meanwhile.
There biggest problem is their GK. Gifted Utd a pen in the game at OT and seems to get beaten near post easily as well.
I have heard that, (but then again i've heard that word generational about others), but my point is purely a numbers one. If he is very good, he comes in, and takes minutes from someone else, be it Madueke, or Neto or whoever.
I'm not criticising it, it's part of the churn of squad building, but again purely as a numbers thing, it's difficult keeping everyone happy. Plus, you won't be playing Conference League football next season, that much looks nailed on. You admitted it yourself it will be interesting to see what happens.
Even at my club, we basically have Martinelli, Trossard, Havertz, Jesus, Saka & Sterling. Jesus and Sterling won't be happy at all at the minutes they are getting, and we all want a new striker and wide player minimum, that will very likely mean Jesus leaving and Sterling returning to you guys.
I feel less dirty saying it than Arsenal or City rather than Liverpool, but in the order of who I don't want to win the league, Chelsea are quite low.
If they can pip Liverpool I'd be happy as I'd rather any of the other top teams to win it than the below:
1. Liverpool
2. City
3. Arsenal
In that order too, I detest Liverpool, I'm sick of City and Arsenal I wanted to win until they got the lead and started being cnuts about it last season, so yes Chelsea winning would be refreshing and welcomed by me, feeling still a little bit dirty that it's not us, but swings and roundabouts eh?
This place will be flooding with newbie Chelsea fans if we're top of the league in March
I'm jealous that they had all their debt removed when it turned out their previous owner, who had accumulated all that debt and made them relevant, turned out to be a criminal. Nice things happen to nice people, or something.
That debt was always going to be part of the sale price though. The club sold for £2.5bn so had it not been for the sanctions the debt would have been wiped clean anyway and Abramovich would've walked away with whatever remained (roughly £1bn in profit).
There was never any scenario where someone paid the full £2,5bn for the club and also took on the £1.5bn debt along with it. The club simply wasn't worth £4bn with the stadium situation being what it is.
You'd sell some of them as you always do.
Not in the league because asset sales count against psr I think.
But they don't in Europe, so not sure what happens with uefa.
That changes nothing to the fact it's a very fortunate situation to be in