Chelsea 2024/25

thisisnottaken1 said:
Fun fact: no Finnish player has ever made an appearance for us. And only one German has ever played for our first team.
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One German is really some stat given how big footballing nation it is. We haven't had many Italians either - Darmian, Macheda and probably couple of others but they didn't make plenty of appearances. Was similar when it comes to Spanish players until De Gea, Mata and Herrera came. We've probably been more about players from France, Netherlands, Portugal (Netherlands and Portugal players and managers), Denmark etc over the years.

Chelsea on the other hand have had plenty of Italians, players and especially managers - Vialli, Ranieri, Ancelotti, di Matteo, Conte, Sarri, Maresca. Solid number of Germans as well.
 
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BorisManUtd said:
One German is really some stat given how big footballing nation is it. We haven't had many Italians either - Darmian, Macheda and probably couple of others but they didn't make plenty of appearances. Was similar when it comes to Spanish players until De Gea, Mata and Herrera came. We've probably been more about players from France, Netherlands, Portugal (Netherlands and Portugal players and managers), Denmark etc over the years.

Chelsea on the other hand have had plenty of Italians, players and especially managers - Vialli, Ranieri, Ancelotti, di Matteo, Conte, Sarri, Maresca. Solid number of Germans as well.
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Indeed. It really is a surprising stat. About Portugal, the first Portuguese to play for us was Ronaldo.
 
thisisnottaken1 said:
Indeed. It really is a surprising stat. About Portugal, the first Portuguese to play for us was Ronaldo.
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Yeah it started with Ronaldo and we've had 5 Portuguese players (Ronaldo, Nani, Joel Pereira, Dalot, Bruno) so far. Except for Pereira, other 4 have/had at least 200 appearances for club so obviously significant members of squad.
 
Alongside Quenda, Chelsea have now confirmed the signing of Dario Essugo from Sporting too. Another questionable career move for yet another young prospect.

In Essugo’s case, he’s coming in to compete with Caicedo, Lavia, Enzo, Dewsbury-Hall and potentially Ugochukwu coming back from his loan.

Serious question - what are Chelsea pitching to these kids to make them think a move to them is the best for their career?
 
daba said:
Alongside Quenda, Chelsea have now confirmed the signing of Dario Essugo from Sporting too. Another questionable career move for yet another young prospect.

In Essugo’s case, he’s coming in to compete with Caicedo, Lavia, Enzo, Dewsbury-Hall and potentially Ugochukwu coming back from his loan.

Serious question - what are Chelsea pitching to these kids to make them think a move to them is the best for their career?
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An 8 year contract?
They're securing their financial future right out the gate.
 
daba said:
Alongside Quenda, Chelsea have now confirmed the signing of Dario Essugo from Sporting too. Another questionable career move for yet another young prospect.

In Essugo’s case, he’s coming in to compete with Caicedo, Lavia, Enzo, Dewsbury-Hall and potentially Ugochukwu coming back from his loan.

Serious question - what are Chelsea pitching to these kids to make them think a move to them is the best for their career?
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You forgot Andrey Santos, who has been excellent for Strasbourg.
 
daba said:
Serious question - what are Chelsea pitching to these kids to make them think a move to them is the best for their career?
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they're in that age when you believe you're going to conquer the world. not making it at Chelsea or any other club isn't an option, otherwise they wouldn't be at this level. plus, $$$ of course.

it's an easy choice, not always the right obviously.
 
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bucky said:
You forgot Andrey Santos, who has been excellent for Strasbourg.
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Oh yeah forgot about him.

Bole Top said:
they're in that age when you believe you're going to conquer the world. not making it at Chelsea or any other club isn't an option, otherwise they wouldn't be at this level. plus, $$$ of course.

it's an easy choice, not always the right obviously.
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I get that to an extent but Essugo is hardly lighting up La Liga where he is a starter, so to then think he’s getting any game time next year is delusional.

At least him or his agent should recognise that his next move either needs to be to a top club with a clear progression pathway (eg. Arsenal if they had Partey for another year whilst he settles) or a middling prem / Europa league level club (eg. B’mouth, Brighton, Frankfurt, etc) where he plays every game and develops before getting the big money move.

I’m also led to believe that the wages at Chelsea aren’t particularly high and more performance incentivised, which if he isn’t playing then he likely won’t be getting the $$$ he thinks will set his family and future generations up for life. They offer the long contracts, sure, but I have no doubt Quenda would have been offered 5 or 6 year deal with a +1 option too given his age.

Would love to be a fly on the wall in these conversations sometimes.
 
Why don't Chelsea still have a front of shirt sponsor?

Can I please not have Boehly playing 4D chess type answers that don't make sense
 
horsechoker said:
Why don't Chelsea still have a front of shirt sponsor?

Can I please not have Boehly playing 4D chess type answers that don't make sense
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No one will pay what we're asking, that simple.

Better question is how we've spent more than a billion, but have Neto at CF and such dire GK options.
 
They look desperately poor without Palmer and half a billion pounds worth of talent on the pitch.

They're like the kid at school who had the rarest football stickers but only used them to boast with, and lacked any other kind of footballing insight.
 
WeePat said:
A bunch of teenagers who they hope will be good players in 2029.
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That’s just not true is it?


Your two most expensive signings of all time currently play in midfield this game. Mudryk is banned. Lavia is on the bench. Cucurella, Nkunku and Neto all cost 50 million plus.

The money went on this starting eleven.
 
I wonder if we can sell them Onana

They love a clown in goal it seems - even Onana would be a huge improvement for them
 
Wumminator said:
That’s just not true is it?


Your two most expensive signings of all time currently play in midfield this game. Mudryk is banned. Lavia is on the bench. Cucurella, Nkunku and Neto all cost 50 million plus.

The money went on this starting eleven.
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Obviously yes? My point was that a huge chunk of the ‘billions’ was spent on random and not so random young players who we have no idea if they’ll ever play for Chelsea.

The overall money spent wouldn’t be as unprecedented if that part of the ‘project’ didn’t exist. Nearly £200m on the two lads from Sporting, Estevao and Paez. If they just focused buying players for the first team, the spending wouldn’t be so grotesque. There’s a laundry list of those type of signings. Those 4 are actually very likely to play for Chelsea one day, but there are many more who most likely won’t.
 
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WeePat said:
Obviously yes? My point was that a huge chunk of the ‘billions’ was spent on random and not so random young players who we have no idea if they’ll ever play for Chelsea.

The overall money spent wouldn’t be as unprecedented if that part of the ‘project’ didn’t exist. Nearly £200m on the two lads from Sporting, Estevao and Paez. If they just focused buying players for the first team, the spending wouldn’t be so grotesque. There’s a laundry list of those type of signings. Those 4 actually very likely to play for Chelsea one day, but there are many more who most likely won’t.
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It’s not a huge chunk. That’s just coping.

You signed 460 million pounds worth of players last year for example:

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/chelsea/transfers/verein/631/saison_id/2023

The top three players are in the squad today.. two others were injured who would have started. Your keeper started.

The vast majority of the billions is for now. Around 85%
 
Neto looked ace at Wolves, an attacking player with pace and trickery but he’s a moaning greedy cnut at Chelsea who looks like he’s lost any sort of ability he once had
 
Drainy said:
Chelsea really don't play with any soul anymore.

No characters and just boring. Sterile.
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I was saying this a while ago, about how the constant changing of personnel and losing their own products would hurt them in the long run. They have lost any sense of personality or identity, which you could have never said about them in the Terry/Lampard/Drogba era.

It could be very difficult now to get that identity back, and they are showing no signs of settling. Expect more upheaval and changeover in the summer.
 
T00lsh3d said:
It feels like centre forward has been a problem position for Chelsea for about 15 years
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15 years is too much; we still had prime Drogba and Anelka in 2010 under Ancelotti. Apart from a motivated Diego Costa-sized blip for a season and a half from 2014 to 2017, the tantalizing what-if that was the first half season of Alvaro Morata, and the steady if unspectacular Giroud you aren't wrong though. Certainly a lot of shit has been thrown at the wall in hopes it'd stick - Pato, Falcao, Higuain, Aubameyang, Felix, etc.
 
FriedClams said:
What happened to Palmer?
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Terrible, boring, slow tactics. They have the players to play it quickly and be more dynamic, but Maresca’s football is awful. Never even attempt a counter or give players the chance to play a proper defense splitting pass.

They do nothing on turnovers, just recycle possession and wait for the other team to get into position again.
 
TheMagicFoolBus said:
15 years is too much; we still had prime Drogba and Anelka in 2010 under Ancelotti. Apart from a motivated Diego Costa-sized blip for a season and a half from 2014 to 2017, the tantalizing what-if that was the first half season of Alvaro Morata, and the steady if unspectacular Giroud you aren't wrong though. Certainly a lot of shit has been thrown at the wall in hopes it'd stick - Pato, Falcao, Higuain, Aubameyang, Felix, etc.
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Yeah I remember Costa being a menace….not much has worked since then. Amazing considering the amount spent on midfielders and wide players, you’d think a mere 100M could have been reserved for a decent number 9
 
T00lsh3d said:
Yeah I remember Costa being a menace….not much has worked since then. Amazing considering the amount spent on midfielders and wide players, you’d think a mere 100M could have been reserved for a decent number 9
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Yeah I mean as mad as it is to say in retrospect given how his career has gone I do actually think there's a non-zero chance Lukaku could have been a stable long-term option for us if he'd joined before Conte's second season instead of Morata - especially given how Conte really moulded him into a top-level player at Inter subsequently.
 
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